Today is World Kindness Day. We celebrate with this poem written by Ana Lisa De Jong —
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Kindness is the space between
a spring rising from a desert
a strip of blue against leaden sky.
Kindness is the space between breaths
a pause that holds back speech
and a voice that advocates.
Kindness is the heart’s response
to the rational mind.
It is mercy unwarranted and still poured out.
So that kindness becomes a river
a slender thread in a barren landscape
refreshing a thirsty ground.
Whoever felt confidence in themselves
was first shown kindness,
and patience for a slow unfolding.
Kindness leaves justice
without a defence
for its cold insistence on what’s right.
Kindness blurs the lines of right and wrong
but still comes out on top
for its redemptive grace.
When forgiveness becomes a given
transformation is the result
of a mercy that wipes the slate clean.
Yes, kindness is the space between
a spring rising to become a torrent
of love with no agenda but the giving,
Yes, transparent river
to cleanse muddied waters
through the purity of its intention,
kindness is the space between.
A net of safety to gift
dreams a chance of birthing.
And kindness is the only force
to create life from nothing.
As yeast is to bread so kindness is to us.
by Christine Sine
On Saturday I facilitated a small contemplative retreat day at our home in Seattle. I always enjoy preparing for thee days which give me an important opportunity to relax and refresh myself too. They remind me of the preparation I need to do to get myself ready for a new season and encourage me to create new practices for my own spiritual life.
Walking the finger labyrinth
The focus was developing a rhythm of life for the Advent season and beyond. I encouraged participants to create their own unique rhythm based on a process of prayer, planning, preparation and practice. I talked about the violence we do to our souls by succumbing to the rush and pressure of modern life and Parker Palmer’s assertion that we need to know when and where to seek sanctuary for our souls. If we don’t have place that provide sanctuary our lives spin out of control and our rhythm becomes distorted.
Time for reflection
This is where we need prayer:
Prayer
The prayer that draws us into the place of sanctuary isn’t what most of us think about when we imagine prayer. Once I would have been happy to see the waiting season of Advent as a time to pray according to the prescribed patterns the lectionary calls us to, but not anymore.
Advent wreaths and Christmas music are not what provides sanctuary for my soul. These are the forms of prayer and practice prescribed by a culture hundreds of years ago.
Now I need something new, something that encourages me to wait by reaching deep into the depths of my soul and looking for something that resonates with who God has created me to be. This is a prayer that begins in silence, a prayer that draws me deep into my inner being, into what Parker Palmer calls “the place of not-knowing”, that beckons us all to relax and slow down, often in the darkness, “until our eyes adjust and we start to see what’s down there.” As Palmer says “I want to make my own discoveries, think my own thoughts and feel my own feelings before I learn what the experts say.”
It often takes darkness to enable us to think for ourselves and experiment with something new. We learn not to hurry what God is doing or try to force a pathway that is not divinely inspired. Out of this kind of prayer comes a plan and a rhythm that is uniquely our own, a rhythm that it is easier to stick with because it has risen from the depths of our souls.
My prayer above came from this type of reflection.
What are the prayers that lie in the dark and wait to bubble up from inside your soul as you prepare for the Advent and Christmas season?
Planning
Using Tools that help us focus
Another of my favorite authors, Christine Valters Paintner in her latest book The Soul’s Slow Ripening, comments that “the soul thrives in slowness and the divine spark of life reveals itself when we pay attention.” Paying attention to the prayers that have been birthed, rooted and now grow in the dark, in the slow place of contemplation, experimentation and discovery often results in unexpected but important plans, that can form the firm foundations we need for our seasonal rhythms.
Waiting in the silence, growing in the dark, allowing roots to find anchor in the soil, this is the kind of planning that has invited me to unleash my creativity and develop new practices.
In what ways are you paying attention to the divine spark within you promoting you to slow down and take notice?
Preparing
There are three things that help me prepare for a new season
- Going on retreat – as many of you know this is something that Tom and I do 3 or 4 times a year. It is an extremely important part of my preparation for any new season
- Consult a soul friend – “an intimate bond where two people opened their hearts to one another, sharing their doubts and fears, their struggles and successes, encouraging one another on the journey.” I am privileged to have several good friends who provide soul friendship for me, some of whom have done so for decades. It is part of what has given my faith resilience through the tough times I have passed through.
- Have some fun – It is only in the last few years, and particularly as I have worked on my upcoming book The Gift of Wonder, that I have come to believe in a God who loves fun, laughs frequently and delights in me and whom I am created to be. According to play expert Dr Stuart Brown, “nothing lights up the brain like play”. He believes that play might be God’s greatest gift to humankind. Nurturing my relationship with this fun loving God has refreshed my soul and given me permission to enjoy life in every season.
What steps are you taking to prepare for the upcoming season?
Creating an Advent jar
Practicing
Out of this framework of preparation comes the new practices that I engage in. This year it has been the fun activity of creating an Advent Jar that has really helped me focus and develop a sustainable rhythm for the season of Advent. It was my first experiment with spray painting a jar – something I have wanted to do for a long time. Now I am preparing to spray paint a whole collection of small terra cotta pots which will form my Advent calendar this year. I have had a ball – both in the preparation and in the anticipation of my upcoming practice for the new season.
What new practice resonates in your soul as you get ready for Advent?
Today is Remembrance Sunday in the United Kingdom. Give this great blog a read by Jeannie Kendall —
And so we come to another Remembrance Sunday. Recently I asked a veteran in our congregation what it meant to him. For him, it is about remembering those he met in hospital, badly wounded from the Second World War. He does not know what happened to them, and wishes he did, but remembers them every year, and of course at times in between.
Remembrance means different things to different people. For some, memories and a sense of loss are all too fresh and painful. This is something many of us can understand, though our particular traumas may be different. Sights, sounds, feelings which we long to be free of refuse to leave at our command, coming unbidden to flood us afresh with pain. Trauma we cannot escape lays in wait to bring us distress again. Reminders scratch at the scars of losses we thought we had recovered from, or at least accepted.
Remembrance is also about gratitude for sacrifice, again something we can understand even if we are fortunate enough to be decades from war. Many of us recognise what others have given up to allow us to live the lives we do.
Remembrance too holds out a hope for peace, a longing that we might learn to live together without violence, to find a way to embrace difference rather than seek to vilify or destroy it. It seems so elusive in our world, yet for those who seek to follow the Prince of Peace surely it must still be what we strive for?
Remembrance Sunday strikes a chord deep within us, because as well as whatever the traditional elements mean to us, we carry a deep seated fear of being forgotten. This begins in childhood, when we fear abandonment, whether temporary at the school gate or on a more permanent basis through death, neglect or abuse. It continues into adulthood, with its myriad opportunities to feel, or indeed be, forgotten, be it in the trivial forgotten birthday card, being overlooked in the workplace, or disregarded in more devastating ways.
Perhaps it is important as we think about Remembrance Sunday, whatever it may mean to us, to hold on to the fact that God never forgets us, or those in our minds as we remember. The Bible is rich in stories where, amid profound suffering, it would have been easy for the person to feel forgotten: Noah floating perilously in the ark, Hagar weeping in the desert, Mephibosheth the orphaned cripple. In each case God both hears and holds them in His mind. They are never forgotten or forsaken.
And neither are we.
By Lilly Lewin
Just a couple of weeks away from Thanksgiving here in the States and I wanted to introduce you to a few ideas you might try around your table this holiday. A friend of mine brought up the fact that elections should not be in November right before holiday gatherings. It just complicates the discussion around the table. Whether you are hosting a gathering, going to someone’s home, or going out to dinner, you can begin to pray for the conversations and relationships in advance. I’m already praying for peaceful, loving dialogue to happen and realizing that I need to be more intentional in my prayers for each person who will join us.
If you know who is invited to your gathering, make an effort to pray for the guests to feel God’s love and peace this week. Make a list on your phone and when you are standing in line or waiting somewhere, allow time to pray through your list.
Pray for people who are lonely and may be dreading the holiday. Do you know people who have lost loved ones this year? You can send them a text, or a card, or an old fashioned phone call to let them know that you love them and are praying for them as they experience these “first” holidays without this special person.
Maybe this year has been a hard one. Maybe it’s been hard to see the good things, the things to even be thankful for this year.
Perhaps you need to take time to grieve and make the space to acknowledge the pain and sorrow of your year. Who can you ask to partner in this with you?
I’ve been working on having “eyes to see,” asking Jesus to give me his vision, his sight so I can see the good things around me. I have a dish of “google eyes” by my bed to remind me to use God’s eyes to see things and to remind me to pray for “eyes to see” the beauty and wonder in our world.
Here are some fun ways to bring joy to your own practice of Thanksgiving and your Thanksgiving gathering:
Last year I covered our dining room table with a painter’s drop cloth and put jars of makers on the table so people could draw while they ate. You can do this with butcher paper too, but I wanted to cover up the fact that I was adding a card table to the end of the dining table to add more places, and the drop cloth went all the way to the floor and was a nice beige color. You can put paper down under the drop cloth as an added protection for your table if you use sharpie markers (in case bleed through) or you can use Crayola markers that are not permanent. I didn’t give any instructions on what to draw, I just gave everyone permission to draw on the table! It was fun to see what people created during the meal and afterwards.
I also discovered a great new tradition called “Turkey on the Table.” It’s a three dimensional turkey that you add turkey feathers to it’s tail. You can add them throughout the month before Thanksgiving, or place a tail feather at everyone’s place at the meal on Thanksgiving day and have them write down what they are thankful for and add it to the Turkey. Extra tail feathers can be ordered as needed so this can become an annual practice. And best of all, each turkey purchased gives back to others.
According to their website,
“For each Turkey on the Table® kit purchased, Turkey on the Table donates one dollar to Feeding America on your behalf, which in turn helps secure ten meals. Feeding America works with a nationwide network of 200 local food banks and 61,000 food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters, to deliver meals to those in need. How does a dollar provide 10 meals? Click here to find out more: FeedingAmerica.org. We feel strongly that every person deserves food on their table, no matter what their circumstances; and with your help, we believe we can put Turkey on the Table for everyone!”
You can purchase kits at their website or on amazon.
This year we are doing a Turkey Craft for our thinplace gathering. Craft stores like Michaels Crafts have cute turkey craft kits you can make before or after the meal and let everyone fill in the feathers with things they are grateful for. Make sure you create an example for folks to follow. I found this kit for 70% off at Michaels. And here’s another cute one at Party City. Or you can have everyone trace their hands and let the fingers be the feathers of the turkey and write down things they are thankful for in each finger. This could be done on the tablecloth/dropcloth or on construction paper!
Traci Smith has a great November Gratitude Everyday Calendar that she allows you to download for free. She is the Author of Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home which has amazing ideas for family spiritual practices.
Traci’s calendar inspired me to come up with some questions to write down and have on cards at each person’s place this year so we can talk about what we are thankful for. One question for each person and then we will go around the table and share the answers, with permission to pass of course!
What’s a Favorite Memory you are thankful for?
What is a Special Place you are grateful for?
An experience or trip you’ve had in the last year you are thankful for?
A special person, book, or movie that has impacted your life this year you are grateful for?
A way you’ve experienced God this year that you are thankful for.
You also can check out the lectionary readings for Thanksgiving Day to help you reflect on being grateful and to remind you of the abundance and goodness of God.
Joel 2:21-27
Psalm 126
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Matthew 6:25-33
I’d love to hear how you practice Thanksgiving this year! Make sure you don’t over do it! Take time to breathe and rest, even in the midst of the holiday. And I’m still a proponent for joining our friends in Canada and having Thanksgiving in October so all the holidays aren’t so crammed together! Blessings for a day of joy and peace and some good food too!
Check out freerangeworship.com for prayer resource kits.
by Christine Sine
When I posted this prayer several years ago and talked about the need to simplify the traffic on the blog zoomed so I thought it was time to repost it.
People everywhere are looking for resources to help them keep their time and resources under control. People of faith are looking for a new and simpler rhythm to life that will enable them to truly focus on the presence of Christ and bear witness to the love of God.
Christmas is coming. We know it well because the demons of consumerism and materialism have reared their ugly heads all around us. Hallmark has already begun their “countdown to Christmas” movies and the annual barrage of gift catalogues has hit us.
Most of us find ourselves in a real bind at this season. Do we have a gift free Christmas and turn our backs entirely on consumerism? Do we buy only gifts that come from fair trade, slave free, or local organizations and feel that we are making difference with our purchases? Or do we develop a holier than thou attitude and turn our backs completely on the secular celebration of the season?
If we are honest, we all struggle with these issues and are not sure how to enter into the true spirit of Christmas without disappointing our kids or denying our own enjoyment of Christmas goodies and unexpected presents. Simplify Christmas, Celebrate Christ we tell ourselves while hoping that we will find a new I-phone under the tree.
For most of us our simplification of Christmas is a compromise that hopefully does focus more on the celebration of the birth of Christ than on the secular materialistic spirit of the season. If you are struggling with these issues here are some thoughts to reflect on before the season gets into full swing.
Simplify Christmas.
Here are a couple of resources to explore to help:
Simple Living Works is a great resource for simplifying our lives not just at Christmas but all the year. I particularly recommend listening to some of their Whose Birthday Is It Anyway? podcasts.
Christmas Gifts that Won’t Break provides weekly Advent reading, looks at spiritual gifts that bring hope, peace, joy, and love to family, community, and world and challenges people to rethink the gifts they ask for and give during the Advent and Christmas seasons.
Centre for A New American Dream has a great downloadable booklet Simplify the Holidays as well as other resources.
Celebrate Advent and Keep the Christmas Festivities For Christmas.
Advent begins December 2nd. In the liturgical calendar this is the season of waiting, leading up to Christmas. This post by Charlie Clauss has some great thoughts on why this matters. To truly enter into the spirit of Advent I try to get my Christmas shopping done early. It helps keep me focused on the real meaning of the countdown to Christmas.
I start my Advent preparations early, refurbishing my Advent garden and going on retreat to clear my mind and set priorities for the season. This is a great discipline for me that helps me both focus and simplify.
Give Christmas Away This Year
Consider alternative celebrations to the usual Christmas parties. A couple of years ago MSA team member Cindy Todd made soap for an event at Church of the Beloved in Edmonds Washington whose theme was – A Slave Free Christmas. It highlighted making or buying articles that were made without slave labour. Participants also watched and talked about the film Dreams Die Hard and talked about the issues of slavery still present in the United States.
Pay more for less when you buy gifts. Tom and I are Christmas people and to be honest could not really imagine no gifts at Christmas, but we do restrict our gift giving and try to buy locally produced or fair trade items as much as possible. One of my good friends receives a monthly package of coffee from Camano Island Coffee Roasters which partners with Agros to enable communities in Central America to get on their feet. There are a growing array of stores that provide fair traded gifts in everything from clothing to soccer balls.
Our administrative assistant Katie Metzger has started a fair trade ethically produced clothing company called Same Thread. Not only does she employ women in Thailand who would otherwise end up in the sex trade, but their clothing uses sustainable materials and dyes as much as possible too.
One of my favourite places to shop at this season is Ten Thousand Villages.
Consider alternative charitable gifts to organizations like World Concern, and Heifer Project that provide animals and other gifts for people in impoverished communities to enable them to start small businesses.
Consider gifts from the Godspace store this Christmas. Godspace also has a number of Advent and Christmas resources that make great gifts too. Our prayer cards make great stocking stuffers and can be used throughout the year to bring rhythm and reflection into peoples’ lives.
Give away one day’s wages to an organization of your choice – like One Days Wages – that works to overcome poverty.
Watch these videos
This one from A New American Dream is a good one for reflecting on the values that underly your Christmas expenditure. Is Christ truly at the center of your celebrations?
This one from Advent Conspiracy is even more compelling. Watchi it prayerfully. What changes might God ask of you this Christmas season?
[AC] Promo – Living Water International from Advent Conspiracy on Vimeo.
This is part of a series of posts on Advent/Christmas resources.
- Advent Activities for Families and Kids
- Preparing for a Blue Christmas – New Creative Ideas
- Getting Ready for Advent/Christmas Worship Resources
- Advent Candle Light Liturgy
- Liturgy for the First Sunday of Advent
- Celtic Liturgies for Advent by John Birch
- An Advent Prayer by Walter Brueggemann
- Make Room – An Advent Prayer
- Helping Kids Give Back This Advent/Christmas
- Music from a Rich Array of Traditions
- What On Earth Are the O Antiphons
- Celebrate with Simplicity this Christmas
- Choosing a Scripture Reading Plan for the Coming Year
- Advent meditation videos by Christine Sine
- Lean Towards the Light – Another Advent Video by Christine Sine
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. Revelation 2:17 (ESV)
How do you feel about your name? Most of us don’t think a lot about our names. In our culture we don’t give a lot of significance to them. We may like or dislike the sound—or perhaps the association with someone who shares the name–but we don’t expect our name to influence the direction of our lives. Still, if someone calls us by name we appreciate being identified, especially if our name is remembered by someone we look up to. And while we take having a name for granted, not everyone enjoys that privilege.
Boy in Mongolia from Jean Andrianoff
In Mongolia, for example, some children are simply called “ner gui”, which basically means “no name”, in order to fool spirits that might try to harm them. Unnamed, your existence is questionable.
In Thailand, small children, along with people of low status, are addressed as “mouse” or “rat”. For children, it acts somewhat as a term of endearment, but for an adult the name is rather derogatory. It’s similar to our calling out, “Hey, you!” It implies the person called is of little worth, simply an anonymous entity to do our bidding, unworthy of bearing a name.
Early in the 20th century, a small girl was purchased by a Lao merchant to sell trinkets in the market. When she contracted leprosy, he gave her, unnamed, to a Swiss missionary. The first thing the missionary couple did, along with bathing and clothing her, was to give her a name. Though Souphine eventually ended up in a leprosy village, the sense of identity her time with the missionary family gave her enabled her to remain faithful to God in these difficult circumstances. The church she began there continues today, 80 years later.
We visited an Uzbek orphanage about 15 years ago where the work of a missionary couple had revolutionized the care these handicapped children received. One of the first things the couple did was to name each child. Under the previous Soviet-trained staff, each child was simply referred to as Idiot. Naming the children gave each a sense of identity and self-worth and compelled the staff to see each as a person with value.
One of the ways in which God conveys our significance to Him is by calling us by name. He writes each name in His Book of Life, and even has a new name waiting for each of us. Though billions of people have lived, each of us is unique and precious to God. It’s not hard to imagine God coming up with that many names when we realize He has named each star in the vast universe. (Psalm 147:4)
Mine is not a name widely known. Neither my president, nor my state representative, nor even the mayor of our small town knows it. But the King of King and Lord of Lords of the whole universe not only knows me, I am significant enough to Him to have chosen for me a name known only to the two of us. This thought comforts me that I am known, and I am loved.
By John Birch —
Attune our ears to hear
your gentle whisper
through every moment
of this precious day.
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