By Barbie Perks —
At our home church, a Methodist church, someone introduced the idea of pancake Tuesday as a fund-raising community event which proved immensely popular and successful. The funds raised go towards the feeding scheme which provides nearly 200 food parcels to HIV-AIDS affected families, and the church community has a wonderful time eating and working together – it takes a lot of work to make, fill and sell over 5,000 pancakes in one evening.
This year, I will be introducing a similar event to our local international Christian fellowship, but obviously on a much smaller scale! I was asked to prepare a short devotion on the meaning of Lent, so I have been researching, reading, meditating and in general, just thinking about exactly what this activity means to me.
Lent has always been a time where folks have chosen something to ‘give up’, where they talk a lot about what they have given up, and how good they are at not eating that chocolate, drinking that soda, going on Facebook, etc. It would seem that we are in danger of making Lent into a ‘works’ activity and looking to God for approval for how good we are at disciplining ourselves!
In actual fact, Lent is a 40 day period of preparation for Easter, in the same way as Advent is a 40 day period of preparation for the birth of Christ. Traditionally, we remember the 40 days Christ spent in the wilderness, fasting and praying in preparation for his ministry on earth.
Shrove comes from the word “shrive”, which means to repent of sin, confess that sin and receive absolution. The ashes used in Ash Wednesday services are Old Testament symbols of repentance (sackcloth and ashes), as well as a reminder of our own mortality. Entering into this Lent period by becoming aware of our own sinful shortcomings, repenting and asking forgiveness, helps us to prepare for the reality of the great sacrifice Jesus made and enables us to celebrate anew the wonderful gift of resurrection, the amazing gift of eternal life.
The recently released Kendrick Brothers film, “Overcomer”, has a very strong Christian theme about realising one’s identity in Christ – based on Ephesians 1-2. We are using the accompanying Bible study notes in our weekly fellowship group, and it is proving to be a very insightful study. Looking deeply into how we form our identity, and how it can sometimes become an idol is a very sobering process. Working through realising, repenting, confessing and seeking new ways to live for Christ is a huge challenge. This period before Easter will be a very opportune time to examine ways in which I can truly become a new creation in Christ, as I give up that identity which I have come to see has such a strong hold on me.
John Ortberg’s book, “Overcoming Your Shadow Mission”, is also an excellent book to help you see how Satan can take a perfectly good mission (even identity!) and subvert it, and derail it, so that God is no longer glorified.
If you want to hear his talk, visit here.
The trailer for Overcome is here:
Psalm 139:23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. What a wonderful verse to meditate on during the Lenten period.
The first John O’Donohue’s book I read was The Four Elements. From the beginning I was riveted by his fresh approach to life and faith. In one of the blessings, In Praise of Air, which he wrote not long before he died, he says:
In the name of the air,
The breeze
And the wind,
May our souls
Stay in rhythm
With eternal Breath.
It was this blessing that inspired my prayer above and has often formed the focus for my prayers and meditations over the last week. It also provided the inspiration for the set of breath cards that we have recently created.
What does it mean to live a life in rhythm with Eternal Breath?
I have always loved writing and using breathing prayers, even more so since I listened to Richard Rohr talk about the name of God being breathed rather than spoken. The breath of God sustains us, yet we rarely acknowledge or live in the awareness of it. We are often unaware of our physical breath too unless it is interrupted by allergies, pollution or illness.
Becoming aware of our breathing can have a huge impact on our lives. Doctors recommend that we deliberately take deep breaths at regular intervals throughout the day to aerate our lungs. It relieves tension, rids our body of toxins, boosts our energy and strengthens our immune systems.
It requires intentionality.
As any experienced hiker or runner knows, we move more easily when we synchronize our steps to our breathing. Again this is often a deliberate action, especially when we are just learning to pace ourselves. We consciously take our steps in rhythm with our breaths. Living in synch with the Eternal Breath is just as intentional. We must regularly remind ourselves to breathe deeply of the presence of God and that necessitates learning to pace ourselves. We must pause from our busy lives, centering ourselves on the eternal presence and attending to the rhythm of our breathing.
Question: How much attention do you give your spiritual breathing? What do you do on a regular basis to make sure it is in synch with the Eternal Breath?
It means slowing down.
When we walk up a hill, we know how out of condition we are if our breathing comes in short, painful gasps. Healthy hill climbing breathing is slow and regular.
I wonder at the spiritual analogy here. There is a tendency for us to grab for God when we are on an uphill climb, facing pressures, challenges and anxieties in our life and faith. Unless we have been doing regular spiritual exercises, keeping our breath in synch with the Eternal Breath we find ourselves unprepared, gasping for the holy air that seems thinner and less life giving than it should be. We know we are in synch with the Eternal Breath when we are able to breathe in and out of the presence of God at all times, with long, slow breaths that nourish us deep within our souls.
Question: How healthy is your spiritual breathing? Think back to the last life stress you faced. What was the rhythm of your spiritual breathing like during that time?
It requires deep breathing exercises.
I have talked before about the fact that as we grow older we breathe more shallowly and need to learn to take deep breaths that fully aerate our lungs and provide the health benefits that only deep breathing provides.
I wonder if our spiritual lives follow the same pattern. The longer we follow Christ, the easier it is for us to take our spiritual practices for granted. They become stale, rote, unproductive of the spiritual depths that connect to the heart of God. We need to take time to breathe deeply, to replenish our resources and renew our spirits.
Tom and I will shortly go on one of our quarterly prayer retreats, powerful deep breathing tools that help keep us in touch with God in a more intimate way. They enable us to restructure our lives and keep on focus with both our physical and spiritual disciplines.
Question: What are the deep breathing exercises your perform regularly to strengthen your spiritual muscles and maintain your life rhythm in synch with the Eternal Breath?
Listen to this beautiful poem by John O’Donohue. Allow it to enter your spirit and fill you with the Eternal Breath
NOTE: As an Amazon Affiliate, I receive small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Also, don’t forget that many of my breathing cards are now available for purchase.
Today, with permission from Paul Neeley I am reposting this from the blog Global Christian Worship. Paul reminded me that we need some musical versions of the Lord’s Prayer and has provided several of these (plus his own version) that I will post over the next few weeks. The popularity of this and the posts that are being suggested to me make this into a very rewarding and enriching series. I hope you are enjoying them as much as I am.
by Paul Neeley
I’m really enjoying the album by Karin Simmons, titled ‘Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs.’ Karin has been involved with leading worship since she was 8 years old, and has been leading worship at Nashville-area churches since 2000.
She co-wrote this musical arrangement in 2014 with Jennifer Martin, my favorite priest, preacher, composer, and worship leader – also in Nashville.
Here’s their recently-composed version of ‘The Lord’s Prayer ‘ on Karin’s album, complete with soaring strings.
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Our Father in Heaven
Hallowed be Your name
Your kingdom come, Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive our sins as we forgive
The ones who sin against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory
For-ever, Amen, Amen, Amen.
Setting: Karin Simmons, Jennifer Martin; Copyright © 2012 Hannahbear Music, SESAC/Spring At Last Music, ASCAP
All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
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Get the lead sheet at
https://globalchristianworship.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/the-lord_s-prayer.pdf
Get Karin’s marvelous album through her website at
http://www.karinsimmons.com/
and follow her music and worship ministries at
https://www.facebook.com/karinsimmons.worshipleader/?fref=ts
Karin published a terrific article on embracing the arts in the church from a liturgical perspective; see it at
https://worshipviewsintheround.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/embracing-the-arts-in-the-church/
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“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
We can only pray this prayer for the church if we are prepared to mean:
make us Kingdom-bearers!
Make us a community of healed healers;
make us a retuned orchestra to play the Kingdom-music
until the world takes up the song.
Make us, in turn, servants of the Lord,
the few with the message for the many.
– N.T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer
The season of Lent begins next week…as Christine says, Lent is the time we get to prepare our hearts for Easter and the Resurrection. As Father Ed Hays says, it’s the opportunity to fall more in love with Jesus over the next forty plus days. The Season of Lent has three traditional areas of focus: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving or Prayer, Fasting and Acts of Service and Justice.
How can we put these three areas into practice between now and Easter?
Too often we think only of fasting from foods…but food is just one thing we can fast. I have low blood sugar, so I’m not a good food faster. My plan is to FAST from the news again this year. I can read the headlines once a day, but not listen to it! I get too caught up in all the political drama and it distracts me from being present to my neighborhood and loving other people right where I am. I’m also going to fast from busyness, and I’ll be adding in more rest and practicing sabbath. These might be a great choice for many of us!
When it comes to prayer, why not try a visual prayer practice this year? In keeping with our theme of the Lord’s Prayer, check out the newest prayer book by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson
May it Be So Forty Days with the Lord’s Prayer: It’s a great way to engage God each day with a short prayer by Justin, and a beautiful visual created by Scott helping us engage the Lord’s Prayer in a new way. Justin says “When I pray “Our Father,” I join countless family members who share the same entanglements, frustrations, joys, dreams, and hopes that often lead me to pray. I am not alone. Neither are you.”
They have another book on prayer that would also be a great devotion to use during Lent, called Prayer: Forty Days of Practice. Both of these books can help us to be present with Jesus and grow closer to him between now and Easter. And all ages will enjoy them.
These books might even inspire you to create your own visual prayers or seek other art to pray with during Lent. You might also check out the Lenten Photo a day challenge by Rethinkchurch as another way to practice prayer visually.
Pope Francis says,
“Fasting, that is, learning to change our attitude towards others and all of creation, turning away from the temptation to “devour” everything to satisfy our voracity and being ready to suffer for love, which can fill the emptiness of our hearts. Prayer, which teaches us to abandon idolatry and the self-sufficiency of our ego, and to acknowledge our need of the Lord and his mercy. Almsgiving, whereby we escape from the insanity of hoarding everything for ourselves in the illusory belief that we can secure a future that does not belong to us. And thus to rediscover the joy of God’s plan for creation and for each of us, which is to love him, our brothers and sisters, and the entire world, and to find in this love our true happiness.”
Take some time to consider what practice you might ADD or what things you might need to subtract from your life in order to grow closer to Jesus between now an Easter. Ask Jesus to show you and allow this to blossom and grow!
Check out Scott Erickson’s Stations in the Street for more inspiration for prayer this season. you might want to download them for your entire church community to experience visual liturgy and prayer!
Are you in the Seattle area or know of friends and family who are? Would you like a fresh perspective as we enter into the Lent and Easter seasons? We would love to have you join us on March 28th, 2020 at the Mustard Seed House in Seattle, WA for the Gift of Wonder workshop led by Christine Sine! This interactive workshop is full of creative opportunities to reawaken your inner child with fun exercises. Click on the workshop page below for more information and to register. We are offering students a discount for this workshop as well!
Want to help us spread the word? If you have a blog, go to church in or near Seattle, or just want to share our flyer with others, please download our Gift of Wonder flyer.
By Keren Dibbens-Wyatt –
Do you remember difficult anniversaries? In a couple of days it will be 24 years since the last day I was able to work. That night I took myself off to a GP’s appointment, hoping to be signed off for a two weeks, so that I could rest and get rid of the crippling tiredness that had been gaining ground on me for nearly a year. But a fortnight later I was no better, nor a month, nor a year. Nor a decade. Nor two. Even the eventual diagnosis of M.E. made no difference, as no-one knew how to treat it. And so being permanently sick and exhausted gradually became my “normal” and I forgot what it felt like to have any strength or energy. Anything left in the battery went on fighting this disease, and mostly failing. Have you ever asked, as I do, whether God is here, in such immense lack?
Weakness is part of who I am now. I am constantly drained, live most of my life sitting up in bed, playing with words and colours when I am able, dealing with headaches, pain, exhaustion and various system failures as they arise. Can God do anything through or with this wreck of a human being?
The answer to both my questions is yes. Whilst we have the breath of life in us, we have the breath of God in us, flowing back and forth. Whilst my heart continues to beat, albeit weakly or in fits and starts, God is pumping holy life-giving oxygen through my inert body. And whilst these places are no longer part of the world and its hustle and bustle; they have become something different, like an old ruin off to the side of the road, beautiful in its own crumbling way. Soft sandstone revealing fool’s gold in the fading light, a way of being that is not mindful of appearance or achievement, but that sits and listens and waits.
And I hope it encourages you when I tell you that this displacement, this calling out to a quiet, dreaming place, where I have learned to root myself in order to survive, is now my home. I am ill, but I do not feel ill-at-ease. I still have many worldly problems that I need to deal with. There is a great amount I cannot do, and yet I have been shown gifts and talents that were hidden away deep in my heart and soul that I would never have discovered if I had not been coaxed and wooed by God into this most spacious confinement.
Don’t imagine it was easy, or that my ego didn’t have to fall away (is still, and will always be falling away) like the cascading edges of icebergs, or that letting go of everything I thought I was and everything I thought I would be didn’t feel like very real deaths. I am still grieving those things. I am heartbroken that I did not have children (though I have a lovely stepson) and miss the freedom of walking more than I have words for. And don’t imagine I went willingly. I dragged my heels and gritted my teeth and man, did I sulk. But there is a but.
But… Saint Hildegard, Doctor of the Church, tells us that she felt like a feather on the breath of God, and she too suffered from chronic illness.
It is true that I am sustained and carried by his sweet, warm breath, his life-giving words. But if I am indeed a feather, then I have got stuck on barbed wire, like a piece of stray sheep’s wool, and no amount of prayer or pleading has freed me. Maybe this is because I am learning gentleness, brokenness and stillness, watching the flocks in the field. Maybe I am coming to know my own vulnerability and softness, dealing with the harshness of cold winds, of feeling unprotected, of encountering other waifs and strays.
One day perhaps, that warm wind might appear again as if from nowhere and blow me to a new sanctuary, but for now, I am where I am meant to be; learning all kinds of lessons, and praying all kinds of prayers, writing all kinds of everything. I am learning to breathe in and out with God, one moment at a time, and though it is often deeply painful, both physically and emotionally, there is nowhere I would rather be.
By Donna Chacko—
“For the spirit of God made me,
the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive”.
Job 33:4
Nestled on the couch, I watched the fire dying low. I finally dragged myself from my cozy nest and opened the fireplace screen doors. I nudged the logs, rolling one over, and creating a little space between the logs. I didn’t even have to blow on the logs because very quickly the flames started rising, first flickering and then twisting higher until all the logs were blazing. What a vivid demonstration of how just a little more access to oxygenated air can inflame a fire.
As a doctor I saw how important oxygen is. We pay very close attention to the oxygen level in the blood, especially for very sick patients. We are all sadly aware of the catastrophic results a prolonged low oxygen level, known as hypoxia, can have on a human brain. Fortunately, we can often add supplemental oxygen if needed during a major illness or a chronic lung condition. This doesn’t cure the underlying problem, but it sustains life.
Athletes also pay close attention to their breathing. Even if they don’t specifically think about or measure their oxygen level, they are keenly aware of their breath. Breath control and breathing techniques are reported to increase performance. And, it’s not just in athletics. Breathing practices are well known and taught to enhance performance in public speaking, acting, and singing.
I was particularly fascinated to learn how stress is reduced by a form of breathing called deep belly breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing.
This type of breathing elicits physiologic changes in the body known as the “relaxation response. “ This reverses the “stress response,” which is the physiologic cascade of hormones and chemicals in the body that occur when our mind registers a threat. Most of us have personal experience with this relaxation response. Recall how it feels when you are tense or stressed and you slow yourself down enough to take a couple of slow deep breaths. You feel your body soften and your head clear.
I ponder the relation of breathing with a type of prayer known as Centering Prayer, a meditative prayer strongly based on Christian tradition. This prayer involves resting in the presence of God without words or feelings. When I practice Centering Prayer, I am aware of my in-breaths and out-breaths. Sometimes my mind wanders. I wonder—is it possible that my in-breaths are welcoming the spirit of God in and my out-breaths are expelling the detritus from my life?
Christine Sine’s Meditation Monday is a moving blog called Breathe in Yahweh, including a prayerful breathing meditation video. Yet another beautiful way to conceptualize breathing.
We value healthy air, like the fresh air from windows flung open on a spring day or a deep breath as we pause on a mountain trail or at the beach. Words like air, spirit, breath, breeze, and wind conjure up images of energy, power, cleanliness, and health. Nowhere do these words have more power than in the Bible, starting with Genesis.
Then the Lord God formed man out of the dust from the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
Job said:
So long as I still have life breath in me,
the breath of God in my nostrils. Job 27:3
The Psalms beautifully speak of the spirit.
By the LORD’s word the heavens were made;
by the breath of his mouth all their host. Psalms 33:6
Send forth your spirit, they are created
and you renew the face of the earth. Psalm 104:30
Finally, the New Testament:
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the holy Spirit”. John 20:22
We are still alive even if we ignore or close ourselves to the Holy Spirit. God is always within us, the ember of unconditional love. But we are certainly not living our God-given life to the fullest if we neglect that ember. I write this message for me as much as for you because I have neglected the Holy Spirit by praying predominately to God the Father and to Jesus. So, how can you and I let the Spirit in so the flames will burst high and wide?
We can give space and time to God and practice opening ourselves by listening, by waiting, and by relishing sacred silence. We can stand up tall, smile, and then take deep breaths so as to consciously draw in the Holy Spirit. Whether we do this in dedicated prayer time, walking, or while washing the dishes matters not. The Spirit is always ready for fire power.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle
in them the fire of Thy love. Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created.
And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
Amen.
I hope my words tickle your brain or your heart in some way that stir you to open yourself to the Spirit! It would be a joy to hear your story of being filled with the spirit.
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