By Ana Lisa de Jong —
A CANVAS
What would you do with a canvas,
a brush, and colours?
What could you bring to a table set blank
with paints, and space to make your mark,
to leave your print.
I have a feeling He’s given us permission
to pick the paints,
and the colours that reflect us.
I know he’s given us a place no-one else has.
Has established our borders
to protect what we need to flourish.
Yes, what would you do if you believed,
the colours were yours to choose,
the place yours to claim.
You might just spread up as high as out.
Reach that little bit,
like the Eifel Tower.
Or you might turn in and write,
words that in their singular state
nudge the world when they connect.
Or you might express
your expansive heart,
with colours wild and free.
And when you look at what you’ve made
might hold your breath,
and say, ‘This? This, is me?’
So, take your brilliant gift,
dance, and draw,
and create with it.
Because I don’t think the table
is set in concrete.
Rather, it’s a moveable feast.
And please don’t say,
things can never change
when we all hold the canvas and pen.
Ask yourself,
what would you do with a canvas,
a brush, and colours?
Then paint yourself
the colours you’d be.
by Christine Sine
Tom and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary last Wednesday. We are so grateful for the years we have already spent together, but find ourselves thinking more about the future and particularly our future than we once did. My meditation focus for the week has been What shapes your future?, the last of three of my “handprint posts on what has shaped my life. In many ways this has been the most meaningful of all.
I am convinced that what shapes my future more than anything else is my faith. Its strength, its resilience, my practices and their importance to me will all determine how I weather the future.
What Shapes My Faith?
This was the first question I asked myself. Five things came to mind:
- Accept change with gratitude
As I look to the changes I know will happen both in my life and in our world over the next few years I realize I have two choices – I can embrace it, looking for the good and accept it with gratitude or I can resent what is being given up, reject change and scream in the dark. This does not mean I will sit passively and wait for change to happen. There are some changes we can control. Exercise strengthens our bodies and makes it easier for us to adapt as we age. Games, puzzles and mental exercises help our brains stay young. I think spiritual exercises keep our spirits you and adaptable too.
- Cultivate resilience
I have long been an advocate for practices that create resilience. How do we make sure that we can be buffeted by the winds of the future without breaking? Interestingly similar practices to those that make it possible for us to accept change are needed – exercise, spiritual practices, gratitude, refocusing retreats, community are all elements of my life that have contributed to my resilience.
- Create practices that restore and renew
As you know I am a strong advocate for regularly revising my spiritual practices so that they most effectively guide me into the future. Distinguishing between Rituals of Restoration and of Transformations is one concept that has really helped me here. Studying scripture, memorizing it, and allowing it to fill our inner being can also be important.
- Embrace Prayer as Communion with God
My understanding of prayer has changed considerably over the last few years. There are three basic forms of prayer we all need – those that reach inwardly and strengthen our hearts and minds, those that stretch up and strengthen our relationship to God and those that reach out and strengthen our relationship to others. All are ways to commune with God and without a balance of all three our lives are the poorer. I love my morning times of meditation and the sense of intimacy with God they provide but if that is the only form of prayer I engage in I will soon stagnate and drift away from God. Intercession for those I love as well as for those in hurting and wounded world is just as important.
- Strengthen Relationships
My husband, family friends, community and my interactions with the broader worldwide community are also important aspects of aging well into the future. This too may need to be a deliberate act – the busier we are, the more tired we become, the easier it is to neglect relationships. There needs to be intentionality in our relationships. Most closest friends and I have begun a discussion about what we need from each other as we move into the future. I wish we had done this many years ago – it is not just about aging, it is about living life together. The more we share, the stronger our bonds become and the richer our relationships become.
What Unseen Things Does God Still Want Me to Accomplish?
Not surprisingly Hebrews 11:1 Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see, comes to mind as I think of these things. None of us know what the future holds but this verse sums it up well
What do we hope for as we look to the future? I realize that to “age well” I need to focus not on trivial unseen things like relief from aches and pains or wrinkles, but more my life focus. What are the unseen things God still wants me to accomplish? I wonder. How can I continue to be an advocate for justice and sustainability?
I am appalled by the political environment in which we live. The treatment of refugees, reveal of environmental protection laws, attitude towards Muslims and LBGTQ people and growing animosity on both sides of the political divide horrifies me. And I feel I can do so little.
I believe in a God of love not hate, a God of forgiveness not retribution, of caring and compassion not indifference of peace not war and violence.
How do I share God’s love for all the people of the world and for the world itself in this kind of an environment? This I think is one of the most challenging questions all of us have to grapple with as we look at the future.
What do you think? As you look at the future what are you most passionate about and how does that shape how you ct and what you commit your life to?
By Lilly Lewin
As many of you know, I am a big fan of crayons! I totally believe that crayons are for everyone! I believe that all ages should have access to crayons in church and be invited to draw during worship.
I often post the art that I draw during worship gatherings, hashtaging them #sermonssketching on Instagram. Art is how I express my worship to God.
This past Sunday our thinplaceNASHVILLE community gathered at the Frist Art Museum to do an Art Walk as our time of worship and reflection.
At an Art Walk we allow God to take us on a journey through the art museum and we take time to notice the colors, the story, the textures in the works around us. We allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us through the art as well as listening to a passage of scripture together (Lectio Divinia as we begin our time together). Then after an hour or so, we meet back in the café and talk about what we saw and where God took us on our walk.
One of the exhibits currently on view is entitled “Chaos and Awe” and reflects much of how our culture is now filled with disconnection and distance from one another.
Another exhibit is by an Iranian American artist named Afruz Amighian, amazing sculptor of form and light. Her works are curated in an exhibit called “The Presence of your Absence is Everywhere.”
Jesus spoke to me through both of the these exhibits, and even through the people at the museum on Sunday. It gave me hope to see so many families there together and so much diversity in the people gathered there. Art speaks to everyone! Regardless of color or nationality, or age!
At the café, after our meal and discussion, we closed our time together by choosing crayons out of a crayon box. We each took home three crayons.
One represented a color that we needed for the week.
Another was a color we would give away to someone else to bring them Joy and Hope.
And the third crayon we chose was a crayon to help us pray with during the week.
Get a Box of Crayons and you can do this too!
What do colors represent for you?
What does a box of crayons represent to you?
Fun, creativity, joy? Or fear or frustration because you don’t’ like to draw.
Pick a crayon that represents who you are…what color did you choose and why do you like this color? Maybe you need to choose more than one.
Or choose a color that reminds you of something you need to remember…or something you need in your life right now. I choose a beautiful blue crayon because blue gives me peace, like the ocean does.
My husband chose an Avocado colored crayon because he wanted to remember that “ you cannot please everyone, you are not an Avacado”
Now choose a crayon that will remind you to pray for someone else this week. Who is that person and what is their color? I chose a color that would remind me to pray for the president.
Now, Pick a crayon to give to someone else to bring them joy and hope this week. What color did you choose? Who do you want to give it to?
Finally, you might choose several crayons that represent your life right now or your emotions, and hold these crayons in your hand. Let your hand become God’s hand. Picture Jesus/God holding all the things, all the colors your life, your emotions, pain, joy and sorrows. Know that God is using these colors to create a beautiful picture.
Allow God to hold all your crayons today!
Remember that the God of the Universe created all the amazing colors in our world and God holds all the colors of our lives together in his hand!
Praying you take time notice the colors around you this weekend, or even take an art walk to a museum or gallery near you. Or get some paper and crayons and find joy in the coloring.
By Ana Lisa de Jong —
WITHOUT A LIGHT
Poetry brings me home.
When I have wandered directionless,
without a light,
when longings keep me circling,
lost child in the dark.
I find it beckoning,
wooing me.
Its shining, liquid words
my lighthouse on a rock.
Poetry, drawing me in
like a room lit at night.
A lantern, weaving through leaves
as filtered sunlight.
Poetry brings me in.
winding me with its reel.
Wet line working against the tide
to pull its last desperate catch to shore.
Poetry, the salvation
of those whose feelings run deep
as river salmon moving
in migration.
The soothing voice in the ear
to cause the heart to lie down.
Poetry, brings me home.
Whether home is the heights,
when too deep I’ve gone,
or the depths when I’ve forgotten
life’s meaning.
Poetry is always the answer to a need,
that never quite makes itself known,
or explains its presence,
or the absence that it magnifies.
Poetry is the magnet,
the attraction to match all objects,
that would otherwise
defeat my allegiance to goodness.
Poetry, that keeps me desiring
to match the beauty of its song,
is the voice,
which without its words to soothe and move,
the soul would echo
without a sound.
“I lost my way. I forgot to call on your name. The raw heart beat against the world, and the tears were for my lost victory. But you are here. You have always been here. The world is all forgetting, and the heart is a rage of directions, but your name unifies the heart, and the world is lifted into its place. Blessed is the one who waits in the traveller’s heart for his turning.”
Leonard Cohen
‘I once asked a bird, “How is it to fly in this gravity of darkness?” She responded: “Love lifts me!”’
Hafiz Shirazi
By John Birch —
May the Love of God
Be the ocean that you sail on
And the grace of God
Bring you calm in stormy days.
May the Word of God
Guide you to your destination
And the breath of God
Speed you safely on your way.
By Ana Lisa de Jong —
Watch how the sun rises.
First the tip of the clouds turn pink, and then gold
on a horizon.
Something happens to our hearts,
the leap of expectation.
The birds seem to know to fly
at this time.
Each soaring figure outlined
against the sky
as black ink etched in the vision.
Watch how the branches
of each tree move to the wind’s tune.
How the face of the leaves
catch the hues of a rising sun.
How all of nature appears to bid dawn welcome.
Watch how the rainbow just came and went
before there was a chance to register it.
Before we could trace its colours
against the blue.
How it faded and then exited.
A poem is followed
with the same pattern of observation.
We don’t consider the words in an
individual sense as
respond to the scene as a whole.
Something happens
when we stop trying to understand
but just watch.
The great artist has a brush, and is
painting impressions on our hearts and minds.
We see them with eyes
that feel rather than perceive.
Shapes felt in the hands
as objects in the dark.
Every now and then a shock of recognition.
But mostly just a welcome,
and an indwelling presence.
by Christine Sine
Last week at our Mustard Seed House community meeting we made lavender wands. We had perfect examples to follow, many of them beautiful images from Pinterest and DIY websites. We had good instructions with perfect looking diagrams that made it look so easy, but none of us made perfect wands as the photo above illustrates.
As I reflected back over our experience, I realized that the imperfections in our wands did not matter. It was not how beautiful the end result looked that we cared about, it was the delightful process we engaged in and the enjoyment of each other along the way that mattered. The imperfections of the end results added to our fun and laughter.
More than anything we relished the fragrance of our wands. We crushed them in our hands and allowed the lavender to waft around the room. Ironically the more imperfect our wands, the more fragrance they seemed to emit. We took them home, maybe to stand on the table, to put under our pillows or to add fragrance to a drawer. It was a memorable experience.
Spirituality Is Imperfect
Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook images make us think that everything we do should have perfect results. We are embarrassed to publish imperfect photos and pieces of art. We hide our own physical imperfections with cosmetics and surgery.
Unfortunately this craving for perfection washes over our spiritual lives too. We hide our doubts about God and faith behind plastic smiles and legalistic rules. We are afraid to pray out loud in case we make mistakes. We refuse to admit our struggles with temptations and sin because we want our friends and families to think we have it all together where our relationship with God is concerned.
Yet just as our lavender wands were imperfect, so too is our spirituality. None of us are perfect. Mixed up, broken, scarred, and flawed. That sums up all human beings. When we are willing to admit that, about ourselves and about each other, we too can learn to laugh at the mistakes and the blemishes. We no longer need to hide behind facades of seeming perfection. In the process we learn the joy of shared humanness and the delight of spiritual exploration. I suspect that the more we allow our imperfections to stick out, the more our fragrance rises as an offering before God too.
In Spirituality of Imperfect, authors Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham start with the insights of Alcoholics Anonymous and use the wisdom of many traditions to help us understand that our tendency to play God and try to be perfect is one of the most tragic of human mistakes .
it is only by ceasing to play God, by coming to terms with errors and shortcomings, and by accepting the inability to control every aspect of their lives that alcoholics (or any human beings) can find the peace and serenity that alcohol (or other drugs, or sex, money, material possessions, power or privilege, ) praise but never deliver (5)
lavender wands aren’t perfect and neither are we
Our Knowledge of God is Imperfect
Our knowledge of God is imperfect at the best of times and the more we learn, the less we seem to know. Admitting that we are all pretty ignorant when it comes to our knowledge of God is good for us. Realizing that asking questions and admitting doubt are more powerful spiritual tools than pretending to know everything is both humbling and empowering. a spirituality of imperfection is more interested in questions than in answers, more a journey toward humility than a struggle for perfection. (The Spirituality of Imperfection, 5)
So create something messy and imperfect today. Post it on Facebook, instagram or Pinterest, or even as a comment on this post. Reflect on it as an image of your own spiritual state.
What does your imperfect image teach you about yourself and about God?
How does it feel when you share your imperfections with others? What new insights does this sharing give you?
Is there a further response it encourages you to make?
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