Once again Saint Andrews Episcopal church in Seattle has provided us with a beautiful Taize style contemplative service and morning prayer service. I am so grateful for these resources.
Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
Permission to web stream or podcast music in this service is granted under One License number A-710-756. www.saintandrewsseattle.org.
Morning Prayer, Sunday May 3rd, 2020, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church View the bulletin for this service here:
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756.
Every year I wonder whether to write something to mark Beltaine, the Celtic feast which celebrates a cross-quarter day in the year’s wheel, the end of the dark half of the year and the beginning of its half of light. I celebrate the waxing of the arc the sun’s path makes across the little slice of sky I can see from my bedroom window, lengthening the daylight, extending the twilight, elongating the stirrings before sun-up. The mystic in me reaches back in time to dance with the Celts round their fires, hearing their circling prayers as they do so, being bound with them into the Great Wheel. I reach back to listen to the songs of the May-day, Mary-Day, celebrations, watching young women entering into the mysteries of the holy feminine, embracing their potential to birth the Holy, to tend the sacred in the everyday, to serve the earth and all it feeds. Amongst this cloud of witnesses, I also hear the shouts of workers banded together on Labour Day, revelling in the freedom of a ‘bank’ holy-day, their passion for justice and equality being an energy to which I could pay more heed, a demand for fair pay and right treatment fuelling an anger whose spark is still needed in so many places as we each fail to fulfill fair-trade agreements in the light of demands for our own comfort.
Such voices take on names, then grow into faces as my ancestors appear before me, my name ‘Kate’ receding back down the generations, and I thank God for those women who have gone into the making of me. I thank their God and mine because the beginning of May marks my birthday, signalled by the beech hedges beginning to burst tight buds, when cracked, dry brown drops away to reveal such a fresh green it causes my eyes to hurt with joy.
Every year this season of another year’s uncurling brings mixed feelings, a new noticing of my own transformational ‘unfurling’ process into becoming the woman God has created me to be. Every year the occurrence of Beltane creates in me a tremendous mix of thanksgiving joy, welling grief, and longing grace. The paradoxical weakness of this year’s potent buds (the earth’s resurrection mirrored in me and vice versa) marks the beginning of my 31st year of learning to live with a chronic illness. I recognise again the times I tried to push through the pain, mess and discomfort, and the periods I could do nothing but stop for a paralysed rest. I glimpse the ways in which I tried to seek different employment, before each career attempt was brought to a close by the next wave of demands from my body and mind. Alongside such sadnesses, I can pick out my experience of individual days going back years by remembering the photographs I received and the images I made, knowing who I was with, and how the light smelt. I can see favourite, and feared, places by colour. I can note swathes of time passing by the creativity I explored, the poetry of #practicingresurrection with the community at Abbey of the Arts in 2015, the multi-media Oak Tree project when my ceiling collapsed in 2016, a summer #projectyellow marking a slide into intense depression in 2017, a painting adventure into ‘little Katie’s’ eyes in 2018, bringing a cosmic smash book on self-trust into being whilst in hospital in 2019.
There is so much to be so thankful for. In allthe gifts from darknesses that have punctuated the last 31 years there are indeed such spots of ‘bright fire’ (Bel-Taine) to celebrate and honour. There, where the power of God was made present to my weakness and Spirit transfigured frailty into outpourings. So as I move across this sacred timely threshold again and for the first time in the midst of all that is strange and familiar about the circumstances of COVID lockdown, I pause, praise and give thanks.I hear again and for the first time Abba Moses ask me ‘why not become fire?’.
May my inner flame be strengthened to its fullness in bright depths of colour, may they thrill and fuel both my creativity and my compassion, so that Grace can call forth from me all that I have been designed to be just exactly for this moment in time, for whomsoever I mightmeet in my isolation.
May this year’s cycle of unfurling begin.
(all images copyright Kate Kennington Steer)
by Lilly Lewin
Today, I confess that I need The true shalom of God!
by Barbie Perks
These past weeks have been a process for me, and maybe for many others as well. A process of coming to terms with the changes that have been forced on us, as well as a time to reflect on things we have pushed away because they have been too painful to deal with. Spending Easter locked down and away from opportunities of congregational worship and fellowship have highlighted for me the loss of social contact we are experiencing. As the weeks drag on, silence, solitude and introspection become an opportunity for God to speak into our normally frantic, busy and noisy hearts.
- If this is connecting with you, why not draw up a little mind-map of what you are reflecting on, and see where it leads you.
The Resurrection Sunday Bible reading describes the double sense of loss that Mary experienced at the tomb. First, she was grieving the loss of Jesus, going to find comfort at the tomb, and then discovering the tomb was empty, she seeks to find the body and bring him back to the tomb. When she hears Jesus call her by name and realizes he is raised to life, she runs to him, but is told “do not hold on to me…” (John 20:15-17)
I have a very strong impression that God is telling me to let go of loss today. And it’s not just the immediate loss of having to have my home in Tanzania packed up for me because the landlord wants it back. It’s a cumulation of a series of losses over the years, losses that I have perhaps grieved too long and hard over, losses that I have allowed to define the way I think and behave, losses that have turned me from a carefree, kind of happy-go-lucky personality into a more thoughtful, careful and maybe even dour personality!
- Have you ever thought of how grief and loss might have changed you as a person?
There is a picture in my mind of a person lying on top of a cliff holding on for dear life to something that has fallen over the edge. Energy and strength draining out, and down over the cliff. If she just opens her grip and lets go, she can rest, regain strength and energy, get up and walk away, back into …what?
Leaning into Jesus, with open hands and arms no longer filled with losses that weigh us down. Paul’s words in Philippians 3:7-10 are worth thinking on:
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, … 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own.. but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection …
When we are so busy holding on to the losses that anchor us to that cliff, it is difficult to look up and see the hand of Christ reaching down, it is even harder to reach out with open hands to take hold of the hope of resurrection that Christ offers. Hebrews 6:18b-10a talk about God’s promises to those who believe in him – “…we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure…”
- Lean in, open your hands, in faith trust him to heal you from the losses. Let them no longer define you – let God raise you up to be a new creation today.
A big thank you to MandySmith for allowing me to repost this. Mandy is pastor at University Christian Church in. Cincinnati.
In the great silence
the flowers seeded and grew,
the rain fell, the land took a breath,
exhaled.
The sun turned on its wheel
heedless to the forecast doom.
In the great silence
the leaves folded, took their queue
and detached from the branch,
to become the first fruit
of a fallen carpet,
destined for mulch.
In the great silence, north and south,
the seasons changed,
exchanged batons.
The earth, on its axis, followed a path
long trodden,
defined by millennia past.
And in the great silence
the people burrowed in,
appeared on occasion for air,
and breathed secure for knowing the earth
carried on its resolve,
resolute in purpose.
And in the great silence
the planet rested,
the people rethought their focus
and slowed,
unfolded from the weight of lament and fear,
and returned as a world newly formed.
And in the great silence
the people rebuilt their altars,
with the memory of the lost
freshly engraved,
and with the lessons of the earth
and their treasures preserved
the people conceived of a new way.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
March 2020
by Donna Chacko
Finite vs. Infinite: What does the mismatch of our timeline with God’s have to do with knowing God’s will during the Covid-19 crisis?
My husband, Wilbur, and I were reflecting on what the Covid-19 crisis might mean for the world. Could there be a message from God hidden amidst the suffering and uncertainty of the pandemic?
I quipped that God could certainly come up with a more clear way to communicate with us than a pandemic.
Wilbur looked at me and finally spoke. “Well, God’s message is clear, but it is spread out over His timeline, not ours.” Of course, we know our timeline is finite, while God’s dimension of time is infinite, with His past, present, and future merged in some mysterious way. Wilbur’s point was that this mismatch of our timelines with God’s prevents us from seeing the whole of God’s message.
How can that system of communication possibly work? While we are living out our own finite allowance of years, Jesus is always with us, offering His tender embrace and His Word. Unfortunately, we are usually too busy to sit still for that embrace. I recognize that for years I grasped and tugged to manipulate my timeline. I urgently needed to fill each moment to prepare for a future I thought I controlled. I had no time for a quiet moment with my God, a precious moment when I might have heard His Word.
To know God’s will, we need to slow down, embrace the present moment, and listen. Even then we usually don’t hear explicit instructions. We get snatches, maybe only a hint or a nudge. But, the more we surrender ourselves to His Divine Presence, the more clearly we will know His holy will. As we relinquish control of our timeline and our will, we become closer and closer to God. When we die, our timeline becomes God’s infinite timeline and all becomes clear. I like to think this merger of timelines begins when we start celebrating each sacred moment as a gift from God.
One of my favorite books is “Sacrament of the Present Moment,” written in the 18th century by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. In this slim classic, de Caussade shows us how to experience each moment as a sacrament. He tenderly describes how God’s divine action fills each precious moment. We just have to say yes to the moment, listen, and then rest with absolute confidence—knowing we are indeed following God’s holy will. Even if we don’t hear an explicit message, we can still follow God’s holy will by surrendering our time to Him, moment by moment.
This is not so easy. If you are like me, even with de Caussade’s comforting words, you sometimes may still feel confused. That’s when I turn to Thomas Merton’s amazing prayer:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
So, what is God’s will for you and me during the Covid-19 crisis? I think He just wants us to trust Him, one moment at a time.
God bless everyone. I pray you and your families are OK and staying close to the Lord.
Donna
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