It is back to school time here in the U.S. and everyone has advice to give on how to dress, how to go green, how to find the best bargains, how to relieve anxiety and even how to arrange a play date with new friends. What I have not seen is much advice on how to prepare kids spiritually in order to help reduce their anxieties and improve their ability to fit in to their new situation. Many students I suspect slip away from their faith in college and university just because they do not know how to maintain their equilibrium.
Going back to school can be a traumatic time for little kids and even for mature university and seminar students. Unfortunately most of us are too busy getting kids out of the house or rushing off to our own classes to give much thought to their spiritual needs. Kids and adults alike need a sense of stability and familiarity to reduce their stress levels and help them adjust.
Last year I posted a resource list of Back to School Prayers, and a few years ago I wrote the prayer above with students and teachers alike in mind, but here are some other simple suggestions culled from friends that you may find useful.
Lily did some great Free Range Friday posts on prayer called “Adding and Subtracting” and “Back to School Subtraction” that you may be interested in checking out too! These are wonderful resources as you prepare spiritually for the new school year with your family as well.
Suggestions for school kids and their parents.
1. Begin the school day with a simple breath or circling prayer. I love this simple Celtic prayer which I wrote a couple of years ago and which several friends use with their children before they go to school
The sacred three encircle us,
Keep love within and fear without,
Keep peace within and violence out,
Circle us with your presence.
Keep truth within and injustice out,
Keep acceptance in and prejudice out,
Circle us with your grace.
Keep wholeness in and disease without,
Keep care within and selfishness out,
Circle us with your love.
2. Include a short prayer in your child’s lunch box Such as: Thank you God for this child (use name). May your light shine upon him/her. May your love fill him/her. May your spirit grant him/her peace. Or you may just like to say something like: Thinking of you and praying for you as you eat your lunch.
3. When you first see your child after school check how their day has gone. You may like to ask the questions: Where did you feel close to God today? What made you feel God was a long way away? One of my friends told me that this revolutionized her child’s approach to school and their sense of God’s presence in the day.
4. Spend a few minutes before your child goes to bed discussing what he or she is grateful for at school. Focusing on positive emotions like these help children feel more secure and encourage compassion and love towards other children.
5. Say a short prayer together for friends, teachers and situations your child has faced during the day.
Suggestions for Students
Those who are students themselves may like to develop a similar routine. Trying to spend half an hour each morning reading the bible and praying is usually impossible but finding a simple rhythm of prayer and ritual that draws us close to God not only reduces our stress levels but increases our ability to focus, helps us respond compassionately to our friends and teachers and enables us to keep close to God 24/7.
1. Begin the day with a breath prayer and/or short relaxation exercise that makes you feel relaxed and close to God as you enter the day.
2. Use a book of prayers arranged to be said at different times during the day (called offices). My favourite is David Adam’s The Rhythm of Life. These may only take a minute or two of our time but can reorient us to presence of God.
3. Pause at the end of each class to offer a short prayer of gratitude for what you have learnt in the session.
4. Before you go to bed ask yourself the questions: Where did you feel close to God today? What made you feel God was a long way away? This is a very abbreviated form of the Prayer of Examen which I highly recommend if you want to spend more time.
5. Before you go to sleep name 5 things from your lectures and study times that you are grateful for.
Whatever you decide to do – keep it simple, make meaningful and stick to it.
I would love to hear from students and parents as to what you have found helps the most.
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Today’s post is adapted from one I wrote a couple of years ago for teachers and students starting the school year. I realize that in the Southern Hemisphere kids are well and truly into the school year, in fact almost starting to wind down with end of year exams. However from my perspective it is never too late in the year to consider how to pray and how to maintain one’s equilibrium so you may still find these tips relevant.
By Rodney Marsh —
Here follows a poem I wrote about my experience of learning the practice of Christian Meditation in the John Main tradition. This ‘mantra’ style of prayer was called by the Mothers and Fathers of the church ‘the prayer of the heart’. I practise two thirty-minute morning and evening periods of meditation each day. The books and writings of John Main provide a wonderfully practical guide to this practice (or explore https://www.wccm.org)
How to pray the prayer of the heart
Simply begin simply
Simply continue
End simply
Simply begin again
Continue simply
Simply end
Repeat
Repeat again
Keep repeating
Until you arrive at where you are
You have always been where you are
and dwelt in this place
That has no past or future
Your home is here and now
where you are.
Now you have arrived at where you are
you realise you have never been anywhere else
And now you know who you are
You realise you have always been you
You are home now, and you are happy.
If you keep on with the practice
you can live at home all the time
You will easily find your way back to where you are.
You will also get better at being real
when you visit the future (that doesn’t yet exist)
or the past (that has ceased to be)
You can be real in the past and future
if you take your home with you.
But if you fail to practice
returning to where you are
You will lose your way again and
wander alone, searching for home,
looking for who you are and where you are.
You will start looking for your self again
in the past or future where you aren’t.
If this happens
simply begin simply (again)
and you will return home to where you are.
This is your home and
God is waiting to welcome you (always) where you are
And it is always a joy to come home and meet yourself for the first time (again).
So, like a rock or a tree or a human
Or anything that shares your being
Take your home with you, wherever you go
For here and now is the only place you can live –
Forever.
*Acknowledgement “to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T S Eliot
As we continue our new theme on Godspace, What does your soul long to do? here is a post by Hilary Horn —
As Hurricane Dorian pummels the Bahamas and people in Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina get ready for its arrival, our prayers go out to all who are impacted. We feel so helpless and all we can do is pray.
God of the universe,
The foundation of life.
You are always with us,
In the quiet and the storm you surround us,
Your love stays closer than a friend.
In this time of storm be with all who are vulnerable.
Hold them close as the winds blow and the oceans rage.
Place your arms around them as the trees fall and the rivers rise.
Keep them safe from wind and rain and fly debris.
Calm their fears and their anxieties.
Bring them help when they need it.
Guide those that respond in the midst of danger.
Be with rescuers and firemen,
With electric workers and emergency crews,
With all who reach out to strangers and neighbours with your love and compassion.
Comfort and protect them in the midst of danger and of strife.
May we too be prompted to respond with love and compassion.
Until all find shelter in the embrace of your wings.
by Christine Sine
I hate it when the themes I choose for Godspace are God’s word for me personally. Talk about needing discernment!!!
When we chose Where does your soul long to do? I rather offhandedly wrote in my journal My soul longs for the centeredness of silence, the resilience of love and the strength of humility thinking as I wrote it: I long to be equipped with the strength and resilience of the Holy Spirit that enables me to be centre in the love of God and nourished my God’s presence within me. It sounded so spiritual! and my last week’s post reflected that.
Then on Wednesday Hilary told me that they will be moving in a couple of months. She and her family have lived in our upstairs apartment for three years and I feel I will be losing a good friend, a marvelous Godspace assistant and the community community she and her family have so vitally contributed to. I delight in the kids playing in the backyard and I am devastated by the thought of life without them. So not surprisingly my initial reaction was panic and the old feelings of loneliness and abandonment quickly raised their ugly heads.
So I sat down to regroup and refocus knowing that in times of transition, when the road is rocky and the path beneath my feet unstable, I need to check my foundations and strengthen them where necessary.
So I turned to my favorite centering prayer which is mounted on a canvas plaque on my desk, took a few deep breaths and began to pray, seeking to discern what God might be saying as I begin yet another transition in my life with lots of uncertainty and vulnerability – probably a much more realistic place to start discernment than the assurance and confidence I expressed last week.
Discerning As The Beloved of God
Once again it was Henri Nouwen who guided me in the right direction.
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us God’s beloved. Being the beloved of God expresses the core truth of our existence (Nouwen 26)
As I reflected on this it occurred to me that my initial response to What does your soul long to do sounds more like a response to what does Christine Sine long to do? And I realized that this is more about What does my soul long for me to be.?
Now I need to really get down to the nitty gritty and ask what is the deep longing of my soul, a longing that cannot be disrupted by my insecurities and the place that question needs to being is with the assurance that I am indeed God’s beloved child, no matter what my failings are and no matter how uncertain I am of the path.
So this week I have started each day with the mantra You are beloved of God allowing the truth of this incredible statement to sink into my soul. The less confidence I have in this truth, the more vulnerable I am to being misled by my insecurities.
I have recited my mantra repeatedly throughout the day: while I walk our dog, while I process the incredible abundance from the garden and while I sit in the evenings savoring the beauty of God’s creation around me and the delight of companionship with my husband. I have opened myself to hear what God has to say about belovedness through the scriptures and have listened to other voices through which God is also speaking. I have pulled out one of my finger labyrinths and my sketching doodling journal (more about these tools in next week’s post) and spent time meditating.
The peace that has flooded my soul is incredible. The assurance of God’s love overwhelming. My delight in a new depth of closeness to God amazing.
Next Steps in Discerning
So I am framing some questions to continue guiding me through these next steps and I thought that some of you might appreciate my emerging process and what I am learning from it.
Who are you?
I am beloved of God, made in the Holy image, a child of the Sacred One, part of the eternal family.
How do you experience that belovedness?
This was one I pondered for quite a while before I came up with any kind of an answer and I know it is a question I need to ponder on a regular basis. What makes me aware that I am beloved by God?
The trouble is that there is no really tangible answer to this question.
I am aware that I am beloved by God when I make sure I set aside time each morning (at least 10 minutes) to sit quietly, breathe deeply of the fragrance of God’s presence and contemplate the wonder of who God is.
I am also aware that I am beloved by God when I take time throughout the day to pause and rest once more in the presence of God for a couple of minutes. The more frequently I do this, the more I am aware of my belovedness and the surrounding presence of God through every minute of the day. At the moment, not surprisingly this pause begins with reciting my mantra I am beloved of God. Sometimes it is changed to God knows all my failings but loves me still. This is an incredibly liberating process that opens me up to the abiding presence of God in every moment of the day.
I am aware that I am beloved by God when I read the scriptures that speak of belovedness – time to read through Song of Solomon again and refresh through my favorite psalms that speak of beloved.
I know that I am beloved by God when I read through the gospels and imagine that Jesus himself is present with me. These experiences are my experiences, his love for his disciples extends across time and space to me too. I was particularly reminded of John 13:2 “He (Jesus) had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end.” Jesus loves us too to the very end I thought.
Who walks with you on this journey?
We never walk alone on our journey towards God. We travel with a vast cloud of companions and witnesses, seen and unseen, present and departed, friends, family, colleagues, teachers, followers of Christ and those who suffer from the same uncertainty
One of the things that this current transition has made me aware of is that the Mustard Seed Associates staff and board were my support group and accountability group too.
Where is my current accountability group I have been wondering? I have made the establishing of this group a major priority. None of us move forward healthily without a good responsibility group and not establishing this immediately after resigning from Mustard Seed Associates has I feel been one of major failings.
There are others that walk with me on this journey however.
Who walks with you as companions I ask? There are my spiritual mentors of today whose books I have read and who have guided me through the example of their lives and expressions of faith – Parker Palmer, Norman Wirzba, Brenda Salter McNeil, Christine Valters Paintner and Walter Brueggemann are at the top of my list. There are friends, family and colleagues who are part of my life now, too many of them to name. There are those who read and respond to my blogging and writing. Their questions and comments continue to shape my journey.
Who are the witnesses from the past that stand beside me? There are those from the past – my ancestors, known and unknown, spiritual mentors whose books I read with great delight and challenge Henri Nouwen, John O’Donahue, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rachel Held Evans. Looking further back the desert fathers and mothers, Celtic saints, and Julian of Norwich have all challenged and shaped me. And in the Bible so many stories tell of ordinary people whose extraordinary lives are inspiring guides for me.
As I discern and seek to better frame what my soul longs to do I realize that I need to allow these questions to frame who I am and where I sit now in God’s family and God’s creation first. Defining what my soul longs to do without a solid foundation just doesn’t work in the long run.
So let me end with the prayer that has bubbled up inside me this week… and be prepared for the next installment of this journey coming next week.
Do you see who you are?
Beloved of God
Made in the Holy image
A child of the sacred One,
Part of the eternal family.
Do you see what you are called to be?
Loved and loving,
Cared for and caring,
Forgiven and forgiving.
Do you hear the voice of God
Singing in the silence?
Love will overcome fear,
Joy is deeper than sorrow,
\Unity will break through division,
Life is stronger than death.
In honor of the Saint of Gardeners, St. Fiacre Day by Barry Jung —
In the most recent of the 17 years that I’ve lived on the Cambie Corridor in Vancouver, mid-century homes are being demolished and replaced with higher-density buildings. Within a block of us, a row of 6 storey condos will be completed by spring of next year. In another 5 years, the mega re-development of a nearby shopping mall will have towers as tall as 42 storeys. There’ll be over 6500 new residents moving into our neighbourhood.
Despite the uncertainties we have been facing in our neighbourhood the last few years and the drastic changes ahead, we continue to invest our time and resources into it. St. Fiacre, Patron Saint of Gardeners and Carriage(Taxi) Drivers would have been pleased that one of our investments in the neighbourhood is our garden, which also sees a fair bit of moving trucks, taxis and car-shares drive by. In the process of growing flowers and food, we are subverting Vancouver ‘s version of the Seattle Freeze by making connections and cultivating relationships.
Gardening out front has invited conversation and advice from our neighbours. It has also inspired our neighbours to plant their own gardens. The noise and dust of condo construction and volumes of traffic(36,000 vehicles/day) has not deterred us as we remain rooted in this place.
Our garden is for sharing. We share all kinds of vegetables, herbs and flowers. We’ve shared our freshly cut dahlias with strangers walking by and have observed sojourners taking selfies with our colourful sunflowers. Sharing the produce that comes from our garden leads to meaningful connections with our neighbours.
Our free little library out in our garden allows us to share not only books but include seeds, plants, and food from our garden.. It’s not just a vessel for us to offer what we have but it also gives opportunity for others to contribute herbs, potted plants, fresh figs , seeds from their gardens and notes of encouragement and appreciation. This has nurtured us in unexpected ways. Our relationship with our neighbours is not only giving but in the receiving.
In the book of Luke, Jesus talks about the harvest. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”
I have long interpreted this harvest metaphor as, “neighbours ripe to be brought into the Kingdom of God” and “saved”. Recently I’ve looked at this passage from a different perspective using the lens of a gardener. I see clearly that the bounty from a harvest nourishes me, sustains me, gives life to me. It’s Jesus that grows and produces the harvest. I don’t save the harvest and give it life. It’s the harvest that gives me life.
My experience of being in our front yard and engaging with a stranger – a neighbour. – through simple conversations and encounters enlivens me, animates me. My neighbours who are made in the image of God, they are giving me a more meaningful life, they are saving me. My interaction with them is transforming me to be more like Christ. And so I try to make myself more available and more present to the growing number of people in my neighbourhood.
Julie Canlis writes: There’s a sun-engraved sign made of wood scraps in the midst of our garden. It’s seen better days. It’s a reminder to me that God is at work. Growth, transformation, renewal, restoration and reconciliation are taking place. Seeds from plants and simple conversations that are sown in this garden will germinate and eventually grow to provide beauty, shade, fragrance and nourishment. An ecosystem of relationships will flourish. The sign is a testament of my presence in our neighbourhood – that we’re not moving, that we’re sticking it out. But more importantly it’s a signpost of God’s presence— a faithful presence that provides a glimpse of his Kingdom here in my block on Cambie Street as it is in heaven.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”
As our burgeoning neighbourhood transforms into a city within a city, the humble garden plunked right in the middle of it brings to mind the image of the Garden City described in Revelation. I wonder and eagerly anticipate how my story on Cambie street will weave into the Master’s Story. His Story that starts with a garden in a place called Eden and eventually brings us to a City with a garden – A Garden city, a new Eden – where all Creation is healed and all it citizens will experience the fullness of God’s Shalom.
I have hope for our neighbourhood. I have hope for our city, I have hope for all of God’s Creation…. because a garden which has been planted, gives us HOPE to believe in tomorrow.
By Mark Buhling —
I won’t pretend to be an expert on Catholic saints, much less an expert on St. Fiacre of Breuil. My knowledge of St. Fiacre comes mostly from wikipedia. Honestly, I am writing this because of my interest in local, earth friendly food production, food sovereignty, food security and how these can be part of our spiritual conversations. To that end, I was intrigued by Christine Sine’s request for a word about St. Fiacre. Here is what I have discovered in my quick search:
St. Fiacre is the patron saint of, among others, gardners. St. Fiacre was a gardner, an herbalist, a healer, probably an abbot, and probably an introvert. Identifying St. Fiacre as an introvert is, of course, speculation, but it is informed speculation; informed by my own introvert tendencies. If he was an introvert, he was an introvert that often, but apparently not always, required himself to live in community. And not only live in community but to engage in community in such a way as to recognize the burdens of others and ease their suffering though his gift for healing.
Though I do not have the gift of healing, I am, like St. Fiacre, and I suspect, like many of you, a gardener and an introvert that chooses to engage in community. I help manage Englewood Community Farm in Missouri and our best days on the farm are when there is strong community engagement. Our best days on the farm are when we are planting or tending or harvesting together. It is on such days that the hard news of the world fades and the louder voices of beautiful community are ringing. It is on such days that our farm, our common place, our gathering place fully expresses its potential to bring people together. But some days I am gardening alone. Some days I am pulling weeds by myself
This season at the farm we planted a large area of sunflowers. The have grown well and are now well over seven feet tall. They are impressive and have drawn people to the farm. Many have stopped to see them, to come get a closer look, and we are thrilled that our little farm is drawing such attention. But right next to the sunflowers are a few rows of purple hull peas. They are hardly noticed, so low to the ground next to the sunflowers but this small patch is one of my favorite places on the farm this year. Many days this summer I have spent a quiet hour in that patch,enjoying the solitude, the sun, and the tug of war with the weeds (the weeds are winning). Even still, my new awareness of St. Fiacre has helped me appreciate the contrast between the attraction of the tall, bright sunflowers and the low and quiet pea patch. I see the value in both, but my inclination is toward the low and the quiet. My inclination is toward solitude.
It is said that St. Fiacre began his work in Ireland but moved to France looking for peace and quiet. Or as Patrick Duffy writes: “As crowds flocked to him because of his reputation for his holiness and cures, he sailed to France in search of greater solitude.” As he settled in France, he was given a space to plant. A plot on which to grow his herbs and his vegetables. I don’t know if he found all of the quiet he was looking for.
Shall we stop for a moment and absorb this lesson from St. Fiacre: some of us are more compelled by the sunflowers; that which is tall, colorful, and bright. Some of us are drawn closer to the earth, to the low and quiet. May the life of St Fiacre be our guide. May we recognize the need for both community and solitude. And always, may we listen for the whispers of the Spirit of God in our gardens informing us which of these we need each day.
- Patrick Duffy, “Aug 30 – St Fiacre (7th century) patron of gardeners and taxi-drivers” (30 August 2012)
Mark Buhlig is the director of Points on the Wheel, a non profit dedicated to making the world a better place and co pastor at Englewood Baptist Church in Gladstone, Missouri
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