This liturgy of prayer for Ukraine was graciously provided by Alissa Case of Little Way Chapel. You can find her on Instagram @littlewaychapel
– Alissa Case of Little Way Chapel.
Now listen to this beautiful prayer and offer up your own prayers for Ukraine
by Melissa Taft
We are well into Lent, and just into the beginning of a season’s change. I do find it interesting that this season of the church coincides with seasons of growth, change, and harvest all over the world. In the Northern Hemisphere, we are heading into spring while the Southern Hemisphere’s summer is waning into autumn. Both seasons are full of work in the garden – sowing and growing, as well as preparing and even harvesting. We don’t always think of Spring as a season of harvest – but those wintered crops and early spring vegetables/cool weather lettuces are best plucked before the heat of summer. Nor do we always think of autumn as a season of growth – but cool weather crops are able to grow again, and some flowers and shrubs put on their most spectacular displays during that season.
And it is in this context of ordinary days that Lent falls. From seasons of hidden, steady growth to seasons of unfurling stems and fruiting vines; of watching a seed be buried unseen in the dirt only to give way to abundant verdant life, of leaves putting on spectacular displays before giving way to the needs of the tree and burying themselves beside it to further nourish and sustain the tree throughout the winter. St Francis de Sales noted: “Lent is the autumn of the spiritual life during which we gather fruit to keep us going for the rest of the year.”
I encourage you to keep Lent in mind as you go about your garden tasks. Whether you are in autumn gearing up for winter, or in spring delighting in the new greens that follow the winter – consider honoring Lent in the garden, making your gardening a spiritual practice. Christine put together a list of excellent resources on spirituality and gardening in this post here. You may also enjoy her free download on Creating A Faith-Based Community Garden, as it has many resources listed there as well. Whether spring or autumn, you might enjoy working Christine’s Harvest Litanies into your Lenten devotions or times of contemplation.
In fact, there are several excellent resources on gardening and spirituality in our shop. Whether you are a novice gardener or an expert, Christine Sine’s book To Garden With God is sure to inspire and instruct. It is also available as a download or bundled together with prayer cards. And we are still offering the extremely popular course Spirituality of Gardening, in which Christine and other expert gardeners discuss organic gardening tips, spiritual lessons of gardening, and more.
Perhaps you’d like to garden during Lent or even create a Lenten garden but you do not have a plot of land. You might check out these posts for ideas:
- Meditation Monday: Creating a Lenten Garden
- Gardening for Lent
- More About Gardening for Lent
- Celebrating Holy Week With Kids
For more inspiration on spirituality and gardening, you may wish to check out these posts:
- Meditation Monday: The Garden Walk of Holy Week
- Spiritual Insights From The Garden
- To Plant A Garden
- Gardening With God
- Freerange Friday: What’s The Gardener Up To In Your Garden?
- Life as a Gardener
- Garden Resource Page
- Seasons Resource Page
Lent is a season of preparation, growth, renewal, and promise. It is not easy, there is work to be done. But just like the seasons in the garden; the hope- born of ground and death, dirt and change, toil and breath – brings new life abundant.
We’ve been exploring the LOVE of God this Lenten Season…Asking “How do we fall more in love with Jesus between now and Easter?”…and looking at how we find beauty from the ashes of life.
Are you feeling like you are finding beauty amongst the ashes of life these days?
Are you able to experience the love of Jesus a little bit more each day or each week?
As an extreme extrovert and an enneagram 7, the last two years of the pandemic have taken their toll on my mental health. I’ve always been prone to anxiety and depression but my ‘sunny’ personality can often hide how down I am and my ‘sevenness’ tends to reframe things into a positive light so I’m sometimes caught off guard by my depressive seasons. In working with my therapist this week, she noticed that my depression is less than it was last fall, but it’s still there, and still causing me to sit in ashes rather than sitting in the love of Jesus…my words, not hers.
There are so many layers with the pandemic, politics, racism, war in Ukraine, etc…
I’ve been feeling lost, confused hopeless; not hopeless really, just lost…lacking direction and purpose since most of my creative work has yet to reappear in person.
I need the reminder that I am deeply loved just as I am, right where I am right this very minute! Maybe you need this reminder too.
This Lenten season in our house church gatherings, at thinplace, we are looking at passages in the Bible that show us the love of God. This week we looked at the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or better named, the Parable of the Loving Father…
Find something in your house that represents a party or celebration…a party hat, a gift bag, a festive glass or even some confetti.
Party Box
NOW READ THE PARABLE IN LUKE 15
15 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.
29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” LUKE 15: 1-2 and 11-31 NIV
READ it and listen to it as if you haven’t heard it a hundred times.
You’ve heard this parable many many times,
What did you notice today that you haven’t noticed before?
With whom did you identify when you first heard it? Who do you identify with today?
How have you felt like the youngest son?
How have you felt like the oldest son?
What do you notice about the Father?
When the son returns home, the father has an instant response! It is to celebrate his son and throw him a party! And not just a small party, but one with music and dancing. A party loud enough that the oldest son hears the ruckus and wants to know what is going on.
How does it feel to be celebrated by God even when you don’t feel worthy, even when you’ve blown it to the extreme?
How do you need God to throw you a party today? What would that look like? Feel like? Take time to really imagine the party/celebration.
Hold that element/item of the party; the hat, gift bag or box, the party favor that you found and imagine it!
Imagine the Party
Imagine a party that God/Jesus throws for you… just for you because God loves you so much!
What does this look like?
Is it outside or inside?
What is the mood… quiet or loud, mellow or raucous?
What are you wearing? Informal, formal, casual or dressy? Costumes?
Imagine the food… what kind of food is being served at your party?
Imagine the Food
A picnic, bbq, something fancy? A sit-down dinner or a buffet? A bunch of courses or just appetizers or just desserts?
What are you drinking?
What kind of music is playing?
Listen to it playing
Notice the colors, the decorations …the lighting…string lights, candlelight, strobe lights? A combination?
Jesus is throwing this party just for you! In your honor…because he loves you so much! Because you are worth celebrating!
How does this make you feel? It might feel uncomfortable at first because you aren’t used to being celebrated…and maybe you are used to planning & throwing parties for other people but not having someone host the party just for YOU! With all the details in mind, knowing all the things that would make you happy!
Jesus knows you intimately
He knows your needs, your wants, your desires. Jesus knows what makes you happy and brings you joy.
At this party, you are surrounded by these things & these people.
Be with Jesus at the party. Allow the love of God to surround you!
Actually feel the embrace of God.
Take time to write down, journal what this party would look like and be like.
Journal about your Party
The party Jesus would throw for me would be outside on a crisp fall afternoon and last into the early evening. Sunflowers and zinnias in old splatter-ware pitchers and in mason jars on the tables and there would be baskets of crayons to color on the butcher paper table cloths. The vibe would be “casual elegance.”
I’m wearing jeans and a nice sweater, a new one that Jesus gave me even though I came home smelling like pigs! There is a fire pit with Adirondack chairs around it and some rocking chairs just for fun. There is good wine, and dark chocolate for dessert. And supplies for making s’mores around the fire. The music is mellow but fun…jazz and blues, Etta James and Eric Bibb and later a sing-along with guitars.
The party might even be by Lake Michigan or on puget sound on a sunny day! Lots of fresh veggies, cheese and good bread….maybe some grilled seafood as a main. And Jesus would be sitting there at the table, smiling at me with his great love reminding me that this is home and this is what his love really looks like for me.
You are worthy to be Celebrated!
Use that element/item of the party to remind you this week that Jesus wants to celebrate you and to help you remember that you are so worthy to be celebrated!
Keep it out where you can see it. And remember that whatever you see as the most broken area of your life, or the biggest failure, you are STILL WORTHY TO BE CELEBRATED! You are a CHILD OF GOD, Welcomed into God’s home!
image at top: The Prodigal Son by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) in the National Gallery in Washington, DC
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
Lent continues, the season is still full of possibility and promise. Are you finding ashes and desiring beauty? Now available as an online course, this virtual retreat will help you to lay out your garment of lament and put on your garment of praise. Gather your joys and release your grief with Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin! Click here for more info!
by Laurie Klein, as originally published here
“Lilt” in Lent? Well yes, the word’s synonyms suggest faith on the upswing: spirited, buoyant, springy.
How on earth can I consider those words next to these concerns from the friend of my friend? She’s scared sleepless over her cousins in Ukraine, young mothers whose husbands must enlist. Do they need money? How can she send it? How will grandparents and nieces and nephews safely escape with banks closed, airports occupied, gas stations emptied?
How can I allow weightiness to once again enlarge my heart, carve room for deepening mercy and intercession? Those wiser than I claim prayers of lament will, in time, bring transfiguration: glint by glimmer, a luminous trail, the sparks flying upward.
But what in heaven’s name can “lilt” mean in relation to war? I am fed, sheltered, privileged. I am safe. For now.
When the heart is wracked, how do we navigate dissonance?
Faith, we know, watches for holy rescues. Keeps vigils. Fasts and prays. Celebrates God’s provisions, seen and unseen.
This Lent especially calls me to lament and repentance. Can this Lent also invite me toward heart-lightening remembrance?
Here’s what I say to my soul:
- Spend time on those knees—in between time spent listening, at His.
- Offer up small surrenders in sober reverence and quiet joy.
- Engage more deeply with the reality of the Passion so as to embody compassion.
- Grab the children and tell them the truest stories—that we are made for God. That we are called toward binding up wounds as well as abounding in grace. Help them understand this:
Dear Lent, you are ashes and daffodils,
fasting and feasting,
foot washing and footloose, resurrection-bound praise cutting a rug.
Here is my Lenten List (I hope you’ll add to it):
- Write yourself a note. Tuck it inside your fridge, silverware drawer, medicine cabinet—wherever you’ll come upon it: Hello there, you agent of whimsy. What will you and Perfect Love do next?
- Peel a tangerine. Pray over a different country as you savor each segment. Lick your fingers to say Amen.
- Talk things over with a local bird, or use this captivating video close-up of a mourning dove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Km-jtXueTw And may the dove who descended upon Christ at the Jordan alight near you and those you love today.
- Make a lap. Now remember the lap of someone who held you. Let your Bible fall open, right there on your knees. Read out a fitting word, phrase, or verse(s) in blessing. Then improvise, perhaps sensing you and your someone welcomed anew into God’s embrace.
- Do you collect quotes? If not, you could start here: “During the night everything has been remade for you. Merely to breathe is a happy adventure.” —J. B. Priestly, Delight
- When rampant darkness between people overwhelms you, browse Photo Ark Wonders, by the “Modern-day Noah,” Joel Sartore, for National Geographic. https://www.joelsartore.com/gallery/the-photo-ark/43/
Dear readers, I consider “lilt” a relative term. This morning I hobbled around waving a long scarf over my head, like one of those small but undaunted gymnasts armed with banners. In Christ, my soul is a secret Olympian.
Bet yours is too.
What would you add to the list?
P.S. Invite scent to trigger memory. Before making your bed, mist your pillowcase with a scent you enjoy (or tuck a dryer sheet inside it). Anticipate Spirit-led time travel when you tuck yourself in tonight. Then again, the fact of shelter, the bed, and a warm room is already grace, and more than enough.
Mourning Dove Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
Journey through Lent with this downloadable bundle featuring Prayer Cards, 40 Daily Ideas Guide for Lent, and our Lenten devotional – A Journey Into Wholeness: Soul Travel from Lent to Easter. Bundled together for convenience and savings!
by Emily Huff
We have been living in a global pandemic for over two years now, as Friday, March 11th marked two years since the World Health Organization officially declared the Covid-19 pandemic. On top of that, we see troubling news each day in Ukraine, and it is hard to wrap our minds around what is happening around us as it seems that the world is on fire and there is no safe place.
An article from Education Week that I read in January was titled, “Stress, Hypervigilance, and Decision Fatigue: Teaching During Omicron,” and many of us can relate to the way the article describes how teachers (and all of us for that matter) can’t seem to turn our brains off because our nervous systems have been in firing constantly on high alert in overdrive. “Teachers are in hypervigilance mode. We have been for the past two years. Teaching already had problems with attrition before the pandemic. And now? Those problems are all magnified, and we’ve added hypervigilance, times 10.”
I latched onto this word “hypervigilance” in the article as it resonated with me in thinking about how we have all been charting the unknown and navigating the last two years. In listening to the On Being podcast recently by Krista Tippet, I heard her interview Cheri Maples who was a police officer trained in mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh who talked about how this intersected in her line of work: “This hypervigilance–looking around you all the time, wondering where that next problem is coming from, has pushed us off the charts and out of balance. And we’ve got to come back down and find some ways to take care of ourselves because otherwise, the stress just keeps on accumulating and we can start shutting down without realizing it. So, we need tools to keep our heart open and soft.”
While this hypervigilance has become the way of the world, I believe that we must find tools to keep our hearts open and soft. In order to do this, we are called to a different kind of vigilance as followers of Jesus as the words “keep watch” are given as invitations throughout Scripture.
- “Keep watch because you do not know the day or the hour.” Matthew 25:13 (NIV)
- “God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next.” Romans 15:4, The Message
- “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6:34, The Message
In this season of Lent, some people take on practices rather than giving things up as a way to return to God with all of their hearts. The practice of the examen is one that I am trying to do at the end of each day as a way to keep watch in a radically different way than the hypervigilance that I have been living into the last two years. It’s a way to keep my heart open and soft, and it’s really quite simple:
1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.
I’ve chosen to keep a gratitude journal as a part of this practice, and I’ve begun to see it a bit like a “God hunt” through my day as I ask God where He is in the midst of my teaching, in the midst of my family, and in the midst of the ordinary tasks that make up my days.
At the end of the day, it’s a way to shift my attention and focus. And as I am trying to keep watch in different ways, I am finding comfort knowing that I can also cry out to God to keep watch over us.
- The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. Psalm 121:8 (NIV)
- “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15 (NIV)
This Compline prayer from the Book of Common Prayer has also been an anchor to lead me away from the hypervigilance and to open my hands to pray for God to hold the weight of this world.
I invite you to join me in these practices of keeping watch in this season as we trust that the Lord is keeping watch over us all.
featured image provided by author, from Keep Watch With Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers
As an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links. Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
I love spring anywhere, but if could choose I would always greet it in a garden. – Ruth Stout
Explore the wonderful ways that God and God’s story are revealed through the rhythms of planting, growing, and harvesting. Spiritual insights, practical advice for organic backyard gardeners, and time for reflection will enrich and deepen faith–sign up for 180 days of access to work at your own pace and get ready for your gardening season.
guest poem and photo by Monique Watt Heintzman, with permission, originally posted on Faith Today
Take a walk in the woods,
where life surges and recedes through the seasons like waves on the shore,
where new treasures await your discovery everyday.
Walk regularly, paying attention –
to the light, to the smells, to the sounds,
to what has changed, to what is the same,
and marvel at the beauty that greets you.
Wonder.
Wonder why.
Wonder how.
Consider a leaf.
Ponder its life cycle through the seasons.
Notice tree trunks’ bark –
some smooth looking and to the touch,
others thick and rough,
protecting their precious core like armour.
Observe their form –
their straightness or crookedness,
their scars and tumours.
Each one has a story to tell –
just like you and me.
Gaze upwards at tree branches
reaching heavenward in praise and thanksgiving.
Slow down and contemplate the rocks –
how even these hard, solid ones wear, soften and crumble over time,
becoming pebbles and sand under your feet.
Notice the heart-shaped hoof prints that accompany you along the path.
Let your thoughts meander and wonder where the deer went,
and how the bears know when to hibernate,
or the birds know where to migrate.
Perceive how your definition of beauty expands and changes through the seasons,
how it’s not only the colourful blossoms of spring and summer,
or the rhapsody of autumn leaves that are beautiful –
there’s beauty too in the dying and in the letting go,
and in the crunch of your boots on the snow.
Feel your heart swell with gratitude and joy,
and praise your Creator God,
the Divine Artist whose fingerprints are everywhere!
Monique Heintzman lives in Chelsea, Quebec, Canada with her husband and teenage daughter. She is a homemaker, contemplative photographer, writer of poetry, and an avid walker. Monique is passionate about the beauty of God’s Creation and delights in trying to capture and share glimpses of it through photos and poetry in the hope the others will fall in love with God and Creation. She and her husband also volunteer with A Rocha Canada hosting Christian environmental stewardship outdoor activities and learning events from their home in Gatineau Park.
Join Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin tomorrow! Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022 at 9 am PT (check my timezone) for our next FB Live happening on our Godspace Light Community Facebook Group! Can’t make it? No worries–we upload the sessions on our youtube channel so you can still enjoy the lively discussions and interesting topics. And catch us live for the next session–happening here!
Here in Seattle it is the beginning of spring. Daffodils seem to dance across the garden with their bright yellow faces turned towards the sun, and cherry blossoms delight me with their fragrance and beauty. My front porch bulges with lettuce, spinach and other greens, and tomatoes and basil sit snuggly on heat mats and under grow lights waiting for warmer weather. I might have started some of them a little early, this year, but I am desperate for spring – not just in the garden but in the world around me too.
Spring is the greening season. Seeds scattered in autumn lie dormant over the winter, then send up their first tender shoots and new growth adorns my overwintered shrubs.
We love to see this greening and the delightful display of vibrantly colored flowers that accompanies it. This is what we feel spring is all about, so it always seems strange that it coincides with Lent, when we are encouraged to eat simply, fast and pray.
It is entirely appropriate though. This was once known as the hunger season and in some parts of the world still is. An anxious hopefulness and uncertainty hangs over farmers watching the carpet of green spread across their fields. They pray for spring rains – not too much to flood the fields and not too little so that the seed withers and dies. They eke out their diet from what remains of last year’s crops – mainly dried seeds and lentils, the same as the Lenten diet still eaten by some faith traditions, and pray it will be enough. Purchasing seed could bankrupt them. I have row covers, heat mats and grow lamps to hurry my seeds along and if they fail it does not bankrupt my life. There is little if any risk in my garden practices, only delight, and for that I am grateful.
I used to struggle with the offering of first fruit to the priests. Can you imagine what hardship this was to the poorest and most vulnerable in the community? Then I read that the corners of the fields left to be gleaned by the poor were not subject to this law and I thought “Thank God, who did not subject the poor to such hardship.” Our God is merciful and just. If the wealthy honored the true practice of first fruit offering, the poor would still be provided for.
This year the juxtaposition of Lent and spring taught me a lot. Spring, like Lent, is an uncertain and sometimes stressful season and this year it seemed particularly taxing. The beautiful greening of the landscape and opening up of our communities after the COVID lockdowns carried with it the promise of abundant life to come and gave hope for the future, but the shadow of war in Ukraine and rising prices in our economies made us feel as though God has withheld the rain and we were still existing on a subsistence diet of beans and lentils.
I love to wander my garden looking closely to see which seeds, scattered in autumn are sprouting. These are always the strongest and healthiest plants. So I wonder “What did God plant in us over this last year that is now sprouting and should be nurtured into strong healthy plants?
Some communities survived the hunger season better than others because of their strong sense of responsibility for each other. Sometimes even landowners freely gave from their own hoarded grain to help the poor around them survive. Others always made sure they left the gleanings that were meant to be for the poor. I wonder: What of God’s provision are we hoarding but should be sharing?
Last but not least: Did I plant the wrong seeds, in the wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe in my haste to get started this year I didn’t pay attention to some of the basic principles of gardening. Know the feeling? The number one organic gardening principle is “build up the soil.” Maybe I should build up the soil around the gifts and talents within me that I believe should be flourishing now. The best way to build up soil is with good old compost – that rubbishy stuff from the kitchen that we throw out. When matured and changed it becomes black gold.
Maybe what we all need is a little more patience. And while you wait be encouraged by these words in Joel 2:21-24
Do not be afraid, land of Judah;
be glad and rejoice.
Surely the Lord has done great things!
22 Do not be afraid, you wild animals,
for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green.
The trees are bearing their fruit;
the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.
23 Be glad, people of Zion,
rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you the autumn rains
because he is faithful.
He sends you abundant showers,
both autumn and spring rains, as before.
24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
Lent continues, the season is still full of possibility and promise. Are you finding ashes and desiring beauty? Now available as an online course, this virtual retreat will help you to lay out your garment of lament and put on your garment of praise. Gather your joys and release your grief with Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin! Click here for more info!
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!