by Christine Sine
Today I am grieving. The impact of yet another shooting. The pain of the vulnerable children who have been separated from their parents at the U.S. Mexico border, and the growing animosity both from those who are outraged and those who condone this makes my heart ache. I suspect it makes God’s heart ache too. Our God is a God of love, yet we have become hateful. Our God is a God of peace, yet we are becoming more violent. Our God is a God of compassion yet many are indifferent, not just to the victims of violence and their families but to the many who suffer in our world from violence, hunger, disease and pollution.
As I contemplate my garden today and plan my autumn planting it occurs to me that love and beauty, in fact all the fruit are the spirit are the only seeds that can be sown at any season and still bear fruit.
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5: 22.23 NLT
May we today seek to sow love and beauty and not violence and hate.
May we seek to bridge gaps with peace not build walls with fear
May we act kindly, show patience, live with self-control
As wefollow the Christ who is always patient, and gentle and forgiving.
By Lilly Lewin
This past Sunday, the lectionary readings were about trusting that Jesus has got things under control. And if you are like me, maybe you need that reminder too!
A part of Psalm 9 really stood out to me.
Psalm 9:9-10 NIV
The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
10 Those who know your name trust in you,
for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
Psalm 9:9-10 THE MESSAGE
God’s a safe-house for the battered,
a sanctuary during bad times.
The moment you arrive, you relax;
you’re never sorry you knocked.
I love the Message translation, imagining God as my safe house and a place where I can relax is an amazing thing! How does this image help you?
The Gospel passage was from Mark 4 where Jesus calms the storm.
Read it down below.
What storms are brewing or blowing up in your life right now?
How do you need Jesus to calm them?
When have you felt like Jesus was asleep in the boat and not paying attention to what was happening in your life?
The disciples ask Jesus, “Do you care that we are perishing?” What things help you believe that Jesus cares?
It was Jesus’s idea that they cross the sea at night. Does this change the situation for you? Can you believe, can you trust, that Jesus knows the plan even when you are in the middle of the Lake? Even in the middle of the storm? Why or Why not? Talk to Jesus about this.
Remember that Jesus isn’t bothered by the Storm.
He’s asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat. The disciples, in their fear, go wake Jesus up to save them. Jesus tells the wind and the sea to BE STILL! He calms the storm.
Why not choose a cushion or pillow as a symbol to use this week as a reminder that Jesus can, and is calming the storms around you. ( or you might build a boat, like we did at thinplace on Sunday night! )
Are you willing to let Jesus calm the storms in your world right now?
Then YOU can fall asleep on the cushion too!
Lay your head on the Cushion.
Rest, Trust, Be Still, Be at Peace. Jesus has got this.
MARK 4: 35-41 NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
MARK 4: 35-41 THE MESSAGE
35-38 Late that day he said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.” They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?”
39-40 Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, “Quiet! Settle down!” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: “Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith at all?”
41 They were in absolute awe, staggered. “Who is this, anyway?” they asked. “Wind and sea at his beck and call!”
By Allison de Laveaga —
Summer is one of my favorite times of year. I love the sun, the long days and the blooms in my garden. But perhaps the reason I like it most is that there are no big holidays to get ready for. In the church calendar, we are in “ordinary time” and this long stretch from Pentecost to Advent is a time when we can focus on our “ordinary” days. I can ask, how do I spend my time when I don’t have the extra obligations of the busier times of year? How can I live with more joy and a balanced rhythm of work and play?
One way to do this is by “savoring.” We all know what it means to savor our food. It means appreciating the smells, colors and textures, lingering at each bite, and enjoying the taste. It had never occurred to me we could “savor” other experiences. Perhaps ordinary time is a time to savor the ways God has met me in the first part of the year. In my times of prayer or meeting with my spiritual director I can recall and savor the special moments from the last six months, like the time a friend was baptized or my trip to visit my older son. I feel more joy when I remember the sights and sounds of these events.
I am also learning to value silence. Most days I try to take a long walk in my neighborhood. It’s easy to fill that walk with noise—music or a podcast. Those are not necessarily bad things. But I’d like to experiment a bit with silent walking. I notice more of my surroundings when I am unplugged. I make space for creative thinking and maybe even prayer.
There is still work to be done in ordinary time. Sometimes it feels quite, well, ordinary. There is shopping, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, planning trips. We all have to do a lot of routine and often boring tasks. In my better moments, though, I remember the example of Brother Lawrence, the 17th century monk who found peace in washing dishes in the monastery kitchen. He was a believer that we can experience God not just in “spiritual” activities like church but in our everyday, menial tasks.
Many contemporary authors write about this idea of experiencing God in the ordinary. Tish Harrison Warren explores this concept in her lovely book “Liturgy of the Ordinary, Sacred Practices in Everyday Life.” She breaks down a typical day, from waking up and getting dressed to losing her keys and checking e-mail, and shows how each activity is not so different from the elements of a Sunday worship service. Waking up, for example, is like baptism and “learning to be beloved.” Losing keys is like confession (because she realizes how angry and frustrated she can get by such a small thing). I particularly like her “fighting with her husband.” She compares that to passing the peace and the “everyday work of shalom.”
All of the small, ordinary events of our lives can be sacramental, says Harrison Warren, meaning that God can meet us in the “earthy, material world where we dwell.” I hope to reread this book this summer and pay more attention to the rhythms of my daily life.
This summer, unlike most summers, my family has no big travel plans. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling like I can embrace this ordinary time even more fully. Perhaps this is the summer to appreciate where I live, where God has placed me. I’m eager to attend the outdoor theater production in a neighboring town and I look forward to exploring parts of the city I’ve never been to. I know there are projects at home too. We will be putting a new roof on our house sometime in the next few months, and I’m mindful it will require patience and a heart oriented to thankfulness. I also appreciate this summer as a pause before my son’s senior year of high school, a year that will be filled with a lot of busyness as he prepares college applications and graduation requirements.
As I write this it is almost the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere where I live. It’s a great time to practice savoring. In particular I remember past summers when I was traveling in some beautiful places. I especially remember several trips to Northern Spain, where, because of its geography, the sun didn’t set until nearly 10 pm. I’ll never forget the lively nighttime streets, the delicious tapas and paella, and our rosy cheeks from a day at the beach. I’d like to be back there again, but the memories are almost just as good.
What can you savor during this ordinary time? How can you build more silence into your days? And how can you be aware of the sacramental in the ordinary, everyday tasks of life? A friend of mine recently recounted how she had been gone for three weeks and when she returned a sunflower in her yard had grown about five feet! This reminded me that in this season of light and ordinariness amazing things are happening all around. This season, void of big holidays, can be the perfect time to notice the holy in the everyday and find reasons to orient ourselves toward joy and peace. We just might need more joy and peace in the busier times of year.
by Christine Sine
One of my favourite Celtic prayers is this going forth prayer which has been reverberating in my mind over the last few days as I think of what it means to go forth into our hurting world today. The prayer above is my response to this thought.
How do you want to go out into our world? What are the attributes of God you most want to shine through your life? Ho can you be an effective messenger of the God of love in a world that seems to be more filled with hate every day?
by Christine Sine
There is so much turmoil and unrest in our world today that I feel constantly the need to remind myself of the encircling presence of God. I love the Celtic circling prayers which can be so easily adapted to suit our own situation. Sit in the peace of God’s circle, contemplate your own pain and joy and redraft this prayer to give you strength, comfort and an assurance of God’s abiding love.
by Christine Sine
The crisis at the border is the latest addition to a long list of instances when white people have chosen silence over what is right. Most of the white people who supported civil and voting rights still did not march, boycott or sit in. The white people who shed tears over police videos won’t attend a Black Lives Matter meeting.
Cowards. All of them.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
—DESMOND TUTU
This quote from White People Are cowards really caught my attention this week, and I find myself grappling with its compelling message as I trace my handprint once more. This time I used my right hand – my dominant hand – reminding myself that I am one of the privileged and dominant people in our world.
PRIVILEGE – this was the word that came to me as I thought about what shapes my life today. It deluged me, swamping out all other influences in my life.
My life is shaped hugely by privilege. As I sit here in my comfortable office looking out towards the Olympic mountains, surrounded by the verdant green and beauty of my garden, I am very aware of it.
There is the privilege of WHITENESS which the article above addresses. I thank God for people like Dr Brenda Salter McNeil and the compelling book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo that help me grapple with issues like this and compel me to respond. Unfortunately white fragility often gets in the way and sends us fleeing in the wrong direction.
To accept that we surely have unconscious investments in whiteness—investments we might not yet fully understand. To seek out the perspectives of people of color, embrace the discomfort that might result, and avoid confusing that discomfort with literal danger. To start uncomfortable conversations with family and friends. To breathe slowly. And, perhaps most important, to remember that we should do all this not for people of color, but instead for ourselves, in the spirit of honesty and truth-telling. If white people truly did what it took to shed their fragility, DiAngelo argues—perhaps skipping a few steps—”not only would our interpersonal relationships change, but so would our institutions … because we would see to it that they did.” (read the entire article here)
What is not obvious in the handprint above is that I have surrounded my tracing with a white outline. All the other privileges of my life are in many ways held together by the privilege I enjoy because of my WHITENESS.
And there are many other privileges in my life that shape who I am. These are the ones that come to mind today:
The privilege of EDUCATION. There was never any question about me going to University. It was assumed that I would. I got to choose medical school over other forms of training, but the privilege of education was taken for granted
The privilege of a DEBT FREE LIFE. Believe it or not Tom and I have no debts. My education in Australia was free, which meant I graduated from medical school debt free. Tom bought our house in Seattle when there were signs all over the city saying: Will the last one out of town please turn out the lights. No one thought Seattle would become one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. We have benefited hugely from this wise decision. On top of that, in spite of the fact that I have worked all my life as a volunteer, we are financially secure or as secure as one can be in today’s world.) My parents’ frugality left us with a financial legacy that has blessed us in incredible ways. In a world in which a growing number of people, especially young people cannot afford to buy houses we own a house. In the U.S., according to this Harvard study, not only are housing prices increasing but rents are too. People from students to families are living in their cars or on the streets.
The privilege of FREEDOM. I was born free and live free. I take for granted that I can travel almost all over the world. I am never questioned at the airport security like many of my African American friends. I am free to practice my religion without sacrifice, unlike my friends in Myanmar, China and other restrictive countries. My days are not haunted by the possibility of war and violence and bombing, a world I caught a glimpse of when I worked with refugees in the 80s and 90s.
As a woman too I have freedom beyond what most women know. Yes I have been told that I think more like a man than a woman. Yes as a single woman in medical practice I was told it was wrong for me to earn more than a married man. And yes I have been groped, hassled and looked down upon on numerous occasions but I have always had the freedom to follow my dreams, with the strong support of my husband and friends.
The privilege of BEAUTY. There is no doubt about it, the Pacific NW is a beautiful part of God’s creation and I have the privilege of experiencing it every day. All of us struggle with the impact of pollution in our world, pollution which has stripped forests, contaminated soils and devastated communities. We struggle too with the consequences of natural disasters – hurricanes and floods that deluge and destroy, droughts that leave sandy deserts in their wake. All of these my life has only experienced on the margins.
The privilege of FRIENDS, FAMILY and COMMUNITY. As I read about the forceable separation of kids from their parents at the U.S. border and watch the flow of refugees across the globe that also separates families and leaves communities devastated, as I reflect on the history of my African American friends whose families were separated by slavery and oppression, I realize I am indeed the most privileged of people. I have family in Australia who become more precious every year. I have friends around the world whose lives continue to challenge and guide me. And I have community here in Seattle – the Mustard Seed House, where we live is divided into three apartments. We live on the middle floor with a family of 4 above us and a young couple below. We share meals and spiritual practices once a week and garden together once a month. It is special, enriching and strengthening of my faith.
This week we also hosted two very different groups of people who make me even more aware of this privilege. A group of our friends from here in Seattle, some of whom have known us for 30+ years gathered for our first BBQ of the season. To the mix we added a friend from the U.K and new friends from New Mexico.
This was followed by a gathering of friends from the early days of my life on board the mercy ship Anastasis – a special time with friends I knew in Greece in the early 1980s. We shared a Greek feast, memories and fun together.
In a world where many people have no enduring friendships I am indeed privileged.
What Is Your Response?
How do we break the silence? How do we move beyond our white fragility to build bridges not walls?
Everyone who reads this blog is privileged. Maybe you don’t have the privileges I do but I hope that today you will take time to sit in the presence of God and become more aware of your privilege and blessings. What are the privileges that shape your life? Take out your journal and make a list.
Now comes the challenging and to be honest scary part. There are consequences to admitting our privilege. It beckons us to respond, to give up our privilege and share its benefits with others.
Where have you created walls and not bridges? Where have you kept silent when you should have spoken out? Prayerfully consider how God would ask you to respond.
by Lilly Lewin
Sunflowers are my favorite flowers! I love tulips too, but there is something about the yellow brightness of a sunflower that always makes me smile. I lived in Northern California for four years, and there the freshness of the sunflowers amazed me. They were freshly cut at the farmer’s market and so unlike the kind I’d experienced in Ohio where they’d been picked, packed, and trucked cross country. This week, I need the newness of a farmer’s market, northern California sunflower. The abuse of children and families on our southern border and the rhetoric and lack of compassion from our government is hard to handle. I need to be reminded that God is in control and Jesus invites me daily to trust that His love can heal and conquer the hatred and division around us. I want to be like the Sunflower and face Jesus and reflect his light! I don’t want to live in fear, or despair or bitterness because I cannot fix things.
This reminded me of a prayer station I created a few years ago inspired by m friend Martha Vetter. God spoke to her through the many sunflowers, both living and dried up, that she saw along the Way as she walked on pilgrimage on the Camino di Santiago.
Maybe you need to be a renewed by the Sunflower and the Son today. Find a sunflower, some sunflower oil, or use some olive oil and allow Jesus to anoint you with His LOVE!
Consider the Sunflower
Anoint yourself with Oil
God is choosing you!
Consider the Sunflower
REMEMBER: God, through Samuel, anointed David when he was only a shepherd boy. David had not even been invited to the gathering, he was out taking care of the sheep.
Yet God knew David, and God had already called David for God’s own. God had big plans for David and God has big plans for YOU!
“God spoke to me using the image of sunflowers. He told me “Stand tall like the sunflower. Be beautiful, bold and bright like the sunflower. Remember that the face of the sunflower always looks towards the sun. The oil from the seeds of the sunflower is a symbol to you of my anointing. And even when the seeds begin to die, remember that the birds of the air are nourished by these seeds.
It is THEN, during the dying process, that the seeds are able to provide life, not death.”
Martha Vetter while on on pilgrimage Cammino di Santiago di Compostela
Anoint yourself with sunflower oil
Picture Jesus touching you with his great love.
Allow God to hold you.
Allow God to heal the broken places of the week, and the last year.
Picture God anointing you for ministry & God’s service.
Allow God to call you again! Allow God anoint you for new things, new ministry, new places, new people, this year.
Consider the Sunflower!
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