Everywhere I turn at the moment people are talking about grief and the work that needs to be done to enable us to establish a “new normal” in the reality that confronts us. As I think about this I am reminded of the Wise Men whose arrival in Jesus’ life we celebrated last week. They were warned by a dream to go back home another way and it seems to me that 2022 is beckoning us to do the same. We too are being told to go back by another way, a way that I feel lies through the valley of Baka (the valley of weeping) but it is also a valley that in Psalm 84 God promises can be made into a place of springs.
My current read – The Wild Edge of Sorrow – reminds me that grief is sacred. It calls us back to deeper ground, to the roots of our life. If we treat it with reverence, recognizing the important work it yields in our lives it becomes a place of learning and strengthening and renewal.
COVID made us aware of the grief resident in our souls, the grief we ignored for a long time that will no longer remain silent. There is the grief of our abuse of the earth and the amazing brilliance of a world without pollution that we caught a glimpse of again in the months of lockdown. There is the grief of our abuse of neighbours who look and think differently from us. There is the grief of the abuse of our bodies that cry out for the rest and refreshment that many of us found over the last couple of years. I think there is also the grief of our abuse of God who receives only a cursory acknowledgment of our commitment.
In the midst of this grief, I hear people calling for renewed commitment to a rule of life; a rhythm of life with love of God at the centre. I thought it was a good time for me to challenge all of us (including myself) to think about this and how we develop and live out such a rule.
Discerning a Shared Rhythm of Life Together
I see rules and rhythms of life being adopted both by individuals wanting a more intentional structure for their faith practices and by churches and communities encouraging their leadership and staff to deeper levels of shared commitment.
Most of us, however, still tend to associate a rule of life with monastic or neo-monastic communities that are on the fringes of church and society. We don’t really understand what value a commitment to a common rhythm or rule could possibly have especially in the context of leadership. Some of us think it sounds a bit legalistic. I find however that a rule of life is very freeing. It reminds us of who we are, what God calls us to be and do, and how God calls us to live. It can provide wonderful guidelines that enable us to come together and stay together in unity.
What is a Rule of Life?
A rule of life is a set of practices we commit to that enable us to continue growing closer to God, to each other, to God’s good creation and to the mission God calls us to. In the words of St Benedict, it is “simply a handbook to make the radical demands of the gospel a practical reality in daily life.”
Celtic monasteries centred around the formation of communities in which members followed a certain lifestyle and maintained a regular discipline of prayer and worship. Monks mixed manual, intellectual and spiritual labour, maintaining a balance between engagement in the world and withdrawal from it. These communities provided a focus for the life of the surrounding non-monastic community whose members made different forms of commitment and adhered to a variety of rules that acknowledged and affirmed their gifts and ministry.
A number of contemporary churches and organizations have rediscovered the value of a rhythm of life. Ian Mobsby in his book The Becoming of G_d explains: “As people encounter Christians living out profound expressions of the faith through God’s love, they encounter the depth of a loving Christian community and experience God as their ‘ground of being’ through worship, mission and community… It is in these participative and loving Christian communities that people can encounter the reality of the Christian story of the Holy Trinity not as a hypothetical truth but as a profound reality clueing us in to how we should live.”
A Rule of Life Rooted in Shalom
I spent a lot of time researching shalom when I wrote Shalom and the Wholeness of God back in 2011. Randy Woodley’s indigenous view of shalom expressed in his book Shalom and the Community of Creation was particularly impactful. The above diagram became not only the centre of my beliefs but also the centre for my development of a rule of life for myself and the community in which we live. It’s time for me to revisit this. I am increasingly convinced that we should encourage ourselves and others to develop a rhythm of life based on God’s desire for wholeness – in which prayer intertwines through every aspect of life so that we can keep God and God’s shalomic purposes at the centre of all we are and do.
The current turmoil that bubbles in so many ways around us encourages complacency in those who believe we are headed for an apocalyptic end to the world. For those of us who believe this is a sign of God’s desire for renewal and restoration to the wholeness of the original creation, it is a wake-up call to reevaluate our lives.
As a result, we want to encourage followers of Jesus to live into:
A redeemed (restored) relationship to God, seeking intimacy with God through:
-
- Regular individual prayer & scripture study
- Regular corporate worship balanced with times of listening in solitude – (meditative and contemplative prayer)
- Repentance and confession of sins both personal and societal
- Commitment to personal healing of wounds from the past that create barriers between us and God
- Development of disciplines that encourage a balance between spiritual and secular, community and solitude, work and rest. “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace” (Matt 11:28 The Message)
A redeemed (restored) relationship to God’s worldwide community through:
-
- Intentionally sharing life with others – recognizing that God comes to us in community and that community is essential for Christian faith, actively seeking support and accountability
- Hospitality and celebration – “let everyone be received as Christ” celebrating the in-breaking of God’s resurrection world with others
- Simple living – uncluttering our lives to focus on participating in God’s resurrection life in both local and global community – give me neither poverty nor riches (Prov 30)
- Solidarity with the marginalized – “act justly, love mercy” (Micah 6:8)
- Recognizing all we have belongs to God, becoming whole-life stewards who practice generosity that encourages mutual care – “where your treasure is there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21)
- Humbly examining the ways culture and history have shaped our values, discarding those that are counter to God’s kingdom values and embracing and celebrating those that reflect God’s kingdom values
- Service in the broader community – not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others (Phil 2:4)
A redeemed relationship with God’s creation through
- Responsible ecological stewardship – responding to the fact that “the earth is the Lord’s & the fullness thereof.” (Psalm 24:1)
- Connection to the God revealed through creation
- Enjoyment of God’s creation and creatures
- A commitment to “live lightly on the earth” and do what we can to restore the polluted and devastated world in which we live
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I hope you enjoy today’s beautiful contemplative service from St Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Seattle.
A contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taize. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756 with additional notes below:
“This is my Fathers World” Alternate arrangement by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
Public domain lyrics by Maltbie Davenport Babcock, 1901
“Down in the River to Pray” Traditional American spiritual, public domain
Arrangement by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“Kristus Din Ande (Jesus, Your Spirit in Us)” Copyright and all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
“Kyrie” Text and music by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” Public domain hymn, arrangement by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
Thank you for praying with us! www.saintandrewsseattle.org
by Tom Sine, originally published on NewChangemakers.com
As we race into a very troubled and divisive 2022, wouldn’t be great if someone created “Innovations to Unite Us”?
I have to confess I am not a fan of all the new tech where many of our young are on screen 6 to 12 hours a day and many adults are seduced by new forms of Instagram envy. I am particularly concerned at the number of good people who have been seduced to buy into a range of different conspiracy theories they have come across on new tech sites. Many of these good people have become agents of division not only in their communities, but also in their churches and even their families.
Shira Ovide wrote, “We need creative ways to make connections with others.” Which I think is a great way to launch this new year don’t you? “It is worth rooting for ideas that bring us more of that feeling of togetherness” – Shira Ovide, The tech I want in 2022
While there are indeed a disturbing number of sites that propagate fear-mongering that are not only dividing communities, families, and even churchgoers, some of these angry tech clubs are creating dangerous divisiveness. Thank God there are also groups still working to bring our very polarized country together.
Here is my invitation to invite people you are connected to make a commitment to make 2022 an “Innovations That Unite Us” year to provide a positive alternative to the angry dividers:
I will post some of the best examples that are designed to use technology to come together in 2022 to work for the common good. Send us either models that are already using technology to bring people together in 2022 or send us your new innovative ideas.
EMAIL twsine@gmail.com Let’s Show People What is Possible when we create That Unite Us in 2022!
Photo by Valiant Made on Unsplash
“You can infuse your life with joy, even right in the middle of winter when you need it most…”
Join Christine Aroney-Sine 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.
by Carol Dixon, photo © GT Photos Alnwick
Recently I watched a tv programme which was made at the end of December 2016 – only 5 years ago yet it looked like a different world. No masks, no social distancing, strangers hugging each other to wish each other a happy New Year. Above all there was no worry behind people’s eyes.
My hope and prayer for the coming year is that the freedom and joy we experienced before the Covid pandemic will return, and the lessons of sacrifice and service we have learned will stay with us so that the world becomes a more compassionate place.
As we step into this new year many of us may be feeling nervous and uncertain. I know I am as I learn to live a different kind of life while I recover from my colostomy and I wonder how I can continue to serve God in the way I used to as a lay preacher serving the churches in our area. Perhaps I have to discover new ways of ministry and service and need a new vision of bringing God’s grace to those I am called to serve.
One of my earliest posts for Godspace Light featured my hymn ‘Give us the Vision‘. I wrote it many years ago when I was feeling daunted about the coming year. I awoke one morning from a dream where I was standing on the threshold of a door of frosted glass. I could only see strange unclear shapes and I was afraid to turn the handle and walk through. In my prayer time God gave me the words and the music to sing:
1. Give us the vision
for the coming year,
as we look to the future –
to overcome our fear,
and boldly take a stand
as we seek to make each land,
a kingdom fit for you.
- Give us the vision
for the church, your bride,
to be pure, strong and holy –
to overcome our pride,
and humbly understand
we receive with open hand,
the pow-er from you.
- Give us the vision
for our exploited earth
as we watch our planet suffering,
and see the peoples’ hurt;
spur us on at your command
until each and every land
gives glory to you.
©Carol Dixon 1988 (altd 1998) A modern arrangement of the music is in ‘Songs for the new millennium’ available also from Methodist Publishing House
May God give each of us the vision in 2022 to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and share his love, hope, and joy with all we meet.
A New Year Prayer:
May your path be smooth
May the weather be fair
May your journey be light
And may Jesus be your Companion on the way.
(based on an old Celtic prayer)
New Year blessings to you all.
The photo above is dawn over the river Aln in Alnwick, Northumberland, the town where I was born and brought up, taken by my friend George Taylor © GT Photos Alnwick.
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Today, January 7th is Orthodox Christmas Day, and it’s the day after the Feast of Epiphany and the celebration of the Magi following the Star and finding the Light that is for ALL the world. If you’re Orthodox, Merry Christmas! And Happy Epiphany to us all! I love the season of Epiphany! It gives us all a chance to look again at the arrival of Jesus. So often, at least in pre-covid days, I could get so busy with the activities and work of the holidays, that too often the REAL meaning and message of Christmas got a bit lost. I found that celebrating the season of Epiphany gave me and my students a chance to breathe in the wonder of the season! And Epiphany reconnects us to Emmanuel, God with us, as the New Year begins.
Maybe you need some time to keep the wonder of Christmas going into 2022!
One of my Epiphany practices is to look back at the last year and review it with Jesus.
1. I go through my calendar and look back at the things that have happened…events, trips, meetings etc. What do I notice? What do I want to continue into the New Year or the next season? What do I need to delete or leave behind?
2. I go through my photos (I take LOTS of photos with my phone) and see what I notice…What has God been up to in my life in the last 12 months?
Often I use Post-It Notes to visually make a list of the things I notice each month.
3. I look back through the events in the world in the past year…What do I need to grieve? What do I need to be grateful for? WHERE AND HOW have I seen God at work? This past year has been another year of great turmoil, uncertainty, and loss. But there has also been beauty, new births, and celebrations! Make a list of the things you need to grieve and give to Jesus to hold. Make a list of things you need to remember that were gifts, good things, things to be grateful for. Take time to thank Jesus.
Consider the Sweet and Sour of the past year….Use the photos (in the links below) to pray with … allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through the pain and the sorrow, the beauty, and the joy.
Jonny Baker taught me years ago, to use sweet and sour tastes as a way to remember that Jesus is with us in both the sweet and the sour things of our lives. So find a sweet food and a sour food. PICK A LINK AND REVIEW THE PHOTOS.
What do you notice? What do you need to grieve? What are you grateful for? Let the Holy Spirit speak to you through the photos. TAKE TIME TO PRAY with them.
YEAR IN PICTURES NEW YORK TIMES
Taste the Sour food…thank Jesus for being with you in the sour things of this past year.
Taste the Sweet food …thank Jesus for being with you in the sweet things of this past year.
Epiphany celebrates the Magi following the star to find the King. They leave their families and friends, to follow the star in darkness, not knowing the way, trusting that the light of the star will guide them. They journey for weeks, maybe months through strange lands with great hope! And they find Him, the King of Kings! At Epiphany, we celebrate that the King is not just for the Jewish family, but for the entire world! And in these crazy times, we all need this LIGHT in our lives!
What is God’s STAR calling you to in 2022?
Even when things don’t look like you expect them to look, are you willing to follow anyway?
In order to follow a Star you usually have to be in the dark. Read the quote below. How does this relate to your life right now? How does this give you hope? Or if it doesn’t give you hope, why not?
“Learning to trust darkness and dreams has given more depth and meaning to my faith journey. Darkness harbors new birth. Endings allow for renewal without overcrowding. Loss is the other side of love. For the upcoming week of reflections, I have chosen passages from Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. Rather than the “full solar spirituality” that Taylor describes as the sunny side of faith, certainty of belief, positive answers, and incessant focus on light, I breathe a sigh of relief when the psalmist proclaims “darkness and light are as one to You.” Even death and despair have their place in our journey toward wholeness.
In this season of Epiphany, may we look for the gifts of darkness, of desert loneliness and wilderness times. May we notice what has been hidden in the shadows. May we follow a trembling star to a new place, where the mysteries of life are unfolding in darkness. May we trust the journey ahead. “ –Marjory Zoet Bankson, Editor of InwardOutward.org
THE BLESSING OF LIGHT
May the blessing of light be upon you,
Light without and Light within…
And in all your comings and goings,
May you ever have a kindly greeting
From any you meet along the road.
From old Gaelic p. 1091 Celtic Daily Prayer book 2
©lillylewin and freerangeworship@gmail.com
Join Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin for engaging discussions and timely topics 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!
What do you think of when you think of “The Three Wise Men”? Are they those guys who get slid into the nativity scene in church just before things get cleared away at the end of the Christmas season? Do you see them as three or more or what? Why did only the gospel of Matthew mention them? Why didn’t Luke, with his boasts that he then makes in The Book of Acts about writing a true historic account in both his gospel and part two?
I seem to be drawn to the Wise men/the three kings as I’ve written other posts about them, even one on this site last year. So I thought I’d check them out a bit more. Now I’d been told at some sermon somewhere that they were possibly Zoroastrians and I found some interesting stuff on this website, which might explain why Matthew, who was allegedly writing to help the Jewish people understand Jesus, includes them:
With the exception of religious conservatives, most religious historians believe the Jewish, Christian and Muslim beliefs concerning God and Satan, the soul, heaven and hell, the virgin birth of the savior, the slaughter of the innocents, resurrection, the final judgment, etc. were all derived from Zoroastrianism.
These men did not just use astrology to show that the birth of the Son of God had been predicted in the heavens, but also were able to connect in the virgin birth and also resurrection, not to mention the way Herod chose to slaughter the innocents.
Matthew’s gospel starts with the genealogy of Jesus, which includes the women in his line, Joseph’s acceptance of who Jesus was, the visit by the Magi, the escape to Egypt, and the slaughter of the innocents. When looked at in the light of the above quote about the Zoroastrians it looks very much as if Matthew is speaking to those who would have known this. I feel that he is saying to show how big this whole birth of Jesus is and how inclusive. It includes women; it includes accepting the miraculous; it includes deep grief too.
How often do we want to include grief in the wonder of Jesus being born? But it is a fact of life. I won’t expand on that because there have been some good posts on Godspace that you can search for. But I think it is one of the amazing things that Matthew makes us aware of, if we look properly, that the miraculous and grief sit hand in hand. This is part of the inclusivity of things. It isn’t just to include men and women, people of various colours, nations, sexualities, and more but it is to include all the range of emotions from joy to grief. If we look properly we can see this as yet another miracle. God doesn’t get rid of certain emotions and life events but knows and understands and walks with us in them.
So as we enter 2022–for many after the last two years with trepidation and uncertainty, with anxiety and fear–let us remember that Jesus was born into this, that God understands this, that we are not walking in alone.
And I’ll end with a prayer one of the characters says towards the end of the Netflix film “Don’t Look Up” which I saw on Jon Kuhrt’s blog the other day, which I think is worth holding on to as we enter this unknown year which will be filled with miracles and grief and all points in between.
Dearest Father and Almighty Creator,
We ask for your grace tonight, despite our pride.
Your forgiveness, despite our doubt.
Most of all Lord, we ask for your love to soothe us through these dark times.
May we face whatever is to come in your divine will,
with courage and open hearts of acceptance.
Amen.
Photo by Pixabay
Breath prayers, scripture readings, walking meditations, creative and contemplative activities, and unstructured time for quiet reflection help us rekindle the wonder of Advent. Enjoy the wonderful opportunity for inner reflection and renewing silence that this free downloadable Advent retreat invites us into as the season of prayerful expectation unfolds.
This retreat is best done with a group—so gather with friends or family, or a church small group.
Seems a lambasting thought
that joy might be possible
deep in the belly of grief.
Think of it as access
to the otherwise inaccessible Spirit
when we most need relief.
There seems little to celebrate about grief, that lamentable position of situation or circumstance that lingers and tarries, always far longer into our exhaustion than it relents.
But it’s not until we’ve been there—cast against the rocks in the howling squall of loss; tossed violently by that horrendous milieu of life and kept there—that we recognise that at the end of us is the beginning of God. We might otherwise fail to find our salvation.
Yet it never quite feels right to say it just like that, does it?
Be that as it may, we have the opportunity to juxtapose that change and indeed growth occurs serenely against the flow of our individual control, whereby our preference for and bias toward comfort so often works against the schema of God to take us into the divine.
Oh, how we hate and thereby avoid pain. And yet out of being pushed and stretched and cajoled by loss, we gain access to the divinity ever beyond the horizon of our characteristic ease.
When suddenly we find ourselves backwashed into a place we can no longer deny or avoid–where we’re so weak we find nothing within us can resist the current underneath the groundswell of life’s rushing torrent–there’s one moment, perhaps, where joy becomes us, despite the horror of suffering that brought it to us.
It’s a moment that the light breaks through—and it only needs to be a moment.
One moment is all the testimony the light needs. Once that light bores through, it leaves itself, embellished, a record on the memory, huh! Such embellishment is of course welcome, for it is the very light of hope, an anchor with which to cling to in our distress.
Jesus’ Spirit overcoming,
not succumbing.
As disciples, we do have trouble in this world, yet, as John 16:33 states and the preceding seventeen verses contend, there is an abounding joy to be had for the hope set before each one of us—due even one encounter with the living Christ, not despite the pain of grief but because of it, founded within it.
We only need to have been there once, and the memory of such an event is a light that can’t be darkened. Once for all time is the victory of Christ at Calvary, and once for all time is the victory we experience in encountering the living Christ, and it’s faith that compels us to relive such a glorious thought.
Joy is not only possible in grief,
it is found there in its purest form.
“Anyone who thinks that gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with the dream” – Josephine Neuse.
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