If you don’t like dentists…skip the first two paragraphs …
This week began with the dentist…a tooth extraction of a broken tooth that cannot be repaired. So I will need an implant( and sadly it wasn’t even the tooth that we’d been watching but another one!) …but I will have to wait another three months for that because the extraction was more “traumatic” than the dentist anticipated. Thankfully it’s not a front tooth so I don’t feel like a hillbilly everyday! And thankfully the removal wasn’t traumatic in the pain department. And since this tooth has been broken since July, I have learned to live with out it it just feels weird.
I don’t about you but dentist offices aren’t my favorite places to go.
I’m very grateful for their expertise and I am grateful that I am able to afford to go. I am also grateful for all my friends who prayed for me not to have a panic attack because that used to be a real possibility when dental work was involved. I realized that it matters who the dentist is and their personality. I think the dentists of today are much more compassionate that those of my childhood and for that I am extremely grateful. It took me a good while to find the right ones!
This post isn’t about dental work…but about the messiness of life. Let’s just say that replacing teeth wasn’t on my list for this summer. I had lots of plans. I just found my list of things I wanted to do and accomplish and the list has only a couple of check marks of completed tasks.
Life just happens that way sometimes. And honestly it’s been rather frustrating! I hadn’t anticipated my dad’s illness, the emotional roller coaster of miracles, caregiving, out of town family visits and then the recovery time necessary from this. My August has been in the “slow lane. “ I had hoped to clean the office AND the garage, but the one week we had nice temperatures for being outside was the week I was out of town working on next year’s pilgrimage! I am not a person who appreciates Nashville summers, even though I grew up here! It hit 100 yesterday! WAY TOO HOT for me to want to do anything!
I have had lots of details to work on that just haven’t happened. And when I procrastinate, it just makes things worse!
MESS….in the house, in the world, and in my head!
So I did the things that help me slow down and ground myself. I painted the view outside. And then I took a walk around the neighborhood to try to figure out what was bothering me beyond my mouth! I took time to notice things along the way. The zinnias In the front yard, the butterflies, the sun moving higher in the sky. I also noticed the bracelet on my wrist made of braided yarn from last year’s Finding Your Thinplace pilgrimage to Iona. I have had this bracelet on my arm for an entire year! This week last year, I was on the beautiful Island of Iona curating an experience of rest and reflection for people who needed to refill their cups and remember that JESUS IS WITH US IN THE MESS OF LIFE!
I sure needed this reminder today!
I need to remember that life is messiness. Life is interruptions. Yes that’s just reality.
BUT JESUS IS WITH US IN THE MESS!
Reminder that Jesus is with us in the MESS
I got to hear Father Greg Boyle speak a couple of weeks ago and I am reading his book The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness.
It’s a powerful book about how God really views us and how we can view ourselves and others through the lens of love and tenderness.
Father Greg reminds me that Jesus, that God, isn’t judging me today for all the things that I haven’t done on my list.
God is with me and is loving me just as I am, right where I am, just as I am. And God is just happy to be with me!
“ God doesn’t require anything of us except to believe this love that will change everything. This will guide what we do, not be a list of requirements.” Father Greg
“Behold God Beholding you and Smiling! “ Father Greg
Can I really choose to believe this today?
YES! Today I will choose the God of Abundant love JESUS!
Today I will choose to be still and to notice the God of love who brings butterflies and hummingbirds to remind me of God’s abundant love.
Today I will believe that God is beholding me and smiling!
“And, yes the god who thinks “we haven’t did enough” is the wrong god. Too small!” Father Greg Boyle P. 7
You can join us on Finding Your Thinplace Retreat Pilgrimage NEXT SEPTEMBER! For more information or questions findingyourthinplace@gmail.com Only 10 spots available . Sept 1-8/9, 2025! Reserve your spot today!
I am sick of the rain. It didn’t take long, but what a week ago was a welcome respite from our hot, dry summer has now become a problem. Cool weather and constant rain are not good for ripening tomatoes. They split, they rot, and are more susceptible to disease. So this week I am not praying for rain, but for more hot dry days to ripen those delicious fruits that are the highlight of the Seattle garden. I think that growing tomatoes is a right of passage that says “yes I truly am a Seattleite.”
Isn’t it amazing how fickle we are and how quickly our opinions can change based on our own often selfish desires? The BLT’s and mozzarella salads tomatoes provide for immediate consumption and the sauces I make for winter soups and stews are wonderful, so I pray that God will change the weather to suit me. Now this is not really how I pray, but I do harbour these thoughts in my mind so you could probably call it a subconscious prayer. It does make me aware, however of how easily we can change our prayer life into a self-centered set of demands for God to do what we want.
Prayer can help keep our lives centered on God in a way that minimizes self-centered prayers and expectations of our Creator. That is part of what I appreciated this week as I disciplined myself to use waiting times as times of prayer. As I mentioned in my Meditation Monday – What Do We Do With Waiting? “What suddenly struck me last week is that we can transform the impatience of mundane waiting into the joy of Godly waiting. All it takes is a little preparation and spiritual discipline.” I talked about the breath prayers I found so helpful this week in the many situations that involved extended waiting. I certainly found them to be helpful. I hope you will too.
A lot of you identified with my post Spiritual Practice of Painting Rocks on Friday. I loved to see the painted rocks several of you shared and even learned a new tip to help make my painting more professional from Claudia Gregoire . She uses nail dotters, a manicurist’s tool for placing just a dot of paint on a nail.
Today we launch another Liturgical Rebels podcast episode and the beginning of a series on Celtic Spirituality. As I mentioned last week, in this first episode my husband Tom and I reflect on our own journeys into Celtic spirituality. The upcoming sessions in this series include interviews with Celtic musician Jeff Johnson, theologians Christine Valters Paintner and John Philip Newell and Celtic artist Mary Fleeson. Make sure you tell your friends about this. It will be an inspiring series. This series is to prepare us for Celtic Advent which begins November 15th. As many of you already know, I love this extended Advent season which makes it possible for me to focus on the meaning of Christmas before we launch into the holiday hype.
This series also coincides with the Introduction to Celtic Spirituality online retreat on September 14th. I hope you have this date on your calendars as it will be a fun and informative session in which we look at the legacy of this often neglected stream of Christianity which kept faith alive during the dark ages of Europe. We will interact with some of the Celtic saints like Patrick and Columba and Brigid, write prayers, and learn from one another.
I continue to make progress on my Celtic Devotional and following advice from those who are reading along on Substack have shortened the name to Celtic Advent – Following An Unfamiliar Path. This week I published another 2 reflections, creating shorter posts that I think are easier for people to digest and give me feedback on. It is a very enjoyable project to work on though I keep getting distracted by my many fascinating resource books. For those who are interested in exploring Celtic spirituality in more depth, you might like to check out this resource list which we put together a few years ago. To Bless The Space Between Us by John O’Donahue is a wonderful place to start. It is a beautiful collection of prayers in the Celtic Tradition that I heartily recommend. The prayer at the end of this email, which I have found helpful in my own season of grief is a great prayer to share with any you know who are grieving. You might also like to check out some of our other Celtic resources on our Celtic resource page or download our free resource – An Introduction to Celtic Spirituality.
On Godspacelight we expect to increase the number of posts next week but are still in summer mode until then. Lilly Lewin’s Freerange Friday – The Nest of God is excellent. First check out her stunning artwork – what Lilly calls doodles but which most of us consider works of art. Her reflection on Psalm 84 and her questions “When you imagine the dwelling place of God, what do you picture?” And “What kind of NEST do you need this week?” Are well worth reflecting on.
Let me end with this beautiful poem or you might like to listen to it here:
Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts
Where no storm on night or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives,
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of color.
The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the alter of the heart,
Your mind always sparkled
With the wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.
We look toward each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Besides us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.
(John O’Donahue To Bless The Space Between Us)
Many Blessings
Christine Sine
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In this conversation, Christine and Tom Sine discuss their passion for Celtic spirituality and its impact on their lives. They share their personal experiences with the Celtic tradition, including visits to Holy Island and Iona, and their love for the presence of God in all aspects of life. They highlight the importance of hospitality, community, and living lightly on the earth, as well as the challenges they faced in building a Celtic-style retreat site. They emphasize the need for a more radical and whole-life faith that transcends cultural boundaries and engages with the protection and celebration of the natural world.
Takeaways
- Celtic spirituality is characterized by an intense sense of the presence of God in all aspects of life.
- Hospitality is a central aspect of Celtic spirituality, seen as opening a door to the kingdom and welcoming Jesus into their midst.
- The Celtic tradition emphasizes community living and a new way of relating to one another, rooted in a commitment to Jesus Christ.
- Living lightly on the earth and caring for the natural world is an important aspect of Celtic spirituality.
- A more radical and whole-life faith is needed, one that transcends cultural boundaries and engages with the protection and celebration of the natural world.
Circlewood can be found here.
You can e-mail Tom Sine at gmail; his address is twsine
Find out more about Christine Sine on
Walking In Wonder on Substack
and on her website Godspacelight
And on social media:
Instagram
Facebook
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by Christine Sine
I have done a lot of waiting over the last few weeks. Waiting in traffic and at airports. Waiting for pain to subside. Waiting for the results of medical tests and for medical appointments. Waiting on hold to talk to an operator. It all seems such a waste of time in the midst of our busy schedules. Even a slow loading website can make us feel we are wasting time. And some of that waiting seems so crazy. Waiting in line for 24 hours to be the first person to get the latest iPhone, for example. Why do people do it?
Like most of us, I get impatient, anxious even angry at the time I waste when I unexpectedly have to wait. And it is a considerable amount of time. The average American spends at least 6 months of their lives waiting.
In our faith walk, waiting seems to have an entirely different flavor.
We wait in expectation and hope for the return of Christ. We wait for God to renew and restore us and all creation to the wholeness God intends for it. We wait for tomatoes to ripen and for peas to grow. For the leaves to change colour and the seasons to change. And with this waiting comes not anxiety and impatience but hope and longing. It’s not draining but exhilarating.
Yesterday I did a search on Biblegateway.com for the phrase Wait for the Lord. Wow, what a beautiful, reflective exercise. Wait for deliverance, for salvation, for mercy, for God’s faithful love. Many of course the psalms give the most references. Psalm – wait for the Lord’s faithful love in Psalm 33:18; Psalm 130:7; and Psalm 147:11 immediately caught my attention, and as I repeated these words, I found the calmness of God settling on me. Then I came across one that stopped me in my tracks. “Nonetheless, the Lord is waiting to be merciful to you, and will rise up to show you compassion.” Isaiah 30:18 . God waits for us. As I reflected on this I realized that sometimes I am not willing to accept God’s mercy and compassion. God needs to wait for me to be receptive.
In the New Testament the focus seems to be more on waiting for Jesus to be revealed for the coming of life in its fullness. I was struck particularly by James 5:7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, you must be patient as you wait for the coming of the Lord. Consider the farmer who waits patiently for the coming of rain in the fall and spring, looking forward to the precious fruit of the earth.
What suddenly struck me last week is that we can transform the impatience of mundane waiting into the joy of Godly waiting. All it takes is a little preparation and spiritual discipline.
This week I am reading Jennifer Tucker’s Breath as Prayer. It is a great reminder that breath prayers, which I am a strong advocate for, are at the perfect tool to fill those unexpected waiting moments and draw us into the presence of God. She suggests that “breathing is the bridge between the brain and the body, one of the few processes we can regulate both consciously and unconsciously. Intentional breathing is usually done with slow deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Not only good for our spirits but also for our bodies as these deep, slow breaths fill our lungs in a way that our normal shallow breaths don’t. Doing deep breathing exercises for 5-10 minutes 3-4 times a day increases our lung capacity and is highly recommended by many health professionals.
Tucker suggests that just as breath is a bridge between the brain and the body, prayer is a bridge from Christ’s heart to ours. Breathing and praying together can calm the brain, the body, the mind and the soul. Wow what a powerful practice. I really like that.
There are three breathing techniques in Breath as Prayer that Tucker describes (see page 35) but the one that I found most helpful for a “do while you wait” exercise is what she calls 4-7-8 (the relaxing breath) – Inhale slowly through the nose for a count of four; hold your breath for a count of seven; exhale completely through your mouth for a count of eight; repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths. It does take a little bit of practice so you probably want to experiment before you try it while waiting but it doesn’t take long to learn.
Tucker suggests combining this with a scripture so for a good “breath prayer while waiting prayer I have a couple of suggestions:
Inhale
Wait for the Lord’s faithful love
Exhale
God waits to be merciful to us.
OR
Inhale
I wait for God’s promises
Exhale
My whole being waits for God.
Enjoy and let me know if it helps make those waiting times fly by and become more relaxing and calming for you.
Alternatively you might like to carry one of the breath cards I wrote a few years ago with you and read through the appropriate prayers while you wait in line.
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By Lilly Lewin
You may or may not know that I am not a kitchen person. Oh I love a great looking kitchen, but I’m not the cook or the chef. At our house that is my husband Rob’s job. He was a great cook long before he did his bucket list of going to culinary school. Being in the kitchen and preparing food is easy for him. It’s his art and one of his thinplaces. I’m much more comfortable with brushes and paint!
I often tell the story that our kitchen in our Cincinnati house was so bad, and I detested being in it so much, I turned it into my prayer room so I had a way to function in it. ( I put a map of the world one one wall to pray for the world, post it notes on the windows for folks who needed prayer, and a white board near the sink to add prayer requests)
The kitchen is usually the hub of the home. It’s the heart. It tends to be where folks gather during parties no matter how big or small the kitchen is! And if you are a great cook, it really doesn’t matter the size of the kitchen! Our postage stamp kitchen in our cottage in Napa Valley hosted amazing food thanks to Chef Rob!
The Kitchen used to be centered on the hearth, the fireplace. Everyone cooked meals over the fire. In my parent’s house built before the Civil War in the early 1800’s, the original kitchen was in the basement with a large open fire place that was used to cook over each day. The hearth was the heart of the home.
I was thinking about all this after reading and listening to Psalm 84.
What is the Dwelling Place of God like?
When you imagine the dwelling place of God, what to you picture?
Where is it that you like to go or be to feel closest to God?
Would it be the Kitchen? Would Jesus be cooking and would you be listening to his stories? Would God dwell around the hearth?
Can you picture yourself sitting in a comfy chair acroswhs from Jesus having a cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate?
Take some time to imagine what the dwelling place of God looks like for you.
What does the dwelling place of God look like for you?
The Dwelling place of God doesn’t have to be far off from you and me. We know that the Spirit dwells in each of us, but I do believe that we can create spaces where we experience more of God’s presence and peace. Places where we can receive nourishment. Places where we can build and cultivate real relationship with Jesus. That’s creating a thinplace for yourself. A place where the veil between heaven and earth is thin and you feel God’s presence.
Places like front porch swings, hammocks, rocking chairs, the bath tub could all be places where you experience a thinplace.
Sitting outside watching the sunset or looking at the moon and stars are also ways to experience this. Did you see the moon this week?
Verse three talks about the sparrow…Even the sparrow has found a nest. A safe place. A place near your altar.
Do you have a spot to be with Jesus that feel like that? What could you do to create one?
What kind of Nest do you need?
What kind of NEST do you need this week? Talk to Jesus about this.
Maybe you aren’t feeling like you have a nest anymore, or your nest is now empty and feels different. Maybe your safe nest has been rocked by illness, or loss. Perhaps you need to take time to notice this. Perhaps you need to make the time to grieve the loss of your “nest’ or the losses around the safety and security of the nest. Let Jesus dwell with you in this loss and grief.
Remember that birds build new nests every year. And around my neighborhood, the squirrels are busy building nests for the winter. What kind of new NEST do you want to build with Jesus in the coming weeks?
TRY THIS:
We all spend a lot of time in our kitchens …washing dishes, making food etc. This week let’s see this as the dwelling place of God…
Take time to listen as you wash dishes or chop vegetables. What does Jesus want you to notice? Who comes to mind as you wash the dishes or as you unload the dish washer? Take time to pray for these people. And make time to call or text them too.
As you stir the food, what is God stirring in you?
If it’s cold where you are and you have a fire in the fireplace, or if you have a fire pit outside where you can go and sit …allow Jesus to talk with you around the hearth.
Take a walk, look for nests in the trees. Allow the nests to remind you that Jesus wants to be with you and provide you a safe refuge and resting place in him.
This week, Dwell with Jesus and enjoy being with him! Jesus is “The God who loves us with out measure and without regret! Father Greg Boyle
PRAY PSALM 84 together:
How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young— a place near your altar,
Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.[c]
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.[d]
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
8 Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty;listen to me, God of Jacob.
9 Look on our shield,[e] O God;
look with favor on your anointed one.
10 Better is one day in your courtsthan a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
12 Lord Almighty,blessed is the one who trusts in you. AMEN
And if you heart is set on Pilgrimage, Join us on Finding Your Thinplace pilgrimage to Iona Scotland, September 1-9, 2025.
It rained over the weekend, the first soaking rain for a couple of months. As I walked round my garden, breathing in the invigorating aroma of petrichor, I felt as though the thirsty earth rejoiced with me in the refreshment it brought to everything around me. The colours looked more vibrant, the growth more vigourous, and in what had been a dry and dusty lawn, I saw the green sprouts of new life. It amazes me how quickly the earth recovers.
In Inheriting Paradise, Vigan Guiroian likens watering our gardens to baptism. He points out that water is the lifeblood of the garden and of all creation. It is also the element of baptism. He suggests that each time we water the garden we should acknowledge this and recognize that “we tend not only the garden we call nature but also the garden that is ourselves.” I love this analogy. One of the reasons I do much of my watering by hand is because of this reminder that it is a form of baptism and new life. This week I have felt a little as though I am living two lives. My public life of writing and podcasting and sharing from my garden, and my private life of grief and confronting the challenges of aging and numerous medical visits for my husband and myself. In the midst of this, it is often watering the garden that brings renewal and refreshment for me, washing away the stress as I tend to my plants.
Another stress reliever is my rock collection which I wrote about in my Meditation Monday – Rocks of Remembrance. Holding my serpentine rock from Iona in my hand this week as a reminder of God’s faithfulness in good times and in chilling ones was a huge boost to me this week. As I commented, “It is an important part of my prayer life.” My apologies to the paid subscribers who like to listen to the audio version of this post. With everything else on my plate this week I ran out of time to transcribe it.
I am making progress in my book Celtic Advent – Following An Unfamiliar Path Through Advent. On Saturday I posted the meditations for the first week of Celtic Advent, beginning on November 13th so that we have a couple of days to prepare before Advent begins on November 15th. I think I might have overwhelmed a few of you with the length of this post. On this coming Saturday, I will post a shorter section from the second week of reflections. Thank you to those who are reading along with me. I appreciate your feedback which has already resulted in changes to the original manuscript. Don’t worry, I won’t post the revised version. You will have to wait until the book is published in October to read the final version.
Last Wednesday we posted the Liturgical Rebels Episode 14 – Brian Edgar and The God Who Plays. It is obvious that many of you found this episode fascinating. I hope you share it with your friends. I think we all need a more playful view of God and God’s ways of working in our world. Next week we begin a series on Celtic Spirituality. Tom and I will kick off the series with reflections on our own journeys into Celtic spirituality. The upcoming sessions in this series include interviews with Celtic musician Jeff Johnson, theologians Christine Valters Paintner and John Philip Newell and Celtic artist Mary Fleeson. Make sure you tell your friends about this. It will be an inspiring series.
What is it about Celtic Spirituality that is so attractive to me and to so many others today? Why is there a resurgence of interest in this stream of Christian faith that thrived in Britain in the 4th to 8th centuries? Join me on September 14 from 9:30 – 12:30 PDT to find out about bringing the sacred in to wherever you need it. Sign up page will be up on the website soon. Look for an announcement with a link in the next couple of days.
In her Freerange Friday – Bread and Tables, Lilly Lewin reminds us that the gospel is about community, and bread. She asks another of her provocative questions “What have you noticed about bread lately? Is your bread in scarcity or abundance? stale or fresh? daily or only on special occasions? Is this how we view Jesus?” It made me think about the bread I ate this week, what it was like and what it could teach me about Jesus.
More people clicked on links in last week’s Keeping Up With The News than ever which made me realize how much people appreciate the great resources these links lead to so this week I am listing some that apply to the season of creation. The Season of Creation spans five weeks between the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (September 1) and the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4).. It is observed by a growing number of churches and denominations.
A couple of good sites to check out:
The Season of Creation Bulletin insert.
Season of Creation – has a great new downloadable resource for 2024.
You might also like to check out some of these godspacelight resources:
Simple Ways to Care for Creation – A free download.
My favourite books on care for creation
Holy Ground – a Six Week Course on Creation Care
Native American Prayers for Care of Creation
Let me end with a prayer I wrote this week:
My mind is stuck,
In sweet memories of lost ones,
Thoughts of the past,
And problems I cannot solve.
It is time to rest,
My body seems to say.
Time to take a break,
From the chaos in my mind,
And let the emptiness be filled
With God’s abiding presence,
That healing balm
Comforting and enriching to body mind and soul.
Many blessings,
Christine Sine
by Christine Sine
Have you ever noticed how often the Israelites collected rocks to build cairns as memorials for significant events in their history? Joseph built one after his encounter with God. The whole nation of Israel built one after they crossed the Jordan. Memorials, places to come and and remind us of the faithfulness of God in the past and encourage us to hope for God’s continued faithfulness in the future.
I am also a collector of rocks, inspired by my brother Nick who died recently, so it is not surprising that over the last few days I have pulled out some of my rock collection to reminisce. When we were kids, my brothers and I loved to gather specimens when we went on long road treks over the summer holidays. By the time we returned home, the car seemed weighed down by rocks. And in Australia there are some wonderful rocks to collect – sapphire chips, opals, agates, and even flecks of gold as well as fossils, petrified wood and coal.
In the last few years it is not these precious stones that caught my attention however. Now, like the Israelites, I like to gather rocks that mark significant events and remind me of the journeys I have travelled. Some of them sit in little mounds in glass jars. Others are more prominently displayed as I like to give them names as memorials to remind me of my encounters with God.
I have several from Iona, picked up on the beach on Iona where Columba came ashore. The large serpentine rock I call my rock of faithfulness because when I hold it in my hand I am reminded of all the faithful followers of Christ, like Columba who have gone before me.
I have a limestone rock from the South coast of Australia. It has the fossil of a shell in it. This is my rock of endurance. I am reminded that this shell comes from a creature that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. It has endured because it was transformed into the limestone rock.
Another rock I picked up on Camano Island north of Seattle. This is my “hold tight” rock. Limpets cling tightly to it reminding me always of the need to cling closely to God.
I even have a rock that I picked up in our backyard – a beautiful specimen of malachite – unexpected because this is not a native rock to the Pacific NW. I call it my rock of unexpected surprises because it reminds me that God often comes to us in unexpected and unanticipated ways.
Probably the rock I have held in my hand most frequently is the one I call my rock of remembrance. It is streaked with veins of dark and light intertwined in an intricate pattern. It is a constant reminder to me that the dark and light sides of life are woven together inextricably. They cannot be separated or the rock would crumble into nothing.
Collecting rocks is an important part of my prayer life. I love to hold a rock in my hand meditating on the part of my faith journey it brings to mind. I often pray in gratitude, in repentance or just in sheer joy at the faithfulness of God.
We are forgetful people.
God understands this far better than we do. God prompted the Israelites repeated to remember their God who rescued them from Egypt and faithfully led them through the wilderness:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach them with a blue cord. When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the Lord instead of following your own desires and defiling yourselves, as you are prone to do. The tassels will help you remember that you must obey all my commands and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God. I am the Lord your God!” (Numbers 15:37-41)
I was never more aware of this than when re-watching the film The Way recently. This powerful and inspirational story stars Martin Sheen who plays Tom, an irascible American doctor coming to France to deal with the tragic loss of his son. He embarks on the historical Camino de Santiago pilgrimage where his son died.
There is a tradition on the camino to bring a stone from home and rub all your fears, hurts and sorrows into the stone which you can place at the base of the Cruz de Ferro. Others pick up a stone along the way or write a wish on paper. They deposit them at the cairn of Cruz de Ferro where a huge mound of rocks with their prayers, and hopes and suffering have accumulated over the centuries. This is a holy spot whose sacredness spoke to me even from a distance.
You may not want to collect rocks as I do. You may never walk the Camino de Santiago, but I am sure there is something you collect that reminds you of God and of your faith journey. Memorials root our prayers in the faithfulness of God. They provide anchors of stability that lead us onward towards the heart of God. Remembering the acts of God in our past is one important way that we connect to the acts of God in the present and learn to trust in hope for the promises of God in the future.
What have you collected during your life that are like memorials that mark your life? Gather them together in the place where you pray. Sit quietly looking at them.
Is there an object that stands out for you today? Pick it up. Hold it in your hand. What memories spring to mind? Allow them to flow around you. Listen for the whisper of God’s voice speaking to you through the object. What new things might God say to you today about faithfulness, endurance, remembrance or other aspects of life? Write these down and sit quietly basking in the presence of God.
Are there new insights God is giving you about your current situation? Write these down.
What about the future? Is God speaking to you through your memories about new ways to trust? Write these down too.
Repeat the exercise each day throughout the week. Write down what God says to you
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