Last week Tom and I recorded a Facebook live session on Establishing a Rule of Life. Not only was it extremely popular but we had some amazing responses including the beautiful poem below by Ana Lisa De Jong. Ana Lisa commented: “Thank you Christine Sine and Tom Sine for the inspiration. Your inspiring FB live today and your Mustard Seed community is a fruitful harvest in itself.” For more information on rule of life check out this post Establishing a Rule of Life Rooted in Shalom Enjoy the recording and the poem.
MUSTARD SEEDS
Teach your children to plant trees.
Teach them to open their hands,
scatter seeds.
The world which would squeeze them to its mould,
would have them hold on tight,
bury them under its avalanche
of consumption.
Whereas breathing, living,
is found in breaking open,
pouring ourselves out.
Scattering the seed
which without there isn’t fruit.
Teach your children the beauty of creation.
That what we do makes a difference,
just in the act of doing.
The war for our children’s souls is quiet,
quiet as the drug that lulls them to sleep.
Open their hands, give them seeds.
Living Tree Poetry
January 2022
Looking for New Mustard Seed House Members
It seemed very appropriate to post this today as we are also looking for new members for the Mustard Seed House
Just a reminder for the weekend, we cannot pour from an empty cup!
So take time to actually get some rest! #RESTisHOLY
Take a walk outside, draw, play, get coffee with a friend, do something that brings you joy and refreshes you!
My birthday was yesterday, so like all good hobbits, I want to give you a gift for my birthday. As you may know, I love to pray with my coffee each day and got inspired a few years ago to PRAY WITH YOUR CUP through Holy Week. So go over to freerangeworship.com and get the free download and save it a resource to use this April.
And now, GRAB A COFFEE/TEA CUP and PRAY TODAY
Consider the cup
How is your cup today? Look at your coffee cup/mug/teacup What do you notice? Is it full? Empty? Faded? Cracked or Chipped? How are you feeling like that cup? What do you need to pour out? What do you need Jesus to pour into your cup? May be Peace or Joy? Compassion .. for yourself & for others? Energy to keep going?
What do you need in your cup today?
Jesus is with you & me in the messiness of this life.
In the chipped and cracked places.
In the empty places and the places that are stained & scratched.
Jesus loves us and is with us right where we are!
Drink that in today!
Grab a spoon!
What is stirring in you today? What does the Holy Spirit want to stir in you? As you use spoons throughout the day/week, ask Jesus/Spirit to show you what is being stirred in your life & what needs to be stirred.
A Prayer for you and your Cup…
HOLD YOUR CUP…
Lord Jesus…
Help us to be, to share and drink from
Cups of Transformation
Help us to be Cups of Resurrection
Cups of Restoration
Cups of Healing and Wholeness
Safe to drink from
We are Stained and broken, chipped and cracked…
And some may say we are not the favorite one in the cupboard or on the shelf,
But you Jesus, Love us just as we are!
And use us just the same.
Fill us Jesus with your Living Water!
Help us to share Living Water with those around us!
And bring refreshment and great flavor to our world!
AMEN
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
More details coming soon! Join Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin as they guide you through finding beauty in the ashes of Lent Saturday February 26th from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm PT.
all photos and writings by June Friesen
Ziplining has never been a dream, a hope, or an ambition of mine. However, as I meet people, especially younger people it seems that it is something that they dream of doing and when they actually accomplish it some have told me it gives them a feeling of exhilaration. Now as I was observing and taking some photos, I was also aware that this zipline (which was at an outdoor zoo) went over the outdoor lion and tiger exhibits. With this background, I thought to myself what gratitude each person must have had to arrive safely at their destination at the opposite end. I am sure you are wondering to yourself how in fact I came up with the phrase, ‘A Zipline of Gratitude.’
Colossians 3:14-16 (The Passion Translation)
14 For love is supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity. 15 Let your heart be always guided by the peace of the Anointed One, who called you to peace as part of his one body. And always be thankful.
There are a number of verses as well as stories that contain an aspect or element of gratitude. Jesus was known to highlight those who were thankful for the things that He did in their lives such as one out of ten lepers that returned to give Him thanks for healing him. Some verses from 2nd Timothy 3 seem to fit with what my thoughts are here on gratitude.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 (J.B. Phillips)
But you must realize that in the last days the times will be full of danger. Men will become utterly self-centered, greedy for money, full of big words. They will be proud and contemptuous, without any regard for what their parents taught them. They will be utterly lacking in gratitude, purity and normal human affections. They will be men of unscrupulous speech and have no control of themselves. They will be passionate and unprincipled, treacherous, self-willed and conceited, loving all the time what gives them pleasure instead of loving God. They will maintain a facade of “religion”, but their conduct will deny its validity. You must keep clear of people like this.
Yes, I chose this passage from 2nd Timothy because all of the things mentioned here keep us from an attitude of gratitude. I also have found that when I am surrounded by people with these kinds of attitudes I can easily be drawn into the negativity of the world and life that is very prevalent in our society at large. Paul warns Timothy as well as you and I to be careful of this negativity because it lacks gratitude, purity, and love. Yet one wonders how can I ever rise above all the negativity? How can I, just me all alone, make any difference or impact on the general all-around negativity? And then I thought it is almost as difficult for some of us to move into a lifestyle of gratefulness/gratitude as it is for us to step off of a platform suspended by a body harness to fly through the air suspended on a wire – a wire suspended over wild animal enclosures no less.
In our world today there are so many things that clamor for our attention and often they are filled with negative energies that easily overtake us. When negative energy is allowed room in our lives, either mind or spirit, it begins to drain our physical energy and often our emotional energy as well. Over 20 years ago I picked up a book I happened to see advertised on television. I had no idea how this book would revolutionize my life and at first, I was rather skeptical. However, one of the disciplines was gratitude – adopting a daily discipline of being grateful, which I decided to try. Yes, kind of like standing in the little shelter high up in the air and having someone tell me, “Just let me fasten this harness on you, and then let go – you will have the ride of your life right over the outdoor animal enclosures – and I promise you all will be safe and well.” It took a bit of time to get this habit into a good practice but soon I was beginning to see all of the things that were blessings in my life. I also discovered something else – in the midst of a day if I became discouraged, I would think of some blessing I could see or feel right then – and my negative attitude was curtailed.
As I have thought about the title of this writing the last couple of months, I see how many may find it hard to even think that it is possible to do a gratitude journal. We can come up with numerous ideas: what if I forget, what if I have a really horrible, no-good day, what if I am too tired, what if I am sick, what if I am not at home and I am sure there are other excuses too. First of all, if you put it on your bed, you will see it every night and you pick it up and write in it before you go to bed. Second, when you travel, take it with you and have it be on top of your suitcase so every night when you open your suitcase you have to pick it up and, of course, write in it. Third, sometimes one may be ill, even very ill, may even be hospitalized – even then if you have a bed, warmth, drink, someone to care for you or pain killer or a treatment plan – yes, there are things to be thankful for then too.
As I stood and watched people zipline over the enclosures that contained dangerous animals, I thought of how there are people in our world that we too need to be aware of. They could be various kinds but especially those who have the potential to cause us harm whether physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. They are the people that we need to learn the possibility of moving over or past while maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Now, this attitude should not be one of exclusion all together but definitely one of caution. Often after the people zipline over the animals they will then walk past the pens and observe the animals in all their wonder and beauty – and be grateful for that beauty as well as their safety. Some of the people are actually the ones who work at the facility and enter the areas where these animals may be, however they use caution and techniques to keep themselves from harm and/or injury.
As I have worked with people, discipling them over the past twenty years, I encourage each person to begin a gratitude journal. I often pick up pretty journals at the dollar store when I see them so that I have some handy. Why? One of the excuses we have is I do not have a journal, or I don’t know where to get a journal. And as I invite people to join me on the ‘zipline of gratitude’ I soon find they are eager to share how it also has changed their thought patterns from negative to positive in many situations.
So, as you are wondering how to adapt to the heat of the summer or the cold of the winter, depending on which hemisphere you live in, I invite you to delve into a new adventure – take a ride on the ‘Zipline of Graitude’ – I believe you will say in the end – this sure is an enjoyable ride. Let’s do it again. And again……
Enjoy Christine Sine’s latest book – or explore the many resources around and with the book! From retreats and courses to free downloads to prayer cards and bundles, engage the gift of wonder and unlock a toolkit full of hope! All these resources can be found here in our shop.
One of the gifts of the pandemic is that I have experienced the beauty and wonder of creation in totally new ways. As a Christian, I believe as Genesis teaches us, that creation is good. Yet, as a Celtic Christian, I also see creation as sacred and holy. It is a theophany, that is, a manifestation of God. I believe that we should reverence creation just as we do the scriptures, Jesus, the cross, and the sacraments. These had been theological ideas but, in my life, they did not translate into any kind of spiritual practice.
That changed in March of 2020 when I found myself spending more time outdoors. Because of church closures, I found myself worshipping in creation. I began praying and meditating among the trees. I found a special place on Camano Island, Washington where I live. I named it “Madrone Chapel.”
Madrone Chapel, Camano Island State Park
There I had a pew beneath a Madrone tree cross overlooking the sea. The light shimmering through the trees was as beautiful as any stained glass window. Angels masquerading as birds were my choir. A baptismal font disguised as a stream made me feel born anew. In the spring of 2020, I found Madrone Chapel to be a refuge inviting me to hope amidst the pandemic’s masking and closure of so much I knew and loved.
One day, I had my eyes closed in meditation when I heard a sound of rushing air and water. I opened my eyes. There was a gray whale spouting right below me. Talk about beauty and wonder! I spoke to the whale, “You are beautiful. Will you show me your fluke?” And a few seconds later it did! Then the whale began swimming south. The upper trail I was on also ran south, exactly parallel to the swimming whale. For twenty minutes, I went whale walking!
It was a moment of profound beauty and wonder. I experienced it as God and creation calling me to sink beneath the lockdown of the ravaging storyline which in my mind detailed everything that was wrong with the world and me. Instead, I paused and rejoiced that I breathe the same air as that magnificent whale. I heard the hymn of creation sing the words of the mystic Julian of Norwich, “All is well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.”
Besides worshipping in nature, I now turn to creation for spiritual healing. A few months ago, I had a rift in a personal relationship. I had been hurt by this person and yet I knew that the relationship could not be healed until I released my anger.
I headed to a rocky beach to conduct a ritual of letting go. I decided to look for the ugliest rock on the beach that would symbolize the ugliness I had been experiencing. My plan was to throw it into the sea as a gesture of release. It took me a long time to find what looked like the perfect ugly rock. At last, I found one!
As I looked at it intently, the rock was suddenly transformed in my hand. It was no longer ugly. I became aware of just how incredibly beautiful this one small piece of creation is! I put it down and thought, “I must a find a really complex rock to represent my dilemma here.” The more I looked at the surrounding landscape, the more beautiful it all became.
Beach Rocks, English Boom Preserve, Camano Island
I had a distinct feeling of merging and becoming one with every rock. In the end, I closed my eyes and picked up one rock and gently returned it to the water. It was as if creation had heard my confession and the thoughts of my heart had been cleansed by God. I found myself in a state of peace, love and joy. Forgiveness flooded my heart and I felt compassion for the person who had wounded me.
I experienced myself as a part of creation and not apart from creation. To use the words of contemplative monk and priest, Thomas Merton, I had a “keen awareness of the inter-dependence of all living things which are all part of one another and involved in one another.” I was humbled to experience that I was also included in all living things.
God’s creation with its gifts of beauty and wonder gives me a way to move forward into this new year with joy and hope. I will continue to incorporate Celtic spirituality and my love of creation into my faith practices and also into more aspects of my life. Yes, that is something I can do.
But God does more! The Creator continues to live and love, moving in and through creation, reaching out to us here and now. God embraces us through creation. The more time I have spent simply being in God’s magnificent creation; the more I am feeling healed, that is, made whole. And such wholeness has helped me to simplify my lifestyle and make more sustainable choices. I hope even these small changes will contribute to the healing of our beloved Earth.
A friend of mine named Kristopher Lindquist wrote a chant with these words below. It is one of my prayers of gratitude and hope. May it serve as an invitation to you to discover God in and through the beauty and wonder of Creation.
“Through Creation, God is singing,
through Creation, dancing with joy.
God delights in all things.
God delights in All That Is.
God delights in us.”
Amen.
“You can infuse your life with joy, even right in the middle of winter when you need it most…”
Join Christine Aroney-Sine TONIGHT for a series of five inspiring conversations, based on her book, The Gift of Wonder: Creative Practices for Delighting in God.*
Wednesday nights from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m on Zoom
- January 19 – The Awe of Wonder (Introduction)
- January 26 – Wonder & Trauma
- February 2 – Play!
- February 9 – Reminiscing
- February 16 – The Joy of Gratitude
* We will mail you the book with your $10 registration. If you already have the book, the series is free.
JANUARY
A captive to granite gray stare,
I shiver and hunker there.
Clouds shudder also and
shake loose frozen crystals
flashing slivers of light.
Now silver gleam the gazing eyes.
I rise unblinking, captivated.
~Catherine Lawton
As I awoke from sleep one morning, these words came distinctly to my mind: “The long, cold stare of January.”
I don’t know where those words came from. But they came clear and definite; and they stayed with me. I wrote that phrase in my journal. And I thought about it. Later I wrote the (above) poem.
I live in northern Colorado. January is our coldest month. And it is a long month, 31 days. The cold, short days and long nights can make one feel captive. It is a season when people, those who can afford it, like to travel to places like Mexico, Florida, or Spain. Other people may dream of warm beaches during January. But the weather often keeps us indoors and isolated. We can feel captive.
Where did my unconscious mind get the idea of January being a long “stare”? I don’t know. But there is a sense in which one can feel captive in an uncomfortable way when someone keeps staring at you. Cold stares are especially disconcerting.
Feeling trapped, fearful, impatient with your situation can make your outlook seem hard and gray. But, truly, there is beauty in every season. Opening our hearts to “see” that beauty can turn those cold, gray eyes to a silver gaze.
Contemplatives speak of the “gaze” of the face of Christ that holds, sees deeply, and can draw out the inner radiance of one’s true self.
Recently I was reading a story that described the “silver” eyes of some Scottish Highland folks. I had never heard eye color described as silver before. Polished silver is not a cold-looking metal. It has a warmth that seems to gleam from deep inside.
Hidden in every hard place is hope. If we look for it with eyes to see, it will eventually gleam forth, and then, rather than be captives we may become captivated by the presence of love and even joy.
Photo by Kacper Szczechla on Unsplash
Tomorrow! Join Christine Sine and special guest Tom Sine as they discuss commitment to a whole life faith and a rhythm of life that flows out of it; live in the Godspace Light Community Facebook Group. Happening every other Wednesday–join us for the next one on January 19th, 2022 at 9am! Can’t make it live? We post them after on our youtube channel, so you never miss the fun!
guest post by Elaine Enns and Ched Myers
Almost 60 years ago, America’s greatest prophet Martin Luther King, Jr. likened racism in our body politic to a lethal cancer. “The surgery necessary to extract it is complex and detailed. As a beginning we must X-ray our history and reveal the full extent of the disease.”
The murder of George Floyd reminded us yet again of how our society is haunted by endemic police violence past and present against black and brown bodies. So did the white supremacist riot at the U.S. Capitol on the Feast of Epiphany (indeed!). Nor would Dr. King have been surprised how our Canadian neighbors have just endured an excruciating summer of revelations, as ground-penetrating radar uncovered unmarked children’s graves at several former Indian Residential School sites across their nation, part of the legacy of Indigenous genocide that the U.S. fully shares.
When we peer beneath the surface of our white-settler lands, history, and culture, we indeed encounter ghosts. And the trivializing of this phenomenon by our Halloween-industrial complex cannot erase the fact that we live in a haunted house, which white denial and “agnosia” (willful or unknowing) have built.
Over the past quarter-century, “hauntology” has become a new social-psychological field of study about how the trauma of past oppression lingers in both people and places. Sociologist Avery Gordon, in her important book Ghostly Matters, contends that “haunting is a constituent element of modern social life through which repressed or unresolved social violence makes itself known in everyday life, especially when they are supposedly over and done with (slavery, for instance) or when their oppressive nature is continuously denied.” Gordon also emphasizes, however, that reckoning with these ghosts can mobilize “individual, social, or political movement and change.” But only if they are faced.
The Gospels portray the healer Jesus of Nazareth unmasking “unclean spirits” that lock people down. Sometimes they represent political “occupying powers” (as in the case of the “Legion” in Mark 5:1–20), sometimes personal forces of “possession” (as with a demon of silencing in Mark 9:17–29). One of Jesus’ strangest parables about the work of healing from such hauntings provides poignant illumination of King’s diagnosis.
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. (Luke 11:24–26)
This may sound strange to modern ears, but it speaks to the complex stratigraphy of inward and outward hauntings that must be exhumed in the work of facing “the full extent of the disease”—its gravity, power, and permeation.
This parable strikes us as a trenchant diagnosis of the psycho-social geography of “possession-occupation” baked into a half-millennium of settler colonialism and racism, plaguing (in different ways) both inheritor-beneficiaries and victim-survivors of this system and its legacy. Indeed, this work is like peeling the proverbial onion seven layers down; the haunting of our psyches and spirits, our communities and culture, our public life and institutions, goes that deep. This is why the process outlined in our new book Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization seems so daunting to us settlers of privilege, and why we avoid it at every turn.
But the gospels insist that Jesus wasn’t a socializing physician, patching people up to carry on with the status quo. Rather, he was a radical doctor who sought out the roots of our dis-ease. He offered strong medicine to treat the external oppression and internal psychosis of empire, which is why his healings were always disruptive of the status quo, earning him the ire of the authorities.
Responding to people in power who insisted there were no fatal flaws in their social-political-religious system, Jesus famously offered this koan: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance (metanoia, meaning to change fundamental direction; Luke 5:31–32). For the inheritors of white privilege, the greatest barrier to our liberation is our delusion of innocence. Only when we recognize the lethality of our dis-ease (to borrow from Twelve Step language) and turn to a Power greater than our own, will we be willing and able to turn our individual and communal histories around in the service of wholeness and justice, and to join with marginalized communities to heal our haunted bodies and body politic.
We long for our churches to become spaces that nurture the courage and competence to embrace a discipleship of decolonization, fueled by the prophetic hope that a day is coming when Creator will wither injustice to its roots, “until the sun of justice rises, with healing in its wings” (Mal 4:2).
Elaine Enns and Ched Myers codirect Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries on unceded and untreatied Chumash land in the Ventura River Watershed of southern California. Healing Haunted Histories was published in February 2021 (see here for reviews, programs and discounts).
As an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links. Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
Celtic Prayer Cards include 10 prayers inspired by ancient Celtic saints like Patrick or contemporary Celtic writers like John O’Donohue. A short reflection on the back of each card will introduce you to the Celtic Christian tradition, along with prayers by Christine Sine and beautiful imagery crafted by Hilary Horn. Celtic Prayer Cards can be used year-round or incorporated into various holidays. Available in a single set of 10 cards, three sets, or to download.
Imagine what our lives would look like if they really flowed to the rhythm God intends for us. Imagine what a sustainable pace would look like that allows time for work and rest, solitude and community, fasting feasting and fun. These are some of the thoughts that revolve in my mind as I re-evaluate my life in the midst of this COVID reality, and seek to live into a sustainable rhythm. They seem to be foremost in the minds of many others too. COVID has forced all of us to rethink our priorities. Many of us are reorienting around rhythms of Sabbath rather than church, relationships rather than tasks, balance rather than work. Nature and the refreshment creation provides has gained priority and the allure of consumption has dwindled.
Sustainability is not about cutting back on consumption and work, though that can be an outcome. Sustainability is primarily about living into life as God intends it to be.
This is one of my ruling passions. I first grappled with it when I contracted chronic fatigue syndrome 30 years ago. I was sure that stress, overwork and burnout were the chief causes, and in my recovery began to explore a more sustainable rhythm of life. My first book on this theme – Godspace, which gave birth to this blog – explored the rhythms of Jesus’ life and the balance he seemed to find between work and rest, community and solitude, feasting and fasting. Unfortunately, knowing this was the kind of rhythm Jesus lived by wasn’t enough. It was too intangible and it was still easy for me in our work-oriented society to rationalize away the patterns that I felt God was leading me towards. Not surprisingly more overwork, stress and burnout followed.
Over the last few years two key questions helped me to move towards a more sustainable way of life: What kind of God do I believe in? What kind of rhythms does creation model for me? Most importantly, my studies in shalom and the rule of life it established for me, gave me the confidence to move forward without guilt or stress.
Photo by Karl Fredrickson on Unsplash
What Kind of God Do I Believe in?
Can you imagine a God who dances with shouts of joy, laughs, plays, enjoys life and invites us to join the fun? I couldn’t until recently. I grew up with a very serious, workaholic God who chastised me for not keeping busy 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Even though I knew this was not what God intended for me, I felt guilty when I slowed down, took a break or just went out and had some fun.
Unless you become like children you cannot enter the kingdom of God. These words riveted my attention a few years ago and I asked myself What are the childlike characteristics that make me fit for the kingdom? This question began a journey of discovery in which I started to explore the childlike characteristics that God sees as prerequisites to kingdom living. I posted on Facebook asking friends what qualities they believed are essential and slowly formulated a list. Playfulness, awe and wonder, imagination, creativity, curiosity, love of nature, compassion, gratitude, and unconditional trust all emerged as essential qualities of childlikeness. Yet we live in a world of play deprivation, nature deficit disorder, awe and wonder depletion and compassion fatigue. As a result I think we suffer from God deprivation too.
As I have said numerous times, I am increasingly convinced that rediscovering our inner child is essential for our spiritual health. Awe and wonder, imagination and curiosity connect us to the God who is present in every moment and everything in a way that nothing else can. They enrich our contemplative core and expand our horizons to explore new aspects of our world and of our God.
Believing in a God who loves to get his hands dirty planting gardens, who makes mud pies to put on the eyes of the blind, and who does happy dances and sings with joy over all of humanity and in fact all of creation has revolutionized my faith. This is the theme of my book The Gift of Wonder, as many of you will recognize, but there are a couple of steps you can take now to follow this path.
- Read some children’s books – maybe get back to the favorites from your childhood, or ask your kids, grandkids or friend’s kids which ones they enjoy most. Read them together, or if you don’t have kids and grandkids volunteer at the local library or with friends to read stories.
- Spend time with kids – we all need kids in our lives. They ask us difficult questions and help us let go of our pretentious and often unrealistic expectations of ourselves and of others.
- Reconnect to your senses – kids view the world through all their senses, but we adults often limit ourselves to sight and sound and even these senses have very confining borders. Rediscovering the joy of smells, the wonder of textures, the delight of sunlight through trees opens us to a God of delight and rejoicing, a God who invites us to relax, to just sit in contentment and wonder or allow ourselves to be distracted by the beauty of a butterfly.
What Can Gardening Teach Us About God’s Rhythm?
Garden day
As I often say, I read about the story of God in the Bible but in the garden I experience it. That is definitely true for the rhythms of God too. Working in the garden has given me permission to relax into a different pace of life.
We think of spring as the season of planting, but in God’s world seed is scattered in the autumn as seed heads mature and burst. Then the seed rests. Covered by a wintery coat it waits until the warmth of spring brings it to life.
The garden year has two seasons of rest and two of frantic activity. Winter is a time of preparation, when roots go down deep and pruning is done. Then comes spring, probably the busiest time in the garden. We plant, weed, fertilize, and mulch. We spend as much time as possible getting our garden ready for the coming season of growth, blossom and fruit. Then comes summer, vigorous growth, a riot of colorful flowers and rich fruit develop. Surprisingly this too is a season of rest – this time a rest of enjoyment and satisfaction. We watch the maturing of what we have planted, taking credit for it but really having little to do to bring it into being. I love to go out in the morning to see how the beans and zucchini have grown and tomatoes ripened. I do a little weeding and maybe some watering but this is a time to enjoy the beauty, the fragrance and the delight of a hopefully well-planned garden. Autumn is the next busy season when the full harvest overwhelms us with its abundance. We work furiously to eat, preserve and store all that appears. We recruit friends and share harvest celebrations and then we collapse exhausted and grateful for the resting of winter months.
Recognizing that these patterns woven through all creation are God-designed and God-intended has been liberating for me. I find that my body too responds to these rhythms and if I ignore it I do fall into the trap of unsustainability again.
Pear blossom
How Sustainably is Your Rhythm?
I meet so many overworked, burnt out disillusioned Christians who have lost touch with the God of balance and sustainability. As a result they lose touch with the beauty of the message of the gospel and its implications for a life of joy and balance. Are you one of them? Set aside time today to prayerfully reflect on your priorities and the rhythms that govern your life. Ask yourself:
Is this the rhythm God intends for me?
How could I develop a more sustainable way of life?
What would my life look like if I gave myself totally to God?
The God of rhythm and balance fill you
with the stability of rest and work and enjoyment today.
The God of fun and festivity surround you
with laughter and play and delight.
The God of life and love enrich you
with a future that brings satisfaction and joy and sustainability.
May you dance with the angels,
And shout with the children,
May you sing with all creation
Of the wonder of God’s presence.
(c) Christine Sine 2022
NOTE: As an Amazon Associate I make a small amount for purchases made from the above links. Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
“You can infuse your life with joy, even right in the middle of winter when you need it most…”
Join Christine Aroney-Sine TONIGHT for a series of five inspiring conversations, based on her book, The Gift of Wonder: Creative Practices for Delighting in God.*
Wednesday nights from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m on Zoom
- January 19 – The Awe of Wonder (Introduction)
- January 26 – Wonder & Trauma
- February 2 – Play!
- February 9 – Reminiscing
- February 16 – The Joy of Gratitude
* We will mail you the book with your $10 registration. If you already have the book, the series is free.
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!