by Laurie Klein,
World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
Everything is interconnected,
and genuine care for our own lives
and our relationships with nature
is inseparable
from fraternity, justice, and faithfulness to others.
—Pope Francis, “Laudato Si,” or “Praised Be”
FIVE SEMI-WILD ACRES. Three spirited decades spent exploring them—garden and meadow, wetlands, and woods. Over time, a poem arose:
How to Live Like a Backyard Psalmist
Wear shoes with soles like meringue
and moon-blue stitching so that
every day, for at least ten minutes,
you feel ten years old.
Befriend what crawls, tunnels,
flits, and spawns . . .
Drink rain—hatless, laughing.
Sit on your heels before anything plush
or vaguely kinetic, like
hazel-green kneelers of moss
waving their little parcels
of spores, on hair-trigger stems.
Ponder the strange,
the charged, the dangerous:
lightning on stilts, stalking horizons;
Orion’s owl, cruising
at dusk. Note every blight
and bloom: now, igniting
the sandalwood candle,
gather each strand of the day
and the blue pen, like a needle.
Suture what you can.*
________
But how do I even begin to mend this bountiful, wounded world lurching toward chaos?
I’ve had to start small, with my own backyard, learn names for what lives here, notice what threatens growth. Noxious weeds can be pulled, each stooping bow a potential posture for prayer. Diseased trees can be pruned, or removed with care.
Sometimes the upkeep gets me down. Where would I be without God’s drop-ins? Each speaks its own language. All are eloquent.
- A scruffy deer with delicate lips beheads my tulips.
- Quail romp and bobble beneath the silvery arc of the sprinkler.
- Kamikaze moths barnstorm my lamplit screens at dusk.
Purely present, uniquely themselves, each seems a psalmist. Are creaturely hymns intrinsic? Perhaps they are saying: “Feast often; play more; follow the light.”
I Googled “Fun facts about deer,” then quail, then hummingbird moths. Curiosity invites further discovery, which evokes marvel, then gratitude. Affection ensues.
We protect what we cherish.
Still, I remain wary of wild things and keep my distance. Dare I trust them? And what makes me think they will tolerate my approach? Traits of both lion and lamb conflict my thinking. I want to be admired and rule my turf: I also want to meekly conform, sheep-like—unwilling to lead.
To what extent does the long-promised, peaceable kingdom begin within the human heart?
Enter the porcupine. Formidable spines backlit, it lumbers across the field, spiky tail sashaying. I tiptoe behind it at first, then, enchanted, right alongside. Our gazes lock. The space between us feels charged with wonder. Later, I learn the young are called porcupettes. A group is known as a prickle. And no, they don’t shoot their quills.
O what a quirky, lovable, intricate world!
- An insouciant moose high-steps my fence.
- Someone’s raucous, runaway peacocks, tails at half-mast, crisscross the drive.
- A snake the color of giblets oozes across my kitchen floor.
I sense unspoken invitations: “Stretch your limits; sing, however you can; brave the unexpected.”
A Jewish phrase, tikkun olam, inspires me: “mend the world each day.” The more I learn and observe, the greater my resolve to serve and conserve. The creatures are becoming my mentors.
Cherishing my own backyard widens my view.
Fellow psalmists, will you join me on this World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation?
Source and Sustainer of Life—wild and tame, alive and inert—you bowl us over with Beauty! Thank you for skies hosting light shows, cloudscapes, insects, and birds; seas teeming with countless enigmas; subterranean strata cradling gems, minerals, and ore; terrain bristling with vegetation.
The world you delight in offers us clothing, nourishment, guidance and rescue, income, companionship, medicine, rest, wisdom and opportunity, recreation and so much more.
Thank you for creatures entrusted to our personal care. We lift them before you now . . .
You have interwoven our lives with myriad mysteries. Forgive our indifference. Our laziness. Our occasional greed. Guide our lifestyle choices toward safeguarding fragile habitats.
For the endangered and wantonly sullied: Lord, help us foster rejuvenation.
Amid rising temperatures and dwindling populations, erratic weather, and pervasive ruin: grant us creative means to effect change.
Help us tend and defend the natural world with savvy compassion. With practical hope. With humor and grateful awe.
Dear Maker and Master of all that lives, may your creation-in-waiting once again thrive. May each aspect—along with our efforts—be graced by your wise, redemptive, transfiguring love. Amen.
***
Perhaps every life, fully awakened, can become a healing psalm.
Meander outdoors. What draws your attention? Can a tree or a brook or a stone be a psalmist? What about you? This week, how might you eavesdrop on naturally embodied praise?
- Branch out from your own backyard. Take a virtual stroll through the fabulous Lehman Caves here.
- Immerse in undersea marvels below.
- Fall in love with God’s creatures via these compelling meditations for Advent and Lent, written by Gayle Boss, All Creation Waits.
- Wild Hope: Stories for the Vanishing—extraordinary “collaborations of hope” between humans and endangered species.
- Glimpse the peaceable kingdom as animals rescue one another here.
- Read and celebrate Earth: Our Original Monastery, by Christine Valters-Paintner.
- For the history of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and further resources visit here.
- Read more excerpts from “Laudato Si,” by Pope Francis.
- Peaceable kingdom trailer here:
*“How to Live Like a Backyard Psalmist” first appeared in Where the Sky Opens, by Laurie Klein (Poeima/Cascade). https://wipfandstock.com/9781498230902/where-the-sky-opens/
Porcupine image by analogicus from Pixabay
The next session of Facebook Live with Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin is September 8, 2021! Join us at 9am PST on the Godspace Light Community Group on Facebook. If you missed the last session, check out the recording on YouTube.
post and photos by June Friesen,
1-3 Open your ears, God, to my prayer; don’t pretend you don’t hear me knocking.
Come close and whisper your answer. I really need you.
I shudder at the mean voice, quail before the evil eye,
As they pile on the guilt, stockpile angry slander.4-8 My insides are turned inside out; specters of death have me down.
I shake with fear, I shudder from head to foot.
“Who will give me wings,” I ask—“wings like a dove?”
Get me out of here on dove wings;
I want some peace and quiet.
I want a walk in the country,
I want a cabin in the woods.
I’m desperate for a change
from rage and stormy weather.
What is happening around me? What is happening is so out of control, or at least it is out of ‘my control’. Do you feel like the writer of these verses in the Psalm? Maybe you feel as if when you pray it is nothing more than words into empty space. Maybe you feel as if you have been alienated – from family, friends, neighbors, church family, etc. over the past 19 or so months. It may have been because of COVID restrictions. It may be because of travel restrictions or limits. It may be because of misunderstandings and/or disagreements. Whatever the reason(s), whatever the cause for the change(s) you feel and/or are experiencing, they are real to you even if they are not to be understood, acknowledged, or recognized by others around you.
In this Psalm, I find it interesting that the writer asks to have wings to flee from the situation he is facing. But not only does he ask for wings, he specifically asks for the wings of a dove. A dove is a symbol of peace.
by June Friesen
I have loved doves since I was a child. I probably really fell in love with a pair that chose to build a nest that was at my eye level when I was about 13 years old. The pine tree they chose was on the path in the country to our mailbox. Since I was often asked to go and get the mail, I had the opportunity to observe this pair over several years. The nest was rather flimsy it seemed to me and I wondered at how it could/would hold the eggs. Yet it never failed and every year (doves often return to the same nest) this pair of doves raised a family there. I was privileged to see the eggs arrive one by one. I was privileged to see them hatch one by one and then grow from fuzz to feathers… and eventually, take wing. It was such a miracle to observe – and when I think of God’s Spirit as being similar to a dove this memory comforts me even today.
I may feel that the world is rather a rough place to live. In fact, there are times when I feel that way and I feel or even fear my faith in God is rather flimsy and I wonder if it will fail to hold me. It is then that I can think of this example of the nest – it is all about trust. Can I or will I put my trust in God, even if it seems flimsy at best, and leave the rest up to God? Will I keep my trust in God secure even when my trust struggles here where I find myself on earth? Yes, life has been turned upside down for sure over the past year and a half. Recently I came across this writing from six years ago. I do not remember what was going on in my life at the time but the words say exactly how I have felt and still feel at times recently. Maybe you can relate:
LIFE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
I cannot share with you –
I cannot answer you –
I cannot understand this mystery –
I cannot find the words to speak –
I cannot believe this is reality –
I cannot speak – only silence comes.
I wonder where life went wrong –
I wonder when God went into hiding –
I wonder how one can walk through so much loss –
I wonder at the intensity of this pain –
I wonder when the nightmare will end, if ever –
I wonder where real living begins and where it ends.
God – sometimes in the struggles it seems you are so quiet,
Sometimes it seems every cloud brings another storm,
Sometimes it seems as if every person is an enemy,
Sometimes it seems that the hope promised is out of reach,
Sometimes life is anything but what one was promised when younger,
Sometimes, God, one just has to wonder and ponder and……
God – is it okay that I sit with you quietly too?
I have no words so I am just going to ‘be’ in your presence,
I just hurt so much I know not what to say to you or anyone else for that matter.
I just need to ‘be’ and reflect on all that was and all that is now –
Thank you, God, for your silent presence.
Thank you, friends, for your silent presence – God is here.
(Friesen 2015)
God is here…….thank you God for being here…….help me to remain here with You God even in the silence. Amen.
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post by Rev. Brenda Griffin Warren,
St. Aidan of Lindisfarne sculpted by Kathleen Parbury, 1958, red concrete on granite base, located on St. Mary’s Church grounds, Lindisfarne.
Died August 31, 651AD
Preach the Gospel at all times and use words if necessary
How do we share the Gospel of Jesus the Christ if we don’t speak the language or we don’t easily meld into the society to which we have been planted by the Spirit? Perhaps we can take a clue from St. Aidan’s life that resembled the later St. Francis of Assisi’s admonition to Christians, “preach the Gospel at all times and use words if necessary.”
We know about St. Aidan from The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, Book III in which he praised Aidan for his learning, charity, and simplicity of life. St. Aidan was a 7thc. Irish monk/Bishop, born in Ireland who established a famous Celtic-style monastery on the beautiful and sacred isle of Lindisfarne (also called Holy Island). This tidal isle, in the area of Northumbria in northeastern England, is known as a “thin place” where heaven and earth seem to be only separated by a thin, almost gossamer veil. Many of the early cherished Celtic and Anglo-Saxon saints had significant connections to Lindisfarne including St. Cuthbert, St. Hilda of Whitby, and Bishop Eadfrith who hand wrote and illuminated the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels.
Some scholars believe Aidan was raised, educated, baptized, and later served as a Bishop on the tiny, yet historic monastic island of Iona that was founded by St. Columba. Iona is in the area known as the Inner Hebrides on the southwest coast of Scotland. Other scholars propose that Aidan came from the great Irish monastic foundation of Inish Craig (later called Scattery Island) founded by St. Senan and afterwards Aidan joined the monastic community on the isle of Iona. Later, he journeyed on to Lindisfarne where he established a monastic community and became the first Bishop on this holy isle.
As Lindisfarne is a tidal island that is cut off twice a day by water, it was a good fit for Aidan. It was far enough away for some quietness and solitude and yet, it was also close enough to the Christian King Oswald’s palace in Bamburgh in Northumbria. Irish-born Aidan had a problem though. He agonized over not being able to communicate with his Northumbrian neighbors as Aidan could not speak nor understand the British tongue. The problem was solved by King Oswald who was fluent not only in the British language but also in Gaelic. Since King Oswald had learned Gaelic from his childhood years of exile among the Irish, he was able to translate as Aidan preached the milk of the Gospel of God’s love to the people in the area. Aidan would also often leave Lindisfarne and travel into the local villages showing them God’s love and care firsthand.
Lindisfarne shone as a beacon of light throughout England and Bishop Aidan became known as the “Apostle to the English.” Even though this saint struggled with the language of the Northumbrians, the local Celts and Anglo-Saxons saw Aidan’s life of simplicity, good works, and faith and they knew that they could trust what this man was telling them about God and His Son, Jesus the Christ. His life lived out “preach the Gospel at all times and use words if necessary.”
May each of our lives do the same.
Free Download by Carol Dixon for St. Aidan’s Day
Longing for Lindisfarne: Daily Reflections for the Week of St. Aidan’s Day
by Christine Sine,
Today, I feel an apology is in order. Over the last few months, I allowed my focus to be captivated by the series of illnesses that drained my energy, kept me out of the garden, away from my awe and wonder walks, and grumbling at my restrictions. The awe and wonder that usually pervades my life deserted me. Not surprising you might think, but definitely not impressive.
This week a few things happened to change all that. It started with a quote by Mo Thomas in the Facebook group Living in the Spirit. “When awe becomes a regular occurrence in our theology, the discipline of rigourous study becomes a journey of joyful discovery rather than a burdened obligation.” Wow – theology through the lens of awe. That sounds revolutionary to me.
Do you see the pattern here? People crave awe and wonder. What if I made awe and wonder the lens through which I view all things? At first, I dismissed the idea as absurd. Then I was asked to write an article on wonder for an Advent devotional and also received an invite to facilitate a workshop on wonder in December and another series of workshops early in 2022. I also worked on some thoughts for our upcoming virtual retreat Gearing Up for A Season of Gratitude reminding myself that at the heart of my experience of gratitude is awe and wonder. In case I didn’t get the message, someone sent me an article entitled Why You Need to Protect Your Sense of Wonder – Especially Now. The author proclaims: “Helping participants to explore, experience, and recall moments of awe is one of the key scientifically supported strategies we engage in during our workshops and it’s been rewarding to see our participants benefit and bring what they’ve learned to their own organizations.”
Awe and wonder suddenly burst forth all around me and I thought maybe I need to take this idea of awe and wonder as the lens through which I view all things seriously. So I asked myself, Where else have I missed the awe and wonder that should pervade my life because I was focused on my aches and pains rather than the wonder of God’s world around me?
I decided to take a virtual awe and wonder walk through my life.
A pause for prayer and what came to my mind is the local Buy Nothing group I belong to. An unexpected place to start but certainly worthy of awe and wonder. The generosity of people in our neighbourhood is astounding. People give away furniture and TVs and computers as well as almost expired groceries and other produce. It inspired me to give away items I would once have tried to sell – like a beautiful old antique dresser and the 50 tomato plants that got mislabelled this year. Today I was awed by the offer of a creative party plan with a Harry Potter theme. I was so tempted even though I don’t have kids or grandkids. The generosity of our neighbourhood amazes me in other ways too. The August ice cream social with free Häagen-Dazs ice cream as well as treats from many of the local businesses. Games for the kids and music for all of us completed the evening – such a wonderful way to strengthen bonds in the neighbourhood.
Another pause and I remembered the huge worldwide network of friends I enjoy, many of whom have been friends for 40 or 50 years. My closest friend has even invited me and another friend into her family as second and third mothers for her sons and aunties for her grandchildren. Wow, wow, and wow. That is truly awe-inspiring.
Then there is my husband Tom. Almost 30 years married and still growing closer every year. And around both of us is the small intentional community that helped sustain us through the midst of the pandemic and continues to support us in the busyness of life. One awe-inspiring aspect of our lives is the hospitality we offer, first to each other and then to friends. Over the summer we held a few small gatherings that enriched us with the delight of conversation over a meal or a cup of coffee. Hospitality is an awe-inspiring expression of life and of our faith. Think of the many times in the Old and New Testament that the joy of life was expressed through hospitality, or even more awe-inspiring when new theological truths were revealed around the table.
Lastly, I look at the everyday details of my life and remind myself of how fortunate I am. As my fingers speed across the keyboard, I am awed by the dexterity of these small digits. I look at a stack of my prayer cards and am awed by the continuing creativity with which God blesses me and I think of the community that supports my endeavours – from my assistant, Lisa, to the growing list of writers from around the world whose contributions to Godspace constantly inspire and fill me with awe even though it is easy to take them for granted. Wow, wow, wow. So much to be awed by, and I have not mentioned my neighbourhood awe and wonder walk which is once more a part of my daily exercise.
Awe and wonder are all around us. It really should be the lens through which we view all things. All we need to do is stop and notice. Perhaps what we all need is awe and wonder pauses throughout the day. Perhaps rather than a gratitude practice at night, a virtual awe and wonder walk is called for. I am sure it will decrease my stress and probably create the resilience I so desire in my life.
What about you? Consider stopping for a virtual awe and wonder walk through your life.
Sit quietly and take a few deep breaths in and out. What comes to your mind as an unexpected area of awe and wonder? Allow your thoughts to explore it and relish the joy and delight it inspires. Pause and allow your thoughts to wander to the next place of awe and wonder God inspires you with. Perhaps you would like to write these down or like me just sit in the glow of these recollections.
Want to experience more of the awe and wonder that God offers us? Check out the Gift of Wonder Online Retreat by Christine Sine. This retreat allows for 180 days of access for only $39.99 so you can move through the sessions at your own pace.
A contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taize. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
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:
“Lord Be With Us (Kyrie)” is an original compositions by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY).
“Veni Sancte Spiritus,” “Aber du Weisst” and “Da Pacem Cordium” are songs from the ecumenical Taize community in France. Copyright and all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé.
“Deep Peace (Celtic Blessing)” is based upon a traditional Celtic text, adapted by Ray Makeover. Text and music copyright 2009 Ray Makeover, Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved.
Thank you for praying with us!
www.saintandrewsseattle.org
by Rev. Brenda Griffin Warren,
Do you love gardening and/or do you have hemorrhoids? Then St. Fiacre is the saint for you! Interestingly, he is also the patron saint of cab drivers in France. From about 1650, the Hotel de Saint Fiacre, in the rue St-Martin in Paris, hired out carriages that came to be known as fiacres, which became a generic term for hired horse-drawn transport, and then that designation was carried onto cabdrivers.
Fiacre (Fiacra, Fiachra) was born in the late 6th century into royalty in Connaught, Ireland, and was likely the son of a prince. He received an excellent education from St. Conan, at his monastery on the Isle of Man where he learned the art of herbal medicine. St. Conan was also known as Mochonna and had served as a monk at the historic Iona Abbey off the western coast of Scotland. In time Fiacre had his own hermitage and perhaps a monastery, possibly near St. Fiachra’s Well at Cill Fiachra (Kilferagh), near Bennetsbridge, County Kilkenny, Ireland.
This Irish hermit became so popular as both a soul and body doctor that he fled Ireland for France about 627, longing for solitude. Upon arrival in France, he became acquainted with a brother and sister who were of royalty and were faithful in serving God. Faro (Burgundofaro), was Bishop of Meaux, and his sister Burgundofara, was the founding Abbess of the famous Faremoutiers Abbey, a few miles from Meaux. Both Faro and Burgundofara had been blessed as children by the illustrious Irish St. Columbanus as he evangelized through France. Fiacre became close to these siblings and was granted a site at Brogillum (Breuil), in the province of Brie, France.
At his little hermitage in the forest, St. Fiacre grew vegetables and medicinal herbs to help feed and heal those who flocked to him for spiritual guidance and hospice care. He quickly realized he needed more space with all the folks who were coming to him for prayer and for miracles of healing, so he asked Bishop Faro for more land in the forest to expand his ministry. In response, Faro told him that he could have as much land as he could prepare in one day with a plough.
With miraculous speed, Fiacre quickly turned up the earth with the end of his pastoral staff using it as a plough, swiftly toppling tall trees and uprooting twisted briars and unwieldy weeds making way for his expanded ministry. A suspicious woman who spied this miraculous whirlwind of activity rushed to tell Bishop Faro that Fiacre was doing devilish incantations and witchcraft. However, when Bishop Faro sprinted to the area and saw for himself what had happened, he recognized that this was indeed the work of God. It is said that after that unpleasant experience, Fiacre who as an Irish monk, already was not too keen on women, prohibited females, on pain of severe bodily infirmity, from the precincts of his hermitage.
Fiacre’s ministry continued to flourish and he died of leprosy on August 30, 670, likely contracting this disease from caring for so many who were ill and sought refuge in his hospice. He was buried in his chapel in the forest not far from his hermitage and it is said that miracles took place at his tomb. His feast day is celebrated on several days in August and September.
Fiacre’s relics were preserved in his original shrine in the local church on the site of his hermitage, garden, and hospice, in the present-day village of Sainte-Fiacre, Seine-et-Marne, France. Later, in 1568, because of fear that fanatical Calvinists would harm his remains, they were transferred to their present shrine in Meaux Cathedral, which is near Saint-Fiacre.
Interestingly, his feast day has become a favored occasion for gardening groups and fraternities in France and Belgium to hold their annual jamborees. Some of these celebrations are huge affairs with thousands of people on the street with festively decorated floats and wheelbarrows. Fiacre is still so well-loved in spite of his disdain for women (hopefully over 1,400 years in heaven has softened his view of females) that there is even an international association, the “Comite Des Fetes Nationales Et Internationales Saint-Fiacre” to promote such events as well as pilgrimages to sites associated with this saint. A garden was even named after him to celebrate the Second Millennium, “Saint Fiachra’s Garden” which opened in 1999 at the Irish National Stud and Gardens, Tully, County Kildare, Ireland.
Yes, we can see why Fiacre was the patron saint of gardeners and taxi cab drivers, but still not too sure why he is such a popular saint with those with hemorrhoids.
_________________
There is an abundance of information on St. Fiacre (Fiacra/Fiachra) in John O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Irish Saints. Volume 8. August 30. Archive.org.
The Garden Trust has a good article with photos and pictures based upon the life of St. Fiacre.
If you are interested in the lives of other Celtic and Anglo-Saxon saints, please visit my website at http://www.saintsbridge.org/.
The Spirituality of Gardening Online Course is available for 180 days of access for only $39.99. This interactive course includes video sessions with Christine Sine as well as 8 other guest gardeners. Visit our store page for more information.
By Edward Goode,
A Sacred Summer
Is it ok for me to say that the summer of 2020 sucked? To say that it wasn’t the best really is an understatement. “Sucked” seems like a perfectly appropriate word. There were all the “macro” things going on – pandemic, racial unrest, and protests, the incredibly divisive and difficult election cycle that we couldn’t get away from – all this on top of everything else that “normally” happens in our world. The pandemic, however, affected so many other things – weddings that had to be rescheduled, postponed, or radically changed. Funerals that were only for a small group of the closest family members, churches that were only gathering online, So, summer of 2020 sucked.
Fast forward to early 2021. Lilly Lewin, Joanna Cummings, Ginny Olson, and I started looking back at 2020 and then looking ahead to summer 2021 and decided that we needed a different “S-word” for the upcoming summer. No not that “S-word”… A different one.
Sacred.
Stop for a moment and read that word again.
Maybe read it out loud with a deep breath on either side of your speaking it.
Sacred.
After all the times of talking about how the summer of 2020 (in fact most of 2020 it feels like) sucked, we really felt that we needed to work on how we could make the time ahead truly…
Sacred.
Isn’t that a beautiful word?
Sacred.
How does it make you feel when you read it? See it? Speak it? Hear it?
For me, it feels like one of those cool misters that you walk through somewhere on a brutally hot August afternoon. Suddenly, the heat goes away and refreshment and renewal spring forth.
Sacred.
So we began to explore different ideas of what would make a summer sacred. Rest… Gratitude… Justice… Nature… Play… Silence… Love… Create. We also brought in Grief to acknowledge and honor what had been lost in the preceding summer that wasn’t so sacred.
LOVE
It was beautiful to explore these themes in the congregation where I serve as pastor. Some of the most significant moments came as I sat around a circle with seven others and introduced them to Lectio Divina while another group simply spent time talking with one another and a third drew, colored, and painted – all practices of sacred rest. Another night, plans were all laid out until a family situation arose for me and one of the participants jumped in and seamlessly led a discussion of what sacred justice means in our journeys of faith. And from our gratitude week, our wall of post-it gratitudes continues to grow!
But maybe the most meaningful point for me came at the end when we took time to Create. In starting out, several in the group shared that they didn’t feel they were very creative. They shared how they were creative as kids but as the years passed, their creativity waned. What was beautiful was what happened next. We gathered around a table, each starting with a blank page. I invited each to sit in stillness for a few minutes and then to write down the first word about God that came to them. After they were finished, I asked them to pass their page to the person on their left who would then respond with whatever came to their hearts. This continued all the way around the table until we each got our original pages back. It was beautiful to see the different creative expressions that emerged.
HOPE
So, here’s how this becomes more than just a report of what one church did. In this post are some of the creative expressions that emerged. Print off one (or all) of them and reflect on what you would add? What picture would you draw? What color comes to your heart and mind? What other words express what is stirring?
Even though summer is winding down as kids are going back to school (although the heat doesn’t feel like we’re anywhere close to Autumn yet), the sacred-ness of this time is still with us.
Beyond just Create, each of the themes of a sacred summer can become practices for a sacred Autumn or Winter. In fact, each theme is a part of the life of faith. Each day can be a day of gratitude, rest, love, justice, and so forth. Each day is…
Sacred.
Make each season and each day SACRED
Edward Good is a pastor and creative living in Cincinnati, OH and he is part of the FreerangeWorship Team! Find out more about Ed and his contemplative photography on his website IMAGOSCRIPTURA.com
The Sacred Summer Kit Ed’s church used is a downloadable resource available for individuals, small groups and church communities…check out freerangeworship.com
ALMIGHTY
all the things
HELP
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