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?
by Lilly Lewin and Pam Smith
A couple of weeks ago, the gospel reading was Mark 5: 21-43.
This passage includes the story of Jesus and the woman with the issue of blood. This woman was an outcast from Jewish community due to her illness, and had suffered over twelve years with her ailment. In an act of faith, she reached out and touched the “hem of His garment” and was instantly healed. The woman touched the hem/edge of his cloak, perhaps it was the tassel on his prayer shawl. The Tassel, the Tzitzit, the Knot! This woman believed if she could just touch the knots of Jesus’s prayer shawl she would no longer suffer.
Like the woman, our world has been suffering for a long time with division, distrust, racism, hatred and fear. All in need of the healing of Jesus. And there is suffering around the world that feels overwhelming. What is on our heart to pray for for our country and our world? What areas of suffering do you want to see healed? Ask God to show you how you can be a part of the healing and spend some time praying for area/people group etc.
During thinplaceNashville, we made prayer ropes with knots to remind us to pray during the week for places that needed healing in our lives and in our country.
During our journaling time, Pam Smith, wrote this beautiful poem on knots that she graciously shared with us. Along with being a member of our thinplace community, Pam is the senior pastor of First Lutheran Church here in Nashville,
What are the knots in your life? Make a prayer rope and use it to help you pray this week.
KNOTS by Pam Smith
We are a knotted up people
Knotted in pain
Knotted in worry
Knotted in anger
Other knots call us
knots on a tallit
knots on a tzitzit
knots on 4 corners of something
knots of Torah
knots of life
Tie a knot and hang on
Knots large
large enough
enough to require attention
Attention to the knottiness
surrounding us
As we are drawn into the very knot of
our
very
selves
And from this knot
we cannot free our selves
Each attempt tightens
the cords around us.
Like a twisted knotted chain of gold
lain on a table
The gentle touches and tugs and prying
of the hand of God
creates spaces
in the knottiness
Spirit moves in the spaces
Ruach
Breath
Life-giving breath
And there is release
and calm
and quiet
and strength
Together
a cord of three strands
not quickly torn apart.
By Ana Lisa de Jong —
We are the poem.
You, and I.
The issue from His lips,
the language in which He speaks.
We are the gift ,
both to each other and to Him.
A poem in ourselves.
Repeated and re-formed
each time that we use our voice.
We are the poem
without an end,
which like a scroll
unfolding from creation,
is continually written upon.
We are the voice He speaks
in a world in which He is silent,
but for us,
who hear Him.
And who hear ourselves
resonate with all creation
as wind bells
across the mountains.
We are the poem.
You, and I.
The bearers of the Word.
By Lisa Scandrette —
My feet tread happily over the rocky path, my lungs expanding with fresh mountain air. Each step reveals a new rugged wonder to my eyes as we walk down this path for the first time. Though my schedule has been full of people and events before coming to Ogwen Valley, my mind slows down and I become aware of my place in the face of the magnificent landscape before me. My thoughts and concerns shrink for the moment, when placed in the context of this vast, ancient place. I become present to this moment and to the Creator who designed these mountains, this valley, and me. I am joyfully lost in this place where divine and the tangible reverberate, content to wander in silence and awe.
Accompanying me are Black Welsh cattle, grazing and resting in the sunny meadows, and Welsh Mountain sheep wandering nimbly through the hills. It is spring, and there are lambs. One lamb wanders near to me in the innocence of youth, and her mother dislikes her offspring’s proximity to me. They begin an urgent bleating conversation to find one another. I watch quietly until they make their way further up the rocks. At the sight of the sheep, my imagination engages—is their wool soft? What could it make? Who are the people who care for them? For how many generations has this flock grazed these mountains? What is their history?
As we round the lake, my husband, Mark, points out bits of wool clinging to the heather and grasses along the way. I delight, as I am a knitter and a spinner of yarn; I am one who takes creation, holds it in my hands, and further forms it into new items, extensions of their beginnings. A treasure hunt begins as I tuck fingerfuls of fresh wool into my bag. It smells sheepy and earthy, and its lanolin soaks into my hands. I wander back, on and off the path, following bits of wool. By the end of our hike, I have a ziplock bag full of woolly goodness.
This wool holds for me the beauty, wonder and memory of this place and this day. When I wash it and comb it and spin it, I will recall the Creator’s care in making this place of water, rock, earth, sky and wool. I will be reminded that I belong in this world. I create because I am made in the image of a Creator and creating is an act that is faithful to who I am. And the work of my hands with this wool will be an extension of the Creator’s hands, continuing the thread of Creation. We will be co-creators of beauty. And I will inhabit my place in this ancient, vast creation.
Where do you find yourself inspired to co-create? Is it growing things in the garden? Creating food from the earth’s abundance in this season? Painting a landscape? Composing a poem? Where does the divine and the tangible reverberate for you? This season, I invite you into the wonder and beauty. Breathe deep, slow down, connect with your Creator and enter into co-creation.
By Hilary Horn —
This past spring I felt the Lord telling me to learn how to make bread. I had never made bread in my life and it seemed like a very daunting task. Like some things, I wasn’t totally sure why God had asked me to do this. As the months went by and I practiced this foreign art, I slowly began to realize the lessons he was teaching me through making bread. Some of these included, the power – or lack of power if it’s amiss – of yeast and the parables Jesus uses to explain the Kingdom of God, slowing down to enjoy the process, that not everything happens instantly, waiting and the nutrition of body and soul.
Starting with Yeast
Yeast is a tricky, but seemingly simple part of bread. To make a healthy yeast or sourdough starter, takes about 1-2 weeks. Each day you have to take a little out and add a bit of water and flour to your starter. You can’t forget, or else it goes moldy. Sometimes to make the starter flourish even more, you need to feed your starter twice a day, rather than once. To gain the best results and to not kill off your sourdough starter some best practices are feeding it whole wheat flour, purified water and making sure the environment it’s placed in is the right temperature. All this work and you haven’t even started making a loaf of bread yet!
Sourdough Starter
In Matthew 16:6-12, Jesus warns his disciples, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 7 And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.” 8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? 9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”12 Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
The Scriptures are full of yeast and bread imagery. By taking time to make a sourdough starter, the Lord has been making these passages become more alive. What kind of teaching am I listening to? Is it pure? Is it true? Do I have any bad leaven in my own spirit that needs to be thrown out? Do I have a religious spirit in some areas of my life? What can I feed my soul to give life and resurrection to things that may be flat or dead? Do I help spread the Kingdom of God in my community like Jesus did?
In 1 Corinthians 5:6-7, Paul says, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
I killed my first starter. I was lazy and didn’t have purified water one day, so I used my sink water (has too much chlorine because I live in the city). My starter didn’t survive because I put tarnished water in it. I woke up the next morning with a flat starter and I had to start all over again. A week’s worth of work all in the trash. A few weeks later, I killed it again. I left it out too long without feeding it and it molded. In the trash once again it went.
I was understanding the depths of even just a little mistake or neglect can often lead to something drastic in bread. This made me think of my own life too. Yes, we have grace, but often the decisions we make to either short cut something, out of laziness or plain disobedience can set us back drastically or even kill something in our soul or community! I began to think of what some of those “old leaven” was in my life that needed to be taken out. Wether it be pride, quick to anger at my kids, lack of patience for others, listening to what society/culture is saying verses the truth of Scripture, etc. Taking time to really think of such things, to repent and start fresh was life-giving. We don’t have to carry it anymore because of Jesus’ sacrifice which allows us to give our souls pure water, frequently feed our souls because we can commune with God anytime and to make new leaven and be life-givers ourselves.
If I don’t take time to regularly do this and to be cautious of what is going in and out of me than I can be amiss in the power of my life. My life can be an unleavened, flat, Kingdom halter or a flourishing, vibrant Kingdom mover.
Next Step: Bread Dough
Hilary’s Sourdough Loaf
To actually make bread is also a long process once you have your sourdough starter! I do not use white flour for health/nutritional reasons so I desired to make whole wheat sourdough bread. I found this to be even more complicated on my bread making journey because to get a really good rise, like a white loaf, you have to do some extra steps and the process takes even longer. I adapted this overnight bread to work for us. To make the bread rise better, I have to feed my starter at least 3x that day before I make it at night. You have to make the starter really active. Then before you go to bed, you make your dough with your very active sourdough starter. In the morning when you wake up, you kneed it a little bit and let it rise again for 1-2 hours. Then you flip it into the warmed dutch oven and let it rise again for 30 minutes to an hour. After all this time, THEN you can bake it. Baking it takes about 50 minutes. So to make a single loaf of bread takes a good 2 days. TWO DAYS. But the results are glorious and I am able to feed my family very nutritious, low glycemic, healthy bread.
So what has this process taught me? Not everything happens overnight in our spirituality. In Western society, particularly America, much of our culture is focused around this fast-paced, fast-food, instant results society. We often do not take time for results. I’m convinced that a lot of things like the wide-spread gluten intolerance is because we make fast bread, fast food. If results do not come immediately, we often think we are failures or that something is wrong or we move on to the next thing. Unfortunately that has been engrained in us for decades.
Christians in America even treat churches that way. They hop around places, taking what they want and not ever investing well into their community. Not a cool enough children’s ministry? Move on. Preacher wasn’t charasmatic enough or the worship wasn’t their flavor – see ya later. Whatever the instant issue was, many treat their places of worship as grab and go. They consume it but often do not contribute anything to it. If it doesn’t fit what they want, instead of taking time to invest and maybe be part of the change or helping, they leave for the next big thing. My husband and I have been church planters for the past 3 years and we see this all the time with people that have come in and out of our churches. It just makes me really sad because they don’t know what they are missing if they truly invested in their community rather than just come to get something quick. Yet, even for me in our church plant when I don’t see immediate growth one month, I am not quick to get disappointed about it. Often, building a church or depths of spirituality takes time in your community. Just because I preached a really awesome sermon about justice doesn’t mean everyone is going to be blazing advocates the next day. These growth steps can take a long time to formulate and my perseverance and patience shouldn’t lack just because I may not see it right away.
Bread as given me a deeper understanding that not everything in my spiritual walk is going to be instantaneous. Matthew 13:33 says, “He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” First lets just point out she worked 6o POUNDS of flour. That is an insane amount of flour. One loaf is roughly 1 pound. Can you imagine the process of doing 60lbs – without an electric mixer or industrial sized machinery? This would have taken a VERY long time. The process would be hard on your hands and body. You would need to sacrifice a lot to get the yeast spread throughout all the flour.
This is something God has been showing me. The process of spreading his Kingdom can be strenuous, tiring, take a lot of time, it isn’t instant, but in the end, the results are beautiful. They are unlike anything else and they are so good for your soul. I’ve been asking myself if I am resilient and patient enough to work through a variety of things in my spiritual walk even if it doesn’t instantly happen. Will I stick it out even if the current results kind of suck right now? Or will I just move on to the next thing with out truly working out what is in front of me because it is more convenient? When I do that, what happens to my soul, the people around me or my spiritual journey? How can I include other people in this process? How do I teach my kids to be patient when they don’t get what they want right away? Do I model this for them? If I don’t see healing the first time I pray for someone, do I stop? Give up?
Conclusion
So many thoughts and actions I have been wrestling with just through the process of making bread! The power – or lack of power if your yeast is amiss, the Kingdom of God, slowing down to enjoy the process, that not everything happens instantly, waiting and the nutrition of body and soul.
What are some things you have seen in your spiritual journey that hasn’t happened overnight? Share with us in the comments below.
by Christine Sine
A couple of days ago I received an email from a friend whose acquaintance had taken my liturgical garden idea and run with it. She loved the idea of creating gardens that reflected the season of the liturgical year. She hunted antique stores for a suitable dish, researched plants that had meaning for the liturgical season she wanted to focus on and got to work. I was impressed.
We are now into ordinary time and here in Seattle summer is in full swing. This is not a season for creating liturgical gardens, but it is a season for reflecting on the garden and what it can teach us about God.
Where do I encounter God in the garden at this season? is a question that has held my attention this week.
Beauty, fragrance and abundance are the words that come to mind and nothing represents these more for me than the lavender that is currently flourishing in my garden. It is a reflection of God to me.
bee on lavender
Lavender is Beautiful
It’s tiny flowers are intricate purple miracles strung together on a stem – not regular and ordered but seemingly haphazard and random. I love them. They are a feast for my eyes. I love their brilliant coloured heads that sway gently in the breeze. I watch the busy insects swarm to them – bees of every variety, wasps, and other flying creatures I have no names for. Not just a feast for the eyes I realize but a feast of rich pollen too. Their beauty has purpose as I suspect all the beauty of God’s world has if only we will take time to notice and enjoy it.
bee on lavender
Lavender is Fragrant
The insects are attracted by the fragrance that wafts towards me on the wind. I brush against the bushes and it clings to me just as I hope the fragrance of God’s presence clings to me as I go to interact with my friends, neighbours and strangers I encounter. I carry the fragrance with me as I walk and mingle it with my prayers, remembering Revelation 8:4 The smoke of the incense, mixed with the prayers of God’s holy people, ascended up to God from the altar where the angel had poured them out. I really do sense that this perfume is more than a delight to my senses. It is a sweet offering that mixes with my prayers and rises like incense before God.
garden lavender
Lavender is Abundant
Lavender is abundant in the Pacific NW at this season. I have three bushes in my garden and not far away there are lavender farms, where lavender is not just harvested and dried but made into oils, soaps, perfumes and all kinds of yummy edible delights. Most of the lavender farms are open for visits and people love to wander through the fields enjoying the beauty and the fragrance.
Lavender is For Sharing
Lavender is a sharing plant. Its bright purple flowers are particularly attractive to insects that feast on its pollen and fly off to share it with their colonies and offspring. It prompt me to share too. I have three bushes in my garden that entice me to pick the fragrant heads and crush them between my fingers. Yesterday I made lavender lemonade, and I am also thinking about other recipes I could experiment with that speak of God’s beauty, fragrance and abundance as I experience through the lavender in my garden.
Tonight at our community meeting we will make lavender wands share the lemonade and discuss what we learn about God from this amazing plant as we work and reflect.
Now as I sit back in my office another verse comes to me – Proverbs 27:9 The heart is delighted by the fragrance of oil and sweet perfumes, and in just the same way, the soul is sweetened by the wise counsel of a friend.
What a beautiful verse to end my reflections with. Lavender doesn’t just speak to me of the fragrance of God, it reminds me too of the sweetness of friendship and the many special friends I have whose fragrance clings to me just as I hope God’s does.
What Is Your Response
You may not have lavender in your part of the world, and if you live in the Southern hemisphere you may not be experiencing the abundance of the Northern summer, but there are still aspects of God’s good creation that speak to us.
Sit prayerfully for a few moments and reflect on what God is saying to you at this season
Where do you see the beauty of God?
What fragrance of God has brushed off on you and clings to you as you walk through the day?
When have you experienced the abundance of God?
What encourages you to share God’s presence, beauty, fragrance and abundance at this season?
Write down your responses or create a prayer, poem, image or song that depicts your responses.
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