Today in the U.S. we will celebrate Martin Luther King Day which commemorates Martin Luther King’s birthday. This is one of those days that I think should be celebrated throughout the world. It is a day used to promote equal rights for all Americans, though I like to expand that to consider it as a day to promote equal rights for all people. And it seems to me that there is no better time to consider this than now. The protests in Ferguson last year, the bombings in France and the growing militancy of extremist groups, the ongoing challenges of injustice, oppression and indifference in so many areas of life all show us that justice andHere are three quotes from King’s speeches that I found very compelling this morning
The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man himself and man’s soul. We haven’t learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood. Rediscovering Lost Values, Sermon delivered at Detroit’s Second Baptist Church (28 February 1954).
Today I would probably say – we have failed to become a global community, but the sentiment is still the same. We are more closely connected than ever through the internet, yet less concerned about the needs of others.
We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.
Probably my favourite quote of all is this one:
“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
When we don’t do what is right and trust our God for provision but rely instead on the values of greed, exploitation and oppression, evil does indeed take over. We have seen it in the enslavement and genocide of peoples. We have seen it in the confiscation of native lands. And we have seen it in the destruction of the earth’s animals and habitats. 2014 was one of the warmest on record, yet most of us rationalize our overconsumption and indifference to the depletion of the world’s resources.
Surely there has never been a better time to refuse to look the other way. All of us need to do what is right for those who are still oppressed and marginalized in our world. We need to do what is right to reduce emissions and reduce our consumption to contribute our small bit to the fight against climate change.
As Martin Luther King suggests, our souls suffer along with our bodies and our world when we do not do what is right. And the only way to change that is with the love of God. This year I am making reconciliation the overall theme for the blog – not just racial and cultural reconciliation but reconciliation in all its dimensions – within ourselves, to God, to all humanity and to God’s creation.
I pray that today all of us will catch a fresh glimpse of God’s incredible shalom kingdom in which all humanity is set free, creation is restored and we all live together in peace, harmony and mutual concern once more interacting with God in the ways God originally intended.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where all of us do what is right.
Where together we shout for justice,
And as one we fight for freedom.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where all of us do what is right.
Where together we seek God’s righteousness
And as one we sing God’s praise.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where all of us do what is right.
Where together we climb God’s mountain,
And as one we enter the promised land.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where all of us do what is right.
Where together we proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom,
And as one we enjoy its peace, abundance and love.
Amen
by Lilly Lewin
I saw something on Instagram today that reminded me that we are in the middle of January. The post asked how everyone was doing on their New Year’s resolutions two weeks in to the new year. Sometimes I feel we rush into the year without a lot of thought. We get really busy putting away the decorations and getting kids back to school and getting back into the rhythm of work and “real life,” and we may or may not have had time to even start any of our planned resolutions. We may not have even had time to think of something we’d like to do to improve or grow into in 2018. And if you are on social media very much, you might be like me and feel the depression set in because you are comparing yourself to all the folks who have their calendars lined out in beautiful calligraphy and their offices re-organized and they are already down 5 pounds since Christmas!
REALITY CHECK! I’m still living in the land of post Christmas (my tree is still up because it’s still drinking water and i just haven’t wanted to take it down) and I found out this week that I shouldn’t start my new exercise plan because my heart test came back showing I need to see the cardiologist pronto! Not really what I’d planned for January! But it’s still the season of Epiphany so we are still in the season of the Light coming to All the World so it’s still time for expectation and receiving gifts. The gift of the New Year is that we can start any time! I actually use the entire month of January to reboot and reflect. For me, getting into the New Year involves taking the time to look back at the old year just passed. I actually take the time to look back at the year by going through my photos. I take lots of photos so it’s a great way to see what I did last year and remember the people and places that were gifts along the way. I am still a paper calendar person, so I look back over the pages of my calendar and see just how my weeks were filled. I write down the events of each month, the travel, hospitality, etc. This helps me see just how busy I’ve been and see the areas I need to be more aware of as I enter the new year. We took the time to do this at thinplaceNASHVILLE on Sunday night. We also looked back at our year as a journey, a path we’ve walked along. I created a visual centerpiece with a round tray and a center candle . The tray was covered in sand and divided into four sections. One section was blank sand, one was covered in rocks, one had pieces of trash/garbage, and the final section had glitter, bows and small wrapped packages. This was our visual to help us reflect on and consider our 2017 journey. You might do this on your own, with your friends, roommates, small group, family or even with your entire community as a journaling activity. You can give people the opportunity to share what they discovered.
Don’t be discouraged about where you are today in the middle of January. It’s a new day and you get a fresh start! For that I am very grateful! And I’m thankful for the opportunity to remember and reflect on last year, so I can walk into 2018 with more clarity.
EPIPHANY PATH by Lilly Lewin
Look at the Center Piece
And consider your Journey in the Past year…Consider the path you’ve been walking.
What were the smooth spots ? Take time to thank God for these.
What were the Rocky Spots? Talk to God about them. Did you feel God’s presence or did God feel absent? Tell God your heart.
Were there times when you felt like you were traveling through trash?
Were there people who threw trash on your path?
Take time to talk to God about this..
Allow God to help you forgive them.
Whose path did you throw trash on this year?
Allow God to forgive you for this.
What were the gifts of this past year?
What were the celebrations that you can be thankful for?
The People, the Places, the Opportunities…..
Take some time and remember.
Take time to feel the joy and the pleasure of those gifts.
Take time to be grateful.
What about the year ahead? How does your path look?
What things do you need for your Journey in 2018? Take time to consider this.
What path are you walking tonight?
Where are you with your walk with Jesus?
Are you following His Star…willing to go where He goes?
Are you stuck in the Palace afraid to leave it?
Are you stuck in old habits afraid you’ll never get out?
Are you willing to leave your comfort zone as the Magi did and go on an Adventure?
Are you walking with Jesus by your side?
Have you even invited Jesus along …is He chasing you? Are you chasing Him? Have you left Him far behind.
Talk to Jesus about where you are today and where you want to go this year.
By John Birch —
Another beautiful poem by John Birch. I also suggest that you check out the latest resource by John A Fragrant Offering: A Daily Prayer Cycle In The Celtic Tradition that we have just added to the Godspace store.
By Jenneth Graser —
At this time of the year, instead of feeling up to making new resolutions, we may discover we’ve been going through the motions in our relationship with God. New Year can provide an opportunity to observe how we are living life and offer ourselves to the Holy Spirit for much needed refreshing after a year that has passed. We can open ourselves to hope and alignment where we may have drifted into routines that are no longer life giving or interesting.
No matter what our age or spiritual “maturity”, we can grow into the newness of God. God has not “been there, done that” in attitude. Creation is in the flow of God’s very heart, His intrinsic nature. We can tap into His exuberance and innovation, discerning by the Spirit where we are being invited. For each of us, this looks different.
What questions are rising in you for God?
Is it possible to allow old feelings to peel off to make room for life in a fresh way?
Yes. God is making all things new.
Even scripture we have read and re-read can enliven us in fresh ways, everyday. Maybe it is time to try a new translation, such as The Passion Translation or The Message? I enjoy trying a new translation to read well known scriptures in order to come at the truth from a different vantage point. Sometimes I get touched by a revelation when I don’t read by rote or previous experience of God’s word. Of course, the well known words of much loved and memorized verses and passages are like dear friends and the Holy Spirit brings life to these readings as we invite His partnership. But new readings can be helpful.
What translation would you like to try?
Also, we may know a great deal about prayer, but find it a challenge to put into practice. A suggestion is this: let us take one prayer practice that feels appealing and make a practice of it this year.
He will meet us, because we have the promises that those who seek, find and those who seek the kingdom first, will find all other things added.
I use YouVersion app for the plentiful devotions, Bible studies and topics of choice available for easy use on iphone or tablet.
Why not try one of the following prayer practices: Ignatian Contemplation – The Prayer of the Imagination, Lectio Divina, Centering Prayer, Daily Examen…
Anthony de Mello’s Sadhana contains much practical guidance on prayer practices and is a great place to start.
If we come to the New Year lingering on the stale taste of past disappointments, it can be a challenge to imagine a new dream or resolution. This is where we come to the Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett as Mary Lennox did. She was meant to find it – the robin showed her the way and the key opened the door. Her friend Dicken showed her that what looked overgrown and dead, was in fact “wick”, alive, and just in need of tender care and hard work.
We can humble our hearts and go in for a work of clearing as Holy Spirit takes out the weeds of hurts, bitterness, resentments and unforgiveness. You may have different names for these weeds and we all need help, as we cannot do it alone. The Gardener of our lives is willing, able, and desires to enter this place with us. There are plants that are mature and well established and there is also room that can be made for bulbs and seeds to rise unhindered, as the season warms. There is hope for things to look different, when we look with willing eyes and see as we are led to see.
We can let go of old words and dreams without giving up on them. Now that the ground of our hearts is being cleared and shrubs pruned, now that the soil is being turned over, we are making our hearts a humble place of rest and preparation. We are able to feel dreams, hopes and visions come to us simply, as we look to the face of the Creator who is always creating.
We don’t need to strive the process into being. As we watch and wait and act in simple ways, leaving all striving behind us, a sense will come, a hope, inspiration, a dream that is not out of reach. As we take a step to try something new or try something old in a new way, we will feel the renewal of God’s Spirit at work in us. Just as seeds know when their time has come and respond naturally, we too will respond to God’s tending and grow as we are made to grow.
We are late to post this, but this is for World Braille Day that was on January 4th by Kathie Hempel —
Years ago, before my age had reached double digit status, my mother would take me with her as she volunteered with the Canadian Institute for the Blind. We lived in Windsor, Ontario, and through her volunteer work at an apartment complex, created especially for the blind, she had run across an old teaching colleague.
Sadly, I can’t remember her name; however, I do remember her tiny apartment where the green-sequined froggie door knob cover, with trailing ribbons that had bells tied at their end, announced when anyone entered her home. I remember too a little card she gave me, that allowed me to translate Braille’s magical system of raised dots, into a sentence I could read.
“Hearing is good, eyes are better to read a book or write a letter, by foresight we save eyesight.”
It wasn’t so much the wisdom of the sentence that mesmerized me, but the fact that it allowed my mother’s friend to read. Her fingers would glide gently over the pages of her favorite book, the Bible, and she would ask me if I knew the story or passage as she read it to me. Her ability to do that, represented to my younger self more about the miracles of a loving God than anything I had experienced.
Rather than seeing her as living in “a very small world” as my mother would describe it, I saw her world as vast with amazing possibilities for adventure, learning, and entering other lives. I would stay with this remarkable woman as my mother made her rounds throughout the CIB apartment building. She once read from the book of Ruth: “And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you: for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge: your people shall be my people, and your God my God…”
Not only did I want to go wherever this lovely soft-spoken woman went, when she entered the amazing maze of dots, but she taught me that even the loss of sight, could never take my own love for the world of books from me.
When my father began to lose his eyesight in his late sixties, I begged my mother to have him learn Braille. She did not find it necessary. There were books on tape by that time and besides she didn’t expect they would live that long. My sorrow was that this gentle man’s long slender fingers would never glide over the pages of books as I had witnessed at the knee of my mother’s friend so many years before.
My mother lived until she was 89 and at that point the care of my father was mine. He taught me that there were many ways of seeing. He used his own interpretation of the raised dots methodology to navigate his now completely dark world.
When he moved in with me, it was Daddy who showed me that if I arranged his living quarters with area sized carpets, he could feel his way around his environment with his feet and count the steps to wherever he needed to go. My early training in Braille, allowed me to understand this as his own version of a certain number of dots being counted out, allowing him to see.
To keep his independence, as long as possible, I fashioned a cardboard cutout of his first initial and the first letter of his last name which allowed him to feel his way to placing his signature on checks and documents that required it.
Daddy not only read books on tapes, but each year revised something I lovingly called Daddy’s radio show. He would use two Radio Shack cassette recorders, and combine music with his own poetry and storytelling with a dedication that was admirable. This required his being able to keep track of dozens of cassette tapes. To do this we used tiny raised foam dots with adhesive backs, to form a pattern on each cassette, allowing him to differentiate the creative recordings from those we used for finances and other practical things like grocery lists.
We sent one of Daddy’s poems, on one of these cassette tapes, to the CBC Sunday morning radio program, Fresh Air, where the host introduced the segment featuring the poem by saying it was by Canadian poet Lloyd Turner, 95. Daddy sat very straight in his chair that Sunday as it aired and looked like one receiving the highest of honors.
“He called me a poet, Kathie,” he said, his voice full of wonder. I assured him he was definitely that and so much more.
That was the same year the twin towers were hit on 9-11. I was planning an early 96th birthday party with out-of-town relatives that day and had missed the news until a cousin arrived apologizing for being late after being held captive by the horrid depictions of the event. The party became a history-viewing party, where we took turns moving from the television to Daddy’s side.
When there was, at last, a commercial break, Daddy cleared his throat and then spoke to us with wisdom that seemed to belie my first Braille sentence. “I’m sorry. I am so much luckier than you today. I will not have to carry the images of this awful day with me as you will.”
As I considered this profound statement, I realized that my father, though blind, saw the nuances of life so much more deeply than most of us.
Daddy’s always great humor and God-given wisdom would bless us for another four years. He never saw himself as disabled. I cherish the privilege the glimpses he gave me into his well-lit darkness and I grew to appreciate even more those hours spent at the knee my mother’s friend.
I celebrate World Braille Day with a deep understanding of Isaiah 35: 5-6. “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer…”
By Ana Lisa de Jong –
When we record our days
we make them real to us.
We give them shape and form
that we might learn from them.
Hindsight is God’s beautifier
when we shine the lens we look through.
When we record our thanks
in pen, or thought, or praise
we establish what is good,
upon the pathways of our lives.
We inlay them with jewels
of many colours.
We cement the things that further us,
and cast aside what doesn’t.
When we travel back,
we trace God’s faithfulness.
In such a way,
that as we cast our line into the open waters,
we use yesterday’s harvest
to gain tomorrow’s goodness.
Yes, when we record our days
we make them real to us.
We sift for all the wheat amongst the chaff,
mine for all the gold to further invest it.
Gratitude brings it reward,
if only to shine a light on what we couldn’t see before.
We think on what is good
and see it magnified.
We trust tomorrow
because of what we’ve made today,
out of all the good we polish,
and then display.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!