Skink Lizard
(“Yum, a delicious mulberry”)
Skinks are common in our garden, but they are not as attractive as Bobtails (aka Shinglebacks or Bluetongue lizards). Since the skink, who lives under the house, made an appearance during my meditation time, he is included here. I find it difficult to name reptiles as friends, but I do like Bobtails. It is probably because my brothers and I made it a habit, on our childhood farm, to capture local wildlife and keep them as pets. Turtles, wild ducks, bobtails & other lizards and gilgies (a local small freshwater crustacean) were included in our menagerie. Their captivity usually only lasted a few days before the animals easily escaped. When we were children we were always pleased to see a bobtail because, according to my father, “When bobtails are around, snakes aren’t”. As an adult I suspect he wasn’t right. But he was right in another piece of his advice on bobtails, “Don’t let them bite you – they don’t let go.”
Bobtails, according to local Noongars, are tasty, particularly their tails in which they store fat for the lean times. On the other hand you have to be pretty hungry, they say, to eat a skink. Unfortunately, bobtails too commit car suicide and, because they are much slower than bandicoots, they seem to quickly come to a tragic end in an urban environment.
The only negative aspect to having skinks and bobtails in a garden is that they luuuv strawberries and will eat them just before the fruit are ready for me to pick and eat. The photo shows a skink gobbling up a mulberry.
Bobtails adapt their colours to the environment and are very well camouflaged. Notice the orange soil colour on the desert bobtail above and the garden brown on the garden bobtail. They are very tricky to see in the garden and often make one think ‘snake’ and step back with great urgency. They greet intruders with an open mouth, a vivid blue/black tongue and deep throaty ‘hiss’. In the strawberry patch or just along a path, bobtails present a fearsome sight when they hiss and stick out their blue tongue our to the blue.
Unusually for reptiles, bobtails hatch their eggs internally and nurture their hatchlings in a primitive placenta before giving birth to live young. The ‘birth’ ends parental responsibility for the lizard hatchlings! Once born baby bobtails are on their own. I am pleased to share my prayer space with Bobtails and Skinks. What message do blue tongue lizards bring to prayer garden?
Bob Tailed Lizard
(In our garden)
My Blue Tongue (James 3:3-12)
Why is the blue tongue lizard’s tongue blue?
Was he punished because he cursed his neighbour?
Did he hold his tongue too long and remain silent when he should have spoken?
Is he sending a message, “Don’t mess with me, I’ve got a blue tongue”?
Makes me think of my tongue:
…….I know my tongue both sings praises and pronounces curses
…….I know I say things I shouldn’t and don’t say things I should
…….I know my words have steered my ship into some rocky shoals
…….And I have inadvertently (or vertandly) started some fierce fires
…….I know I that out of the well of my mouth has come brackish water
…….Instead of life sustaining fresh water for others,
Maybe next time I look in a mirror my tongue will be blue too.
It’s ok, I checked, my tongue is not yet blue…
Thanks my shingleback friend and teacher for reminding me to
Mind my tongue.
This course will be given live on May 11th. It will be interactive with contemplative garden practices and much laughter involved.
Consider the Wilderness of Life.
Jesus is with us in the wilderness of life…Jesus is with us in the wilderness of the world we live in the marketplace of real life. How does this make you feel? Where have you felt the love of Jesus in your regular life this week? Take time to thank Him.
Jesus is in the wilderness with us in Churchland….In the wilderness of Churchianity too!
In what ways would you like to see Jesus” clean house “ ?
Take time to pray for the Church in your country and take time to pray for your own church community.
The Gospel Reading for this week is John 2:13-25…When Jesus goes to the temple and cleans house! What does the Holy Spirit highlight for you today as you read or listen to the passage?
JOHN 2:13-25 NIV
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a]
18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.[b] 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25 He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
JOHN 2:13-25 First Nations Bible
13The time of the year had come for the ancient Passover festival. Creator Sets Free (Jesus) made his way to the Great Spirit’s lodge in Village of Peace (Jerusalem). This was the custom for all the families of the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel). He came into the area in the lodge called Gathering Place for the Nations. It was here that other nations could come to learn about the Great Spirit and his ways.
14As Creator Sets Free (Jesus) entered the lodge, he saw people sitting at money tables. There were also others who were trading, buying, and selling the cattle, sheep, and doves for the ceremonies—inside the lodge!
It was so crowded that there was no room for the people from other nations who had come to learn about the Great Spirit. They were not honoring the purpose of this holy place. 15So Creator Sets Free (Jesus) took some leather straps and made a whip. He cracked the whip to startle and move the animals, and to drive all the people from the lodge. He tipped over the tables, which scattered their money on the floor. 16He then turned to speak to the ones who were selling the ceremonial doves.
“Go!” he roared at them. “Take these things out from here. Do not make my Father’s sacred lodge into a trading post!” 17The ones who walked the road with him listened and remembered the ancient prophecy, “My desire to honor your sacred lodge burns like a fire in my belly.”
18“What gives you the right to do these things?” the tribal leaders said to him. “Prove yourself and show us a sign!” 19“Tear down this sacred lodge,” he answered, “and in three days I will raise it up again.” 20The people shook their heads and said to him, “It took forty-six winters to build this great lodge. How could you raise it up in three days?”
21They did not understand that he was speaking about the lodge of his own body. 22After he was raised up from the dead, his followers remembered what he said and then believed the ancient Sacred Teachings and the words he spoke to them. 23During the Passover festival many people began to believe in him because they saw the powerful miracles he was performing. 24But he did not trust himself to them, for he could see right through them. 25He did not need anyone to tell him about human beings, for he knew the hearts of humankind.
What do you notice that you haven’t before?
What questions come up for you?
What are the invitations from Jesus in the passage?
Maybe you were like me growing up.You weren’t really allowed to have an angry Jesus or to show or express anger yourself! This passage gives me freedom to express my frustration with what is happening in the world
I want so much to cleanse the temple right now.
I don’t even go to “regular “church!
But I want to go in and turn over the tables of the pastors and leaders who are mixing politics with worship
Those who are afraid and
Who are teaching their people to be afraid too!
Those who are teaching their people to BE HATERS rather than to love
To use guns rather than to serve and wash the feet of the marginalized.
I really want Jesus to come and cleanse the temple again, please!
WE NEED IT.
I realize that I too am afraid.
I am afraid of who I am becoming…a person of fear rather than faith
A person who is filled with anger rather than love and peace
A person who is finding it VERY hard, extremely hard, to love my enemies and believe in God’s best for them .
I need my temple court cleared of all the clutter! Cleared of the animals of fear and bitterness and hate!
I need the tables I have erected for protection to be overturned so that I can truly love.
I need the court of my heart cleared so that there is room for others not just myself. Even for those who feel like my enemies!
“Jesus is angry about this, and many use this passage to justify violence because Jesus appears pretty violent here. But note that he’s violent toward things, not toward people. He’s liberating animals and trying to liberate the poor from their oppression. Of course, the religious leaders want to protect the building, the temple, but Jesus is redefining the temple. He identifies his body as the temple (John 2:21). The new temple is the human person; we are the body of Christ.
We see Jesus making this great revolution, transforming religion from a concern for sacrifice to earn God’s love to trust through which we know God’s love. And where does that trust happen? In the human heart.”
Father Richard Rohr
What sparks your attention in this quote?
Lent is a time for cleansing and clearing out the wilderness of our lives…
What is in the wilderness of your regular life like at the moment? The stuff that is getting in the way of your relationship with Jesus?
Draw out a picture of a table or find one in a magazine and write down the things that are blocking your heart and cluttering the temple of your life right now. Or just sit and look at your coffee table or a table near you. What tables need to be cleared away, turned over, in order to have more space for other people, and for Jesus? What have you been filling your temple court with rather than space for love and worship? Ask Jesus to show you and allow him to cleanse you!
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1JOHN 1:8-9
“Cleansing the Temple” by Malcom Guite, Sounding the Season
Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange
Restore in me my lost imagination
Begin in me for good, the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
With questions asked and certain answers found,
Come as you came this day, a man in anger
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through
Face down for me the fear the shame the danger
Teach me again to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
And tear the veil in two with your last breath.
”If we are to become living sanctuaries worthy of the indwelling of God’s Spirit, to become the body of Christ, we must work as Jesus did to cleanse or dismantle the structures of oppression and exclusion that threaten our houses of prayer. We must embrace the Jesus with the whip as well as the babe in the crib or the one that hangs limp on the cross. For the temple may be destroyed but he will rise after death.”
Rev Loren McGrail, United Church of Christ / National YWCA of Palestine
LISTEN TO SERMON by Father Richard Rohr on this passage from John
by Christine Sine
Yesterday we went live with the second episode of my new podcast, a discussion of poetry as a spiritual practice with Drew Jackson. Facebook decided my post contravened their rules and regulations. I didn’t think it was that radical, but I don’t want you to miss this great interview with such an exceptional poet. I thought the it was. spectacular interview!
Here is a second soundbite to grab your attention.
Please consider not only listening to the podcast but also sharing it with your friends and publicizing on social media. Please help me get the word out more broadly.
by Bill Borror
Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.
Sylvia Plath
What do we really want? Sometimes it is straightforward:
A nap
A sandwich
For it to stop
For one more…..
But frequently we have trouble connecting our desires and our needs. Jesus asks a guy, who has been ill for thirty-eight years and who spends his days waiting for a miracle, if he wants to be healed (John 5:1-9)? Is Jesus is being “Captain Obvious,” or does he perceive a deeper malaise in the man than his physical paralysis? According to the gospel of John, the man chose to lie on a mat waiting for the miraculous periodic angelic stirring of the water, without any way of getting to the water even if said angel should decide to stop by. On one level, of course he wants to walk, but he also seems comfortable in the role of “sick guy by the pool that no one helps.”
Our desires exist because of some kind of deficiency. And because nature abhors a vacuum, a lot of our energy goes into filling those empty places. The problem is like toddlers trying to make a square fit into the circle space of a shape sorter, we often try to fill the holes in our soul with things that are never quite going to be able to fill the void. As Pascal most famously stated, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each person which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”
Lent is an opportunity to recalibrate our hearts and minds through willful acts of devotion and sacrifice. It’s a reordering of our loves to seek the things that truly satisfy our deepest longings found only in God. It is our yes to Jesus’s grace-filled asking “do you want to be well in your soul?”
The Liturgical rebels is now Live. The second episode – Poetry as Spiritual Practice with Drew Jackson is now available. Don’t miss this interview with an amazing poet.
In this second episode of The Liturgical Rebel I am in conversation with Drew Jackson about poetry as spiritual practice and how it can help us express the laments and joys of life while enabling us to sit longer in the questions life raises not looking for answers but sitting in the mystery of all things. His poetry is part protest, part Biblical commentary and provides a fresh as he weaves the Biblical narrative with contemporary issues of justice, lament and hope.
We will also discuss his amazing sensitivity to to women in the gospels and how poetry enables us to access our anger and see it as an invitation to uncover the mystery of life and let go of a need for answers and control.
Link to episode 2 – Poetry as Spiritual Practice on Buzzsprout
Drew has published 2 wonderful books of poetry: Touch the Earth and God Speaks Through Wombs. (NOTE: As an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount if you purchase through these links.)
For more information about Drew Jackson visit him at his website drewjackson.com or join him on Instagram or on Facebook.
Find out more about Christine Sine on her website Godspacelight or join her on social media: Instagram; Facebook; X or YouTube
“There is tension within me during Lent. On one side I feel the somberness of the season and call to repentance and sober reflection. On the other side I want to dance and sing because everything is bursting into life. Surely this is part of the foolishness of Lent and of the God who is revealed during this season.” Writing my Meditation Monday: Foolish Things For God, was not easy because of this tension. Yet living in tension between what is and what is longed for is what Lent is all about. We long for a world in which pain and suffering and death are overcome, yet we live in the reality of a world filled with injustice, violence and disease. Lent is a time not just to acknowledge the tensions, but to fill our fuel tanks so that we are better equipped to commit our lives to making a difference as we seek to bring glimpses of God’s shalom world into being.
I love what Cole Arthur Riley says in Black Liturgies, which I am currently reading. She suggests that purpose is not a straight line but a landscape. Our purpose is not just vocation but every decision we make is related to our purpose and should, mirror the divine and guide us closer to God and God’s purposes. She comments: “how we spend our days is a matter of choice, place, privilege and how willing we are to proceed down the corridor… if you are called to anything it will sound like freedom.” Lent is about freedom to live as God intends us to, and that will always mean we live in tension.
Some of the tension I feel is probably reflected in my post last week Contemplative Garden Books Updated. For me this is a wonderful time of year not only to plan the garden, but also to reflect on the presence of God in the garden. As you know one of the delights of my life is the revelation of God in nature and I heartily recommend contemplative practices that embrace creation to you.
Lilly Lewin’s Freerange Friday: Gifts in the Wilderness had me thinking about what I see as gifts in this Lenten season. Like her I see many gifts in this season and am drawn to the beauty of sunsets and the finding of heart shaped rocks. What are the gifts you are finding in the wilderness?
I appreciate Diane Woodrow drawing on my own reflections from last week and interpreting them for her own situation in her post Letting Go As she says: “perhaps we all need some time over this Lenten season to stop, to think about whether the things, whether many or few, are what God really wants us to be doing. And then be brave enough to have gaps in our lives where there is nothing to do!”
Rodney Marsh, writing from Western Australia took us in another direction, reflecting on what he is learning from bandicoots in his garden. We used to have bandicoots in our yard too, but I must confess I did not see them as a learning experience at that time. I love what he learned from Eric the bandicoot though: “Be still. You are in a safe place. Attend to your prayer word and be, like me. Look and live and you will make some wonderful friends – like me. But forget to attend, wander off and move, and I will be gone. Be still.”
Tomorrow we will post the second episode of Liturgical Rebels. An interview with poet Drew Jackson, whose book God Speaks Through Wombs I used for Advent last year. His poetry is part protest, part Biblical commentary and provides a fresh perspective as he weaves the Biblical narrative with contemporary issues of justice, lament and hope. I loved interviewing Drew and hope you enjoy this episode as much as I do.
Thank you for bearing with us as we work through the transitions at Godspace. I am excited about the future. Episode 3 of the Liturgical Rebels will be an interview with Scott Erickson. This week I have another interview lined up, with Kreg Yingst, an artist and illustrator with a focus on block printing, whose inspiring prayers and block prints you might be familiar with from his instagram account. www.instagram.com/psalmprayers Next week Lilly Lewin and I will chat to one of my favourite liturgical rebels, Mark Pierson from New Zealand. Mark is a Baptist minister, and worship curator who introduced both Lilly and I to the possibilities of out of the box approaches to spiritual practices and worship.
I appreciate your prayers and your patience as we work through these transitions.
Let me end with another prayer I wrote this week.
Have you ever watched
A seed burst into life
From a loamy grave,
And gasped in awe
At the miracle of resurrection?
Hope and promise in a garden.
The story of God
Written throughout the earth.
Signposts of love and light and beauty.
Many blessings on your journey through Lent
Christine Sine
The Liturgical rebels is now Live. Don’t forget to view the first episode before the second is released on Wednesday.
NOTE: as an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through links above.
by Christine Sine
Over the last few days spring has burst forth in Seattle. The daffodils are smiling. Crocuses fill the lawn and flowering trees are bursting into bloom all around the neighbourhood. There is tension within me during this season of Lent. On one side I feel the somberness of the season and call to repentance and sober reflection. On the other side I want to dance and sing because everything is bursting into life. Surely this is part of the foolishness of Lent and of the God who is revealed during this season.
I must confess I have found it very hard to settle into my Lenten practices this year, partly because of this bursting forth of spring which I so long for as the days start to lengthen, and partly because of the launch of my new podcast, The Liturgical Rebels. I am delighted at the response to the first episode and really appreciate your comments and affirmation. The second episode, an interview with black poet Drew Jackson will be launched on Wednesday. Drew and I talk about poetry as spiritual practice and how it can help us express the laments and joys of life while enabling us to sit longer in the questions life raises not looking for answers but sitting in the mystery of all things. We also discuss his amazing sensitivity to to women in the gospels and how poetry enables us to access our anger and see it as an invitation to uncover the mystery of life and let go of a need for answers and control. He is a wonderful person to interview.
In some ways it seems foolish to launch a podcast like this at the beginning of Lent, but in other ways it seems very appropriate as part of what I encourage us to do is to break outside the realms of convention and do foolish things like experimenting with new approaches to spiritual practices.
One consistent practices I am engaged in for Lent is reading Cole Arthur Riley’s Black Liturgies. It is every bit as impacting as her first book This Here Flesh which makes it a slow read as I fond myself stopping, savouring the words, reflecting and writing poetry in response. Yesterday it was this prayer that held my attention, a prayer that speaks of the tensions I too feel in this season of Lent.
God of every beautiful thing. Make us people of wonder. Show us how to hold on to nuance and vision when our souls become addicted to pain, to the unlovely. It is far easier to see the gloom and decay; so often it sings a louder song. Attune our hearts to the good still stirring in our midst, not that we would give ourselves to toxic positivity or neglect the pain of the world, but that we would be people capable of existing in the tension. Grant us habits of sacred pause. Let us marvel not just at the grand or majestic, but beauty’s name etched into every ordinary moment. Let the mundane swell with a mystery that makes us breathe deeper still. And by this, may we be sustained and kept from despair. Amen. (Black Liturgies 35)
Because of the tension I feel in Lent this year I am including two of the contrasting outputs of the last week for me. The first is a Lenten reflection on the Foolishness of God. The second is some poetry I wrote over the last few weeks as I immersed myself in the wonder of spring and of God’s bursting forth into our world in new ways. Both, I feel, speak of the wonder and the foolishness of God and the way God’s holy presence is manifested in our world. enjoy
There is Wonder in the World
There is wonder in the world,
We cannot comprehend,
Miracles of light and beauty,
Mystery of things that grow
In the depths of night.
No science can explain the splendor,
Or help us understand
When sunset colours
Take our breath away,
And bring us to tears.
Why do strangers show compassion,
For people half a world away,
And care when violence
Rips society apart?
Why do we ache
When forests are destroyed
And species made extinct,
As though the spark of God
Is snuffed out?
This world is alive with God.
Divine love shimmers through creation.
All is infused with holy presence
Filled with love and life and beauty.
God of Every Beautiful Thing
God of every beautiful thing,
Give us eyes to see the wonder,
Of your world,
Let it disrupt our days with sacred pauses,
So that we marvel,
Not just at majestic mountains
And sweeping vistas,
But at the sparks of mystery
Carved in every ordinary thing
That fills this earth.
Let our hearts swell with delight,
At every wrinkled face
That graces our days
With the image of God,
And glory in the divine light
Enlivening every humdrum moment,
With the joy
Of holy presence.
3
The Liturgical rebels is now Live. Don’t forget to view the first episode before the second is released on Wednesday.
NOTE: as an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through links above.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
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