“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you…” Isaiah 66:13
Thoughts on Mothering & Mother’s Day
Mothering is a messy, complicated business-
just like humaning,
with impossible expectations,
deep longings,
piercing pain
and incomprehensible joy.
On Mother’s Day
gratitude and sadness
intermingle-
as they do whenever we are really
paying attention.
The mothers
we wish we’d been…
the mothers
we wish we’d had…
the mothers
we wish were still with us…
the mothers
we never knew…
the “mothers”
we’ve had along the way
who made us who we are today…
the mothers
we’ve watched our daughters become…
or not…
All of their faces rise before us.
So we pause and
welcome them in,
whatever emotions they bring.
This I know:
pain does not disqualify
gladness.
And love and gratitude
do not dishonor grief and sorrow.
We are all in this together-
mothers, mothered, motherless –
siblings in the human family.
Life is hard.
It’s good to have days
when we on purpose say
Thank You.
So,
To all mothers: Thank you.
For all mothers: Lord, Thank you.
And most of all, God, for mothering us,
Thank you.
– Kara Root
(Image: “Sweet Dreams” by Henry Lee Battlehttp://www.henryleebattle.com/shop/open-edition/sweet-dreams/)
By Ana Lisa de Jong —
We are full.
No need to chase the wind.
The divine seed within
has taken root
and spread its branches.
Those who seek a healing
need only open the door within.
The pain that seeks a passage
will disperse,
and birds come to roost
in your living tree.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
February 2018
After writing this poem, a few minutes later I turned to the following in a book of prayers:
‘Holy Spirit
giving life to all life,
moving all creatures,
root of all things,
washing them clean,
wiping out their mistakes,
healing their wounds,
you are our true life,
luminous, wonderful,
awakening the heart
from its ancient sleep.
St Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
By Linden Whitt —
It was Good Friday, slumped down in a pew, I was in church. I had to say it to myself a few times to believe it, “I’m in church and I’m not doing anything? I’m in church, I’m not doing anything!” The mere fact I was there task free rocked me to my core. “I can learn to be again,” I thought. Sit in this holy space just being, sit breathing in and out, letting deep, holy, things wash over my over worked perspective. Just as the body recognizes physical thirst long after it is already dehydrated, here I sat wanting in consistent spiritual connection. Now apparent by my current state in this pew.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to serve! It’s literally woven into the fabric of my personality, rooted in my spirituality and faith. I’ve been an active participant since as far back as I can remember. Debuting in a Christmas pageant when I was little as a rosy cheeked angel with crazy dark hair and an aluminum foil halo rigged above my head. I’ve grown, developed, and served in different types of churches all over the world. Loving, (mostly) every moment but more or less disconnected from my true self at times. I wore my hustle for the kingdom like a badge of honor, letting it bleed me dry from the inside out. Effects stacking up like a precarious game of Jenga. Until I couldn’t physically, spiritually, or mentally place another block! My desperation leading me straight to the bottom block, pulling it swiftly from its place.
Slowly surveying the wreckage, I now faced the process of evaluating the necessity of every single, “service block” I’d stacked. How had I kept functioning over the years? Isn’t it true, it can be so easy to bend over backward with lovely tender hearts aimed for service. Participating in many great things along the way. However, discerning how to exercise our extraordinary giftings can be more of a challenge. There are so many good things we can do but do they stem directly from our relationship with Jesus? Or out of our own desires to collect accolades through our good works? Below are a few thoughts on my journey of breaking free from the hustle to cultivate true relationship with Jesus, igniting the sustaining grace needed to serve.
Learning to Be
A few months ago, I was driving around my city with a friend. Suddenly she laughed and exclaimed, “Why are you pressing your left foot into the floor there’s nothing there?” She had recognized the reflex I still employed from pressing my left foot into a clutch. Even though my car was now an automatic. In the same way this reflex was created and learned over time through habit and practice for a good thing, learning to drive. We also develop habits around serving. Creating reflexes that impact us moving forward. It was important for me to recognize these habits and the reflexes they created, to identify what was really going on below the surface.
In my life the reflex of saying, yes to things often signaled a welcomed ability to hide. Yes, you see me over here doing these things but it permitted people to only get so close to me. Allowing me the ability to stay wrapped up in my cozy cocoon. This reminds me of Jesus teaching Mary and Martha the importance of spending time with Him over doing things. Just like Martha we say, “Yes,” to every opportunity to serve and do and go, thinking that yes determines our worth and purpose. In the end, we lose out on relationship because Jesus actually told us not to do that. That it isn’t what He wants, He wants us completely. Not distraught and frantic, over worked, tasks check off lists, projects completed, perfect us! He wants us just as we are. To spend time with us satisfying our needs, longings, and desires. He wants to pour identity into us, setting us on the right path refreshed and renewed through our relationship with Him.
Listening
“Are you ready?” On Sunday mornings, I ask this question of the kids in Sunday school before they enter the room. As adults if we were asked this question in church, we’d most likely toss out a standard, “Yes.” When the truth is we couldn’t be more distracted. Even our churches are filled with noise, messages, people, and we walk into them in the middle of our real-life moments. Is there space to just listen in this holy place? To sort through things in our imperfect state, smile optional.
When I rebuilt my life, it wasn’t in a building to rehearsed songs. Rather through seeking wise counsel, spending time with friends and family, laughing, crying, healing, and most of all allowing Jesus to renew my spirit. When I focused first on allowing myself to be in the stillness of His presence. In the quiet places where identity is formed in whispers and the only one talking is Him. Can we see where we’ve lost discernment along the way? The ability to listen to God, resting in the right thing, the very last thing He’s spoken.
Connecting Authentically
Our fast-paced culture of going and doing means that by the time we get to church we struggle to stop and just be in His presence, let alone be with others. Our intentions to care about people can then get lost in the doing, going, event-driven church. Which mirrors our culture so well. Introducing slow rhythms of connectivity can then feel forced and out of place without the practice of intentionally being around others. In the same way Jesus meets us where we are, right in our mess. We need to engage in this practice with others bringing our honest selves into the picture. Opening ourselves up to one another can also create space for our giftings, skills, and strengths to be affirmed. When we connect authentically we can engage in service together and drop the one woman/man show. Truly building authentic relationships and opportunities for impactful service.
As Godspace continues to explore sustainability, below are some resources that you may find interesting as you venture into sustainable living through gardening. Growing our own food – whether it be something as small as a window box or as big as an urban farm, is one way that we can all reduce our footprint and make our world a more fitting place for all of us to dwell.
Don’t forget about our Garden Resource Page that also has amazing links to other great resource for Garden Spirituality.
How can a sustainable local community (which is to say a sustainable local economy) function? I am going to suggest a set of rules that I think such a community would have to follow. I hasten to say that I do not understand these rules as predictions; I am not interested in foretelling the future. If these rules have any validity, it is because they apply now.
Supposing that the members of a local community wanted their community to cohere, to flourish, and to last, they would:
1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.
2. Always include local nature – the land, the water, the air, the native creatures – within the membership of the community.
3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.
4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products – first to nearby cities, then to others).
5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of ‘labor saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.
7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.
8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.
9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.
10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.
11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.
12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.
13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.
14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.
15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.
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Today’s post is a repost of an article written by my sustainability guru Wendell Berry. I have posted it before, and it is all over the internet, but I think that it is important enough to repost – maybe every year!
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How do you seek the shalom of your community?
For more on Mr. Berry check out these resources.
[Source: This is all over the Web but I’m giving credit to Utne’s archives]
By Ana Lisa de Jong —
Look at the trees
No matter the season
there is a lesson
held in each strip of bark,
each clinging transient leaf,
each bare branching limb.
We drink from their wisdom.
From the trees,
who ask nothing of us
but give us deep companionship.
Whose silent stance
comforts us
in a wordless tenderness.
Whose dignity raises ours.
Who has not carried grief
to the forest
and been able to lay it down.
Under the trees
who stretch out their limbs
to receive.
Transfuse us with life in a silent exchange.
Trees know,
there is no need
for explanations.
Life and death have played out
under their arching canopies.
We are known and understood.
Pretence can drop like the leaves.
Hope finds its renewal
in the greening of spring.
Joy takes root
in the abundant summer bloom.
Fall brings solace in leaves that fall
with a promise of return.
Winter’s starkness recalls to us
the strength standing unencumbered brings.
Yes we look up at the trees,
and no matter the season we draw
the lesson needed.
Perhaps greater than anything
the trees teach
is what they give
without preaching.
Space to breathe,
to rest and rise up again,
to learn the secrets of the earth.
To turn with the turning seasons,
not hold on to what’s made to fall,
but wait for it to return
in a new form,
in a promised spring.
“For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.”
Job 14:7
by Christine Sine,
What makes it possible for some of us to thrive while others succumb to the pressure? How come some of us bounce back with resilience when others become withdrawn and isolated?
Sustaining life when the going gets tough is often a challenge, and when we think about the daunting problems of the world in which we live it is not wonder that some of us get disheartened. However there are ways to build resilience that all of us can benefit from. I talked about this at the beginning of the year, but since then have done quite a bit of research and wanted to share it with you. Here are some tips for how to increase our resilience.
- Take stress breaks. The key to resilience is to try hard in small bursts then take a break. Try really hard, then stop, recover, and try again. After a stressful life event – loss of a job, or a loved one, involvement in a natural disaster like a hurricane, or just the completion of a demanding work project, we need to take time for our bodies, spirits and souls to recover. Trying hard burns energy. Stop for free time during the day or week – pausing to pray, for breathing exercises, planned relaxation and recovery activities all help. Taking time for retreat, refocus and renewal can transform all of us into super resilient people.
- Rewrite our story or the story of the stressful event so that struggles become growth opportunities. See stress as a way to fuel better performance. When I did research on plastic and its horrible impact on the environment, I was initially depressed. But when I prayerfully considered the challenge and viewed this as an opportunity to learn and change my behaviour, my attitude changed and I bounced back. In a natural disaster focusing on the incredible response of caring people across the nation and sometimes around the world can dramatically increase resilience.
- Practice Optimism. Thinking positive thoughts and surrounding yourself with positive people really does help. When we replace “I don’t think I will ever get over this.” with “This was challenging but I have learnt a lot” we transform defeat into resilient success.
- Help others and express gratitude. Studies show that people are more resilient when they have strong support networks of friends and family to help them cope with a crisis. You get an even bigger resilience boost by giving support. When we reach out and help others, we create meaning and purpose that helps push us through adversity. No wonder Paul tells us to “consider the needs of others as more important than our own (Philippians 2:4)
- Make it into a game. Make mundane tasks in the midst of painful experiences into a game with stakes, challenges and rewards. Celebrate and take joy in small wins. This doesn’t mean we belittle the magnitude of a crisis but it does often lighten our mood and that of those around us.
- Remember your comebacks. There is something incredibly inspiring about recounting the challenges we have already faced and overcome. Sharing these stories with others can build resilience not only in us but in them as well. No wonder God told the Israelites to remember and recount their story of escape from slavery, endurance in the desert and entry into the promised land. They were a resilient people who overcame incredible obstacles time and time again.
- Increase physical activity. Going for a long walk boosts our happiness and our resilience.It also raises our spirits and brings joy to our souls. No wonder people often feel close to God when walking through a forest or on the beach.
- Push yourself outside your comfort zones. Taking on new challenges and keeping your brain fresh, sharp and inquisitive makes us flexible and resilient, more open to new ideas and the optimistic outlook that we need to keep us going.
What Is Your Response
Prayerfully consider your own approach to life. What could you do to increase your resilience and ability to bounce back when you face challenges and obstacles?
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