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:
“Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus” Written for The University Of Notre Dame Folk Choir by Steven C.
Warner, released on the album “Prophets of Joy”
Copyright 1996 World Library Publications
“La Ténèbre(Our Darkness)”, “In The Lord” 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)
“Seek Ye First” By Karen Lafferty Copyright 1972 Maranatha! Music
Thank you for praying with us! www.saintandrewsseattle.org
photos and writing by June Friesen
Recently I was doing a bit of study on the background of the passage in Isaiah 9 that is often used in churches in connection with Advent and Christmas preparation. It reads:
2 The people who walk in [spiritual] darkness will see a great Light;
Those who live in the dark land, The Light will shine on them.
3 You [O God] will increase the nation, You will multiply their joy;
They will rejoice before You like the joy and jubilation of the harvest,
As men rejoice when they divide the spoil [of victory].
4 For You will break the yoke of Israel’s burden and the staff on their shoulders,
The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian.
5 For every boot of the marching warrior in the battle tumult,
And [every soldier’s] garment rolled in blood, will be used for burning, fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a Child shall be born, to us a Son shall be given;
And the government shall be upon His shoulder,
And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 There shall be no end to the increase of His government and of peace,
[He shall rule] on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From that time forward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. 8 The Lord sends a word (message) against Jacob,
And it falls on Israel [the ten northern tribes, the kingdom of Ephraim].
9 And all the people know it…
As I read this passage in a few different translations, it spoke of God’s commitment to the Israelites as being passionate and how when God is passionate, He will bring it to pass. The other thing I noted as I was doing some reading is that this prophetic word was given to the particular part of the Israelite nation where Jesus would be born, grow up and do the greater share of His ministry.
The Israelite nation/tribes struggled over the years in the Old Testament with their faithfulness in worshipping and following God. There were ups and downs; times when they honored God in their lives and then times when they mixed idolatry of other gods/nations in their worship. Surely there were times when the prophets spoke about the coming Messiah, that they had to wonder if the prophecy would ever come true.
Sometimes as one reads the Scriptures it seems as if there are specific things God speaks into our lives. They can be different for each one of us as our lives are different and they also can speak into our lives at different times. For me–as I spent time with these verses and read other verses, particularly about Jesus’ ministry–my spirit was stirred to embrace the compassion God/Jesus shows all through the Old and New Testament for humanity. It built hope in my spirit to have this reminder this year and I pray that it will also bring hope into your spirit as well.
There are days when we have felt as if we were walking or living in some sort of darkness. Sometimes it may be something that we can easily identify and address and other times it may be sort of a grey cloud that kind of hangs around for a time. The great assurance that I have learned to embrace is that in the midst of those clouds God presence ‘is’, and because of His passionate love for me and for you He will be present all the way through whatever the struggle may be…and then one day His brilliant presence will radiate our life with a new hope. I invite you today to embrace God’s gift of hope this year as we move through Advent. What will I unwrap as a new gift of hope this year at Christmas? What will you unwrap as a new gift of hope this year at Christmas?
LIGHT OF HOPE
There is a light that brings hope –
A light that shines in the darkness of the night,
A light that shines in the darkness of the storm,
A light that shines in the darkness of death,
A light that shines in the darkness of war,
A light that shines in the darkness, yes…..
And then the question comes to my spirit –
Will I be this light that shines with a blessing and gift of hope?
Light of hope please fill my spirit with a blessing of hope
And help me to share hope with those who feel hopeless,
Help me to remember that in their sadness and loneliness
I can be a gift with my presence.
Light of hope please fill my spirit with Your gift of light –
So, others tossing in the storms of darkness can find their way through.
Light of hope, please illuminate my life with Your Spirit’s touch
So, as I reach out and enfold the sad and grieving, they will be touched with a ray of hope as small as it may be (may it be enlarged as time goes forward);
Light of hope, please place some gifts of spiritual light in the areas of war
And in the midst of the tragedy and havoc may there be spaces where peace is available.
And God, hope –
O how we need hope in this land, in this world –
H- Healing for the lands and peoples everywhere,
O – Open our hearts please to embrace and bathe in Your Holy Light,
P – Peacefully draw us into Your presence of personal spiritual healing,
E – Envelope us graciously and enable us to then also envelope others with this gift of hope and healing from You.
Amen and amen.
“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.
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. Or, give as a gift to a gardener in your life–see the course description for how!
We are approaching the Third Week of Advent! How time is flying this year compared to last! I’m still in the midst of decorating and our tree is still in a box waiting to be put up and decorated. Last year we purchased our first “non real” tree and since we celebrate the Season of Christmas, also known as the 12 Days of Christmas, I’m not feeling too far behind. Just a little. Thanks to the Season of Christmas, we keep the celebration going and the tree up through Epiphany on January 6th. As Christine said in our Facebook live on Wednesday, we get this time “all to ourselves” as the rest of the world gets on with life. The Church calendar allows us to slow down and experience the wonder of the birth for twelve days, not just one!
So in week three of traditional Advent, the wreath often has a pink candle and this is the candle of JOY. This Sunday is also known as Gaudete Sunday from the Latin word Rejoice! Learn more HERE and watch a great video meditation.
How do we open the GIFT of JOY this week and in the days ahead? Maybe you aren’t feeling the JOY this year. Maybe you’re more tired or more frustrated by the pandemic than even in 2020. I sure feel that!
WHAT ARE THE THINGS BRINGING YOU JOY RIGHT NOW? Take time to write them down. Things like …A call from a friend, a beautiful day, fresh snowfall, Christmas lights…they don’t have to be big things! Things that make you smile.
What can you do to add more JOY into your life during these days of Advent? Maybe you need to consider the things that are sucking the JOY and WONDER out of us. Things like:
Fatigue
Fear of Failure
Anger
Anxiety & worry
Bitterness
Disappointment
Discouragement
News
Politics
Conflict
Clutter
Stress
Too much social media
The pandemic
Too much work
What is sucking the JOY and WONDER out of you right now?
What is one thing you could do to stop the wonder killers this week? Plan time for JOY!
The Lectionary for Sunday skips ahead to adult John the Baptist preparing the way for the ministry of Jesus in Luke 3. At thinplaceNASHVILLE we continued on in Luke 1 OPENING THE GIFT of JOY that John’s parents received when their long-awaited child was born.
The Birth of Saint John the Baptist, by Artemisia Gentileschi,
LUKE 1: 57-80 The MESSAGE Birth of John the Baptist
57-58 When Elizabeth was full-term in her pregnancy, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives, seeing that God had overwhelmed her with mercy, celebrated with her.
59-60 On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child and were calling him Zachariah after his father. But his mother intervened: “No. He is to be called John.”
61-62 “But,” they said, “no one in your family is named that.” They used sign language to ask Zachariah what he wanted him named.
63-64 Asking for a tablet, Zachariah wrote, “His name is to be John.” That took everyone by surprise. Surprise followed surprise—Zachariah’s mouth was now open, his tongue loose, and he was talking, praising God!
65-66 A deep, reverential fear settled over the neighborhood, and in all that Judean hill country people talked about nothing else. Everyone who heard about it took it to heart, wondering, “What will become of this child? Clearly, God has his hand in this.”
67-79 Then Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied,
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
he came and set his people free.
He set the power of salvation in the center of our lives,
and in the very house of David his servant,
Just as he promised long ago
through the preaching of his holy prophets:
Deliverance from our enemies
and every hateful hand;
Mercy to our fathers,
as he remembers to do what he said he’d do,
What he swore to our father Abraham—
a clean rescue from the enemy camp,
So we can worship him without a care in the world,
made holy before him as long as we live.
And you, my child, “Prophet of the Highest,”
will go ahead of the Master to prepare his ways,
Present the offer of salvation to his people,
the forgiveness of their sins.
Through the heartfelt mercies of our God,
God’s Sunrise will break in upon us,
Shining on those in the darkness,
those sitting in the shadow of death,
Then showing us the way, one foot at a time,
down the path of peace.
80 The child grew up, healthy and spirited. He lived out in the desert until the day he made his prophetic debut in Israel.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
What do you notice that you haven’t noticed before?
What questions come up?
What do you notice about JOY?
Ghirlandaio
THE GIFT OF WAITING…Zechariah had to wait for 9 months to have a voice again. Elizabeth had to wait for 9 months to have a long time prayer fulfilled. The Children of Israel had waited for 400 years for the sign of a prophet. What do you notice about waiting? Why is it so hard to wait? What have you been waiting on for a long time? Talk to Jesus about where you are with waiting on this thing or these things.
Zechariah and Elizabeth WAITED on JOY and finally got to open up the gift!
ARE YOU WILLING TO WAIT FOR THE GIFT of JESUS this ADVENT?
HOMEWORK this week:
“Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God’s Sunrise will break in upon us,
Shining on those in the darkness,
those sitting in the shadow of death,
Then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace. LUKE 1: 79
TAKE time to watch the SUNRISE and consider how God is breaking into your life. TALK with God about how you need God to show you the way into the NEW YEAR.
How can you be a person of PEACE in the days ahead?
ADVENT CLOSING PRAYER
Lord God,
Calm us as we wait for the Gift of Jesus.
Cleanse us to prepare the way for his arrival. Help us to slow down and prepare our hearts. Help us to wait and take time to be with you. Teach us to contemplate the wonder of God with us.
Teach us to know the presence of your Spirit. Teach us to bear the life of Jesus and live out his Kingdom.
Today and Always. AMEN
(adapted from Ray Simpson of Lindesfarne)
More about the ART:
Main photo Sunrise over the Vineyard Path in St.Helena CA by Lilly Lewin
The Birth of Saint John the Baptist, by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1635
Fresco of the Birth of John by
Domenico Ghirlandaio
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
AND If you’d like a PDF of our thinplaceNASHVILLE devotion on this, email me at freerangeworship@gmail.com
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.
Today’s litany for the Third week of Advent is adapted from my book Waiting for the Light.
The coming of our Lord is near,
Something new is around the corner,
Love, joy, peace and hope,
We await the promise of your coming.
The coming of our Lord is near,
Something new is appearing,
A child, a saviour, God’s much beloved son,
We await the hope of your coming.
The coming of our Lord is near,
Something new is being birthed,
A new heaven, a new world, a new community,
We await the long expected One.
The coming of our Lord is near,
We wait in joyful expectation for what is emerging,
Love comes down at Christmas,
And we await your coming.
(Pause to light the appropriate Advent candles)
The coming of our Lord is near
and we await the promise of your coming,
Light of the world draw close,
Shine on us with your guiding presence,
Shine in us with your truth and forgiveness,
Shine through us with your mercy and love.
The coming of our Lord is near
and we await the promise of your coming,
Bring light and life and love into our world,
Lead us to the fullness of life,
Where peace and righteousness kiss,
Where truth and justice embrace.
Come Lord Jesus come
You who are love incarnate,
You who give life eternal,
You who are the One in whom all things find completion,
Draw close and teach us the ways of peace.
Come Lord Jesus come,
You who are fully human yet fully God,
Come again into our world,
Come again into our lives,
Draw close, come again and make us whole.
Scripture Readings: read appropriate scriptures for the day.
Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe;
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world;
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings;
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trial too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen. (The Lord’s Prayer: Maori and Polynesia)
God who is justice, come.
Come to refugees and victims of violence throughout the world.
God who is righteousness, come.
Come to all who have been mistreated and abused.
God who is compassion, come.
Come to all who are sick and in need of healing.
God who is love, come.
Come to all who hate and live in fear.
Lord Jesus Christ we await your coming,
We wait filled with hope,
Knowing your light will shine in the darkness.
We wait anticipating your peace,
Believing that one day it will fill our world.
We wait embracing your love,
May we reach out to share it with our neighbours.
We wait with joy,
Bubbling within us in expectation of your birth.
Lord we wait,
Come soon and fill us with your life.
Light of the world come, draw near,
In this Advent season come into our world afresh,
Draw all the world’s people into your embrace,
Open our hearts to welcome you.
Light of the world come, draw near,
Shine your star that we might follow,
Let angel choruses welcome you,
And proclaim your peace through all the earth.
Light of the world come, draw near,
Birth in us something new,
Fill the emptiness within,
Let your love overflow in us, through us, beyond us.
Amen.
Last week I delighted in this gift from a friend–a card with this oak leaf inside. In the middle of the leaf you can see a perfect heart-shaped hole. She picked up the leaf because of my recent post about finding heart-shaped rocks in nature. Responses like this are very special to me. I read recently that a quick comment can boost morale by 28% so you can imagine how much this simple gift boosted me. I feel incredibly blessed when people are inspired by reading Godspace posts, and looking at this leaf today encouraged me to look back and reminisce a little about the Godspace accomplishments of 2021.
Most of my attention is still on Advent and Christmas but I am also planning for next year. An important step in that planning is looking back at the highs and lows of the past year discerning what God is saying for the future. 2021 was quite an important year for Godspace and I am grateful for the ways that all of you contributed to our success. The purpose of Godspace is to help create a pathway to a more vital whole-life faith for individuals, churches and communities and I feel that this last year helped us grow into this purpose in ways I never anticipated.
Corporate Advent Wreath – St Andrews Quiet Day.
At the beginning of the year Lilly Lewin and I formed a partnership that grew out of her regular Freerange Friday contributions to the blog. Lilly is an ongoing creative inspiration to me. Her corporate Advent Wreath was the highlight of my recent Quiet Morning retreat at St Andrews Episcopal church in Seattle. Our collaboration blossomed into four virtual retreats, three of which are available as online courses – Making Time for a Sacred Summer; Gearing Up for a Season of Gratitude and Walking in Wonder Through Advent. With Bethany Dearborn Hiser as an additional presenter, we recorded still another online course – Time to Heal. More recently Lilly and I started Facebook live sessions on the Godspace Light Community group. Who knows where this partnership will lead in the future?
The Facebook Godspace Light Community group is another new venture greeted with great enthusiasm. It provides a place for some that don’t contribute to the blog to share thoughts and articles on faith and sustainability. I am very grateful for June Friesen who posts daily reflections, and for the Earthkeepers podcast that greatly expands my perspectives on sustainability and faith. Others contribute less frequently from all over the world, often challenging us with their faith, concern for justice and sustainability. And the occasional free book give-aways add another form of excitement to the group.
We also added several new writers to the Godspace blog community this year – most recently Elaine Breckenridge from Camano Island just north of Seattle, and John van de Laar in South Africa. Elaine’s Christ Angel post on Tuesday was very inspirational as was her contribution to the Godspace Light Community Group discussion on St Nicholas. I certainly learned a lot from her. John provides excellent liturgies and other resources on his site Sacredise many of which have enriched my own spiritual life over the last few years so I am delighted to have him as a more active part of the Godspace community. His post yesterday on a Radical Advent challenged me.
We also added numerous items to our resource pages. One of my friends described these as some of the best little-known resource lists on the planet. I am amazed at how many contact me asking permission to use excerpts from poems, liturgies and posts and am delighted to see how these strengthen the spiritual lives of congregations everywhere.
Last but not least there are the books, cards, and free downloads we provide. Yesterday we added A Quiet Advent Retreat to these. Quiet time during the Advent season is essential and I hope you will take advantage of this new free resource.
We are all enriched by the broad array of perspectives from different cultures and religious traditions that our global community brings to us both through the Godspace website and through Facebook. We appreciate your prayers as we seek to discern God’s direction for us in 2022. How can we more effectively create pathways to a more vital whole-life faith for the individuals and congregations we serve? If you have suggestions we would love to hear from you either through a comment below or an email.
In the words of John O’Donohue:
We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
Have you started thinking about your New Year’s resolutions yet? I know it’s early, and we haven’t even got through Christmas yet, but the question is important because if we don’t get the message of Advent, whatever changes we may try to create on the 31st of December will be short-lived and insignificant.
We like to think of Advent as a time of preparation for Christmas. It’s far less threatening this way. When all we’re doing is waiting for a baby, that’s easy. We do it all the time when friends or family members await a new addition to their families. We wait, we celebrate and then, when the happy event is over, we go back to our lives as normal. Even if the baby we wait for is divine, even if the man the baby becomes is “God with us,” it requires little from us. God walking on earth is nothing more than a curious phenomenon if all it asks of us is to accept a miraculous idea.
But, John the Baptiser, who is always the focus of two of the four Sundays of Advent, does not allow us this safe distance. He calls people to prepare, yes. He calls them to repent, yes. But, then he asks them to do something that will open them to something new and radical and deeply transformative. He asks them to be baptised. Now, going under water as a religious ritual doesn’t mean much if that’s all it is, but John makes it clear that he is using this act to point to something more—to the One who will come and baptise people with God’s Spirit.
Suddenly what he’s calling for is not just a new ritual or a new way of thinking. He’s inviting people to allow themselves to be completely remade from the inside out. He’s calling them to get ready for a completely different reality within. To use the language of the Old Testament, the law will no longer be something written on tablets and obeyed by outward action alone. No, now the law will be carved into hearts, made a part of our being and obeyed by a complete overhaul of our values, ethics, attitudes, perspectives, and ways of being and interacting.
This is not just cosmetic, New-Year’s-Resolution change. This is not just God-with-us change. This is God-within-us change. This is the kind of change that stops us in our tracks and makes it impossible for us to live the same way anymore. This is the kind of change that makes us mavericks and outcasts because we will no longer co-operate with systems and practices that violate God’s justice. This is the kind of change that makes paths straight and lays mountains low—it reshapes the very foundations of our world. Because we know that, whatever may be going on in the world around us, we have become part of a different reality, a radically just, compassionate and gracious reality, that exists within the shell of this unjust world, and that will ultimately replace it from the inside out.
Advent is not just about waiting for a baby—not even a divine baby. It’s about waiting for a whole new reality which takes hold of us by first taking our hearts and souls hostage to its justice and grace. And then, because we cannot help but live by its magnetic force, it lays its claim on the whole world through us.
“I baptise you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit,” said John. Are you ready for this? Are you willing to become ready?
Image by Alejandro Piñero Amerio from Pixabay
God’s world is full of wonder–meditate on something beautiful and experience the awe. Pairing images with prayers, we offer many different types of artful focus for your quiet times. Prayer cards are available for different seasons and reasons from Advent to Lent or as Celtic prayers, Breath prayers, prayers of Wonder, or prayers for a Pause. Most are available to download, or in sets of 1 or 3–so you can enjoy in your own devotions and gift some beauty to a friend! Visit our shop to see our many selections!
One of the soul seeds that I am incubating this season of Advent is greater self-acceptance. I am burdened at times by an inner critic who delights in censoring my efforts and who often whispers in my ear, “Can’t you do better than that?” Thankfully, I just returned to John O’Donohue’s book, Anam Cara where he wrote, “When you decide to practice inner hospitality, the self-torment ceases. The abandoned, neglected, and negative selves come into a seamless unity.” Wow!
Those words feel right to me. Yet, what does a practice of inner hospitality look like? I have made some progress using dreamwork and creative visualization in contemplative prayer, but I wondered how can I practice inner hospitality as I move through the course of an ordinary day? How can I stay awake to the new life stirring within?
A sign pointed the way as I unwrapped my International Santa Claus collection. I have some twenty pieces of different figurines which depict how different countries around the world imagine the embodiment of the Christmas spirit of giving. Each year I am delighted to be reminded of those many images. And each year, when it comes to releasing the Christkindl from Germany, I am reminded that it is broken. This particular Christkindl takes the form of a feminine angel, dressed in white holding a basket of treats and toys. She is beautiful to behold—except for her broken wing which has become completely detached from her body.
I have not known how to repair her, and those more gifted than I in that department tell me it cannot be done. So, every year I look at her, sigh, wrap her up with her broken wing and put her back into the box. She is then stored with the empty boxes of her counterparts who are joyfully on display throughout my house.
Not this year. As I looked at her just the other day, I said, out loud, “What’s wrong with an angel with only one wing?” And as I gazed at her, practicing visio divina, (praying on and with an object instead of a text) I saw just how beautiful she is. She is beautiful not despite her broken wing but because of her broken wing. I smiled at her with love, compassion and admiration.
Can I do the same for me? Often, I try to ignore my inner critic or silence her. I understand now that smiling and loving her with compassion and admiration is another way to practice inner hospitality. The route to inner healing is surely about embracing our wounds and making way for whatever seems broken or worn or dysfunctional.
I’ve named my angel Gretel. I am so grateful for her re-entrance into my life. I keep her close to me, carrying her from place to place. Most often she stands on the kitchen window sill above the sink while I do the dishes or on my desk when I do my work there. She reminds me to acknowledge and take care of my many selves of the Self. She has become a sacred sign that points the way to the growing soul seeds in my heart, waiting to be reborn and like the Christ child usher in a new creation.
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TOMORROW!
Join Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin on Wednesday, December 8th at 9am PDT (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 topic. And catch us live for the next session–happening next on January 5th!
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Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
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