The festive season is coming fast and many of us are planning for the days ahead. My theme for this year is: Joy to the world. This theme is an extension of my I Choose Joy theme which has guided me throughout most of this year. I talked about it a couple of weeks ago in my post Joy to the World but have been thinking about this ever since I reflected on God so loved the world and my recognition that God’s salvation plan is not for me alone, not for my neighbour but for the entire beautifully crafted world in which we live. As I reflect on the phrase Joy to the world, the same thoughts come to me. The joy of Christmas is not for me alone, not for my church or for neighbours. The joy of Christmas is for God’s entire world. We place animals around the manger scene but we don’t think much about their significance in God’s salvation plan. Maybe the joy of Christ’s birth is meant to extend to them too through our responsible stewardship of God’s creation.
So, over the coming weeks I will ask myself the following questions to try and prepare myself for the broad and rich expanse of God’s joy in the coming of Christ:
How do I choose joy in preparation for Christmas?
How do I tend to my joy?
How do I nourish joy in my relationship with God?
How do I grow joy in God’s created world?
How do I share joy with my neighbors near and far?
How do I celebrate the joy of Christ’s birth?
To make sure this is a relaxed, joy filled, season I have decided to celebrate with a full six weeks of preparation joining the Celtic saints who in the 6th century celebrated Advent during the 40 days before Christmas, as a mirror to the period of Lent before Easter. In this age of blurring of holy-days and consumerism, I like to start Advent earlier, so that Thanksgiving (at least as it is celebrated in the U.S.) is included, but also so there can be a longer, more intentional preparation for Christ’s coming.
What Is Your Response?
I believe in tangible ways to pray. Jesus used things he saw around him to teach his followers and used these every day things to help them see God. So why not Halloween candy as a prayer tool? Since Halloween is upon us and whether or not you choose to embrace Halloween as a holiday or an event, you can still use all that great Halloween candy to help you pray, as a part of your youth group, your family devotion, small group or even in your personal prayer time. And post Halloween is a great time to buy up candy to use for future prayer experiences and ideas. I use sour skittles and m&ms for end of year prayers (future post…thanking God for the sweet and sour for the past year) and tootsie roll pops for advent prayers. Are we willing to wait on God to get to the good stuff of Jesus at Christmas? You can find more in Advent Waiting Prayer Experience at Freerange Worship. Today we are praying with candy, and since chocolate is my love language, lots of chocolate prayers. These are just some ideas. See what they might spark in you and feel free to morph and change them. Note: You can also find a free download of my Halloween Candy Prayers here.
I’d love to hear about how you use these. Have a chocolate today, or another favorite candy and Taste and see that God is good!
HALLOWEEN CANDY PRAYERS:
Have a bowl of mixed halloween candy, at least one piece for each person.
This meditation can be done with a group as a corporate prayer or as an individual prayer station.
Remember that younger students are much more concrete in their thinking and probably works better with high school and beyond, but don’t be afraid to try it with younger students just give them more examples and guidance of what you are going for since they don’t all think in metaphor/comparisons yet. If you are doing this prayer activity with a group, be aware of any nut allergies and have an alternative choice or avoid the nuts completely.
The candy choices will also be determined by where you live. So think about the varieties that can be used for prayer! I was just thinking about how much better the UK Kit Kat bars are than ours here in the States!
Example candy:
Small Hershey bars, kit kat bars, m&ms, mounds, regular skittles, sour skittles, tootsie rolls, tootsie roll pops, mini snickers, mars, etc.
PRAYER 1: Praying with a Piece of Candy
One idea is to have each person in the group choose a piece of candy out of a mixed bowl of candy.
Another way to go is to have everyone have the same type of candy and do a prayer with that particular candy.
Example 1: Praying with Kit Kat Bars.
Pass out a kit kat bar to each person. Hold the kit kat in your hand and consider how you are sharing your life right now. Ask God to show you. Ask “who can you share with or who is God inviting you to share more of yourself with by serving or giving?”
How do you share your gifts with others? With Whom do you need to break off a piece of the kit kat bar and share? How is God inviting you to share your life with other people?
Give participants time to reflect between each question, or have the questions written out and have participants write their responses and then after a given time invite people to share their thoughts with the group.
Example 2: Pick out a piece of Halloween candy.
Consider how your life is going right now, how is your life like that piece of candy?
Consider the flavors, the textures of that piece of candy.
Ask God to show you.
Hershey bar (or plain chocolate bar):
Is life feeling plain not very exciting like a plain Chocolate bar?
Or maybe it’s feeling nutty? Like a bar with almonds or and an almond joy?
Talk to God about this.
Kit Kat:
Are you sharing your life, like your real self, who you are with anyone?
Like sharing a kit kat bar?
With whom would you like to share your life? Your time? How would you like to serve or give to others? Talk to God about this.
Skittles:
Is your life an adventure like different flavors of skittles?
How would you like to add more flavor or more color to your world, to your life?
Talk to God about this. Ask God to begin to show you the adventure ahead of you.
What color or flavor represtents your life right now?
Other: Carmel/Taffy/Tootsie Roll
Is life hard? perhaps life is rather hard to endure like a chewy tootsie roll…or does it have the potential for adventure and unknown like a tootsie roll pop?
What things are you chewing on right now? What questions or problems are you facing? Talk to God about this. Ask God for help.
Maybe life is colorful like a handful of m&m’s with lots of great things going on. Talk to God about this. What are some of the great things that you’ve experienced lately? What are you thankful for? Take some time and thank God for these things.
Snickers ETC.
Some candy combines lots of flavor and textures together. Like Reeses or Snickers.
Consider your week. What things have you experienced? How have you seen God in these things? There are the good things? What are the bad things? What are the plain boring things, and the sweet and sour things that occur all week long? God is present in all of them. Take some time and consider your week. Where did you see God? Talk to God about your life.
Take some time…consider, think about your life.
Where have you seen God at work even in the plain and boring parts.
Even in the sour parts of your life? Thank God for being there in all aspects of your life.
Eat your candy and thank Jesus for all that he is up to in your life and all the wonderful flavors in our world.
Digging Deeper this week: Consider the justice issues around Halloween treats. What about people without candy? Or about the people who produce the chocolate for your favorite treat? Where does the candy come from and who is producing the chocolate? We can all be more aware of areas of pain and suffering caused by the mass production of chocolate and sugar. And we can consider buying fair trade chocolates as a part of our justice practice.
PRAYER 2: Have example candy types/mini candy bars displayed, empty candy wrappers, pieces of chocolate to taste.
Look at and Think about the candy on the table.
Now consider you life with God, your relationship, your journey with Jesus.
Which candy reflects your life with Jesus?
Your life with God…Is it good and rich like your favorite candy bar?
Or maybe your life with GOD is like an empty candy wrapper with nothing inside.
Is it plain and boring like a plain candy bar?
Or maybe it is rich like dark chocolate?
Maybe life is rocky, you know filled with nuts. Or hard to chew because of the nougat and caramel.
Is your life with Jesus tasting sour like sour skittles or sweet like m&ms?
TALK TO GOD about this. Tell God where you are and then tell Jesus where you’d like to be on your journey with Him.
Take a piece of chocolate. You can use chocolate chips rather than small candy bars depending upon the size of your group.
Eat the Candy. TASTE and SEE that the Lord is GOOD.
Jesus longs to be in relationship with you.
You just have to open the door to your life and ask Jesus to come in.
EAT the chocolate as a symbol of your willingness to start a relationship or get back on track in your relationship with Jesus.
PRAYER 3: Box of Chocolates
You will need a Box of chocolates and an empty box. You could show the clip from the movie “Forest Gump.”
In the movie “Forest Gump,” Tom Hank’s character says “life is like a box of chocolates, you never known what you are going to get. “ Consider your life and compare it to a box of chocolates.
Maybe the pieces of candy that you have tried out of the box have been gross, maybe you were expecting a piece filled with rich chocolate and you got a piece of slimy fruit filling instead or you were expecting plain and got nuts instead.
TALK TO GOD ABOUT THE BAD pieces of chocolate, the bad pieces, the negative pieces of your life, both in the past and going on now.
God’s not afraid of your feelings. God wants to hear you. God is listening.
Thank God for both the good things and the yucky things happening in your life right now.
Ask Jesus to show you where he is and what he is up to in your life.
TAKE the TIME TO LISTEN to Jesus.
Maybe you’ve felt like an empty box of chocolates rather than a full box.
Talk to JESUS about this.
Ask Jesus to fill your life with new things and show you what he is up to in weeks ahead.
When you see a candy box, and candy bars in the store, Let them remind you that God is filling your box with GOOD THINGS. Let the Candy box remind you that God is at work in your life. Know that God is working and filling your life with God’s love!
YOU are not empty, you are not a rotten, gross piece of chocolate.
God created you to be God’s favorite.
Part 3 of 3 by Lynne M. Baab —
originally published in Refresh Journal of Contemplative Spirituality, Summer 2015
The first two posts in this series presented five situations in which it can be hard to listen.
- I’ll never show perfect empathy so I don’t want to try.
Communication scholars view empathy as the highest listening skill. Empathy is the cognitive process of identifying with or vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. When we empathize, we are attempting to understand and/or experience what another person understands and/or experiences.
Empathy is beautiful to experience. It is also very hard to sustain. In fact, no one can empathise perfectly. Sometimes we are tempted not to try because it is so challenging.
Perhaps you’ll find it encouraging to know that the people in my life who are the very best listeners have expressed to me how often they feel they fail as listeners. They are very aware that their empathy is only partial and that sometimes they simply talk too much or fail to perceive what another person is trying to say.
But they keep trying. They constantly work at listening better. They intentionally give feedback through their facial expression, body language and short words. They try to ask good questions. They pay attention to what the other person is saying and try to reflect back in order to be sure they have comprehended what was said. And they work at paying attention to those times that they are tempted to talk and talk. They know that the urge to fill the air with their own words comes from some kind of inner anxiety that must be acknowledged before it can be set aside.
An example
I interviewed the minister of a culturally diverse congregation in Auckland. He said that some of the European members of his congregation have expressed their uneasiness in conversations with Asians in the congregation. He has asked them, “What’s the issue?”
One woman responded, “Well, if I talk to an Asian I don’t know what to say. If I talk to a European, I might be able to say, ‘Oh, you went to school in Wellington!’ I can kind of imagine that because it would be like me going to school in Auckland. But if you said you went to school in Kuala Lumpur – blank.”
The minister said he found himself thinking, “You’re an intelligent person, so why don’t you just ask the next question: ‘What was it like going to school in Kuala Lumpur?’”
To “neighbor” the people God has put in our lives who come from very different backgrounds than we do, or who believe very different things than we do, requires using a variety of listening skills. One of those skills is asking simple and appropriate questions like, “What was it like going to school in Kuala Lumpur?” Asking good questions and being willing to listen to the answer requires something else first: we must stop talking. Many people talk rather than listen because it’s easier for so many reasons. Exploring those reasons and learning to set them aside from time to time helps us show love to the people God is bringing to us as neighbors.
Watch for the ways you feel loved in conversations. Watch for the way people in your life “neighbor” you as they listen to you. Then go and do likewise. You’ll learn so much from people who are different than you are, and you’ll enter into Jesus’ love for you and for the people around you.
[1] Kathleen S. Verderber and Rudolph F. Verderber, Inter-Act: Interpersonal Communication Concepts, Skills and Contexts, 10th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 211.
By John Birch —
So fill us with your love
that it might cascade
into the ordinariness
of our working lives,
and others experience
the warmth of its flow,
spreading from hearts
and words and deeds;
an unbroken stream
bringing refreshment
to all that it touches.
International Artist Day was founded by Canadian painter, Chris MacClure, as a way of recognising the value of art and those who create it in our lives. If we look around us we might be astonished at just how much art we see every day, from the patterns on our kitchen tiles to the design of our clothes, the graphics we see on the internet and the paintings we hang on our walls. All these visual feasts have been crafted by someone with an artistic imagination. Perhaps it is worth pausing for a moment and thinking how dull and sad our lives would be without this beauty all around us.
Artwork by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt
Oscar Wilde was once asked why Americans were so violent, and his reply was, “Because their wallpaper is so ugly.” It is humorous of course, but as always with Wilde, there is an element of truth here. When our surroundings are garish or bereft of beauty, when they are clinical or bare, or overbearingly ornate, they are not conducive to peace or contentment.
Artists, in general, are seeking to beautify the world. I’m primarily a writer, but discovered a gift for art a couple of years ago and am now enjoying honing my craft. I paint mostly in pastels, and feel that it is good to reflect one of the facets of God’s image by creating. God has an amazing imagination, creative bent and sense of humour. One only has to take a quick glance at nature to see that, and the infinite variety all around us is unending inspiration.
When I create a piece of art, my goal is very simple, to express my joy at living in such a beautiful world. I hope that some of this translates to those who look at it. I would love, also to create art that invites people deeper into encounter with God’s character, through nature and my expression of the beauty of souls, whether they are the souls of people, animals or even (in a way) landscapes. Everyone and everything is part of God’s world and nothing is too small or unimportant to be portrayed. Everybody has a beautiful smile, worthy of being captured on canvas.
Art is a tool we have for showing our love for the world, our surroundings, animals, people, plants, and our creator. Dostoevsky said through his character Prince Miskin in The Idiot, “Beauty will save the world,” and I do believe that creativity is a powerful tool for lifting us into that spiritual realm where deep truths can touch us and connect us in loving unity.
Painters can of course also use their art to express political concerns and expose the darkness in our hearts, or the horrors of life. One might think here of Picasso’s Guernica, Munch’s The Scream, or the work of Hieronymus Bosch. But these pieces are beautiful and powerful too, and serve the same purpose of bringing us altogether.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, —that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
As Keats wrote in his Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Part 2 of 3 by Lynne M. Baab —
originally published in Refresh Journal of Contemplative Spirituality, Summer 2015
Yesterday’s post presented one way that listening gets shut down because of things we think or feel. Here are four more situations in which it might be hard to listen.
- People say things that I don’t know how to respond to.
Imagine your new co-worker not only wears a scarf, but she tells you about the recent death of her father. Imagine you are uncomfortable talking about death, so her story arouses your sense of insecurity about what to say when people are grieving. The next time you see her, you don’t ask any questions about her father or the funeral or how her family members are coping. Instead, you talk about the project you’re working on together. You’re afraid she’ll talk about her grief and then you won’t know what to say.
All of us, even the best listeners, find ourselves wondering from time to time about what’s the best thing to say. The challenge is to learn to set aside our anxiety about what to say so we can make space in the conversation for whatever the other person wants to talk about. If we can set aside that anxiety, we won’t be afraid to let people talk about what matters to them. We will be open to them and their concerns, as a good neighbor would be. Often no response at all is necessary, and with time we can learn to feel comfortable with silence in conversations. Learning to set aside our anxiety about what we’re going to say next is a key listening skill.
- I’m in a hurry.
Another key listening skill is knowing how to cut off the flow of words gracefully. When we encounter someone in the supermarket and they start a long story, it’s perfectly appropriate to say, “I can’t talk now. I’m so sorry, but I’ve got an appointment.” We must not ever make listening such an absolute value that our lives become out of control. Sometimes there simply isn’t time to listen well.
However, it’s worth examining our lives a bit. How long has it been since you’ve listened to a story from someone who is upset about something or worried or discouraged or angry? How long has it been since you have felt uncomfortable in a conversation? If it’s been weeks or months, then it’s probably time to spend some effort engaging with someone who’s a bit different than you are or who is experiencing things that make you uneasy. Jesus calls us to “neighbor” the people around us, and if we are always rushing off to the next appointment and never listening, then we are probably missing his call.
Just about all of us in this busy world have a long to-do list. That list can get in the way of listening. We need to ask God’s help to know when to focus on the list and when to set the list aside for ten or thirty or ninety minutes to listen to someone.
- I’m in the habit of talking because it’s less effort than listening.
Let’s be honest. Active, engaged listening is quite tiring. For many people, talking is less demanding than listening. Let’s be honest again. We simply don’t have the time and energy to listen carefully all day long. But in order to build bridges with people who are different than we are, in order to “neighbor” people around us, we have to listen attentively sometimes. And, for those of us who are talkative, that means letting go of our love of talking for a period of time.
- I have no idea how to show love while listening because it wasn’t modeled to me.
When I did my interviews for my book The Power of Listening, several of my interviewees talked about people in their congregations who had never been listened to and simply had no model for good listening. If you’re one of those people, I have three suggestions:
Read the Gospels. Jesus was a champion listener. Watch for the ways he paid close attention to the people he interacted with. He frequently spoke up and he frequently listened. He knew how to do both, and he is a great model.
Secondly, watch the pattern of the conversations in your life. Pay attention to conversations when you’re with people you like to be with. In what ways do they listen to you? Also, pay attention to the pattern of conversation with people who are hard to be with. What are their listening habits? I have learned so much from paying attention to the listening practices of people in my life, both good and bad.
Thirdly, consider finding a spiritual director. Again, watch the pattern of listening on the part of your spiritual director and you will learn a lot.
Tomorrow: one more thing that can block us from listening, then an illustration of what it might look like to listen to someone quite different than we are.
Part 1 of 3 originally published in Refresh Journal of Contemplative Spirituality, Summer 2015
Many years ago I heard a sermon on the prodigal son. “Who is my neighbor?” the teacher of the law asks Jesus (Luke 10:29). In response, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. At the end of the story, Jesus asks, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (verse 36).
On that Sunday long ago, the preacher said that it’s helpful to think of “neighbor” in Jesus’ question as a verb rather than a noun. In other words, “Which of the three men in the story ‘neighbored’ the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
To “neighbor” someone, then, is to act in a certain way. I want to argue that to “neighbor” people must include listening to them.
Why is listening a part of “neighboring”? Good listening conveys so many things. In the seminars I conduct on listening, I always open with the question, “Why does listening matter?” Participants usually come up with about twenty answers. Listening shows love and acceptance, they say. Listening helps people understand they are not alone in whatever issues they are facing. Listening helps people solve their own problems as they talk through an issue. Listening builds relationships. In fact, listening reflects the dance of the Triune God where each of the three Persons of the Trinity lives in love and deep communication with each other.
Listening skills – which can be learned – include those small indicators that we are listening, “hmmm” or “yes” or “I see.” Listening skills include body language and facial expressions that indicate we are paying attending. Other key skills include learning to ask open-ended questions and growing in our ability to reflect back to the person what we think they have said.
All listening skills depend on one behaviour. We must stop talking in order to listen. In this post, and the next two posts, I want to write about some of the inner forces that make it hard for us to stop talking.
- People are different and their difference makes me feel tense.
Imagine that you have a new co-worker. This new person wears a headscarf, so you wonder if she is a Muslim. Imagine that you’ve never actually had a conversation with a Muslim before. What do you say? What do you ask? What do you feel?
Use your imagination a bit more. Imagine that last week you were talking with a family member who expressed his conviction that Muslims are trying to take over the world. At the time, you disagreed with him, but now, as you want to have a conversation with the new co-worker, your family member’s words come back to you, and you begin to feel tense about what you will say.
All of us feel some degree of tension in conversations with people who are different than we are. Perhaps you’ve had lots of interesting conversations with Muslims, but maybe you get tense when you talk with people who have different political beliefs than you do. Or maybe your new colleague is a vegetarian and you are intimidated by people who don’t eat meat.
When Jesus challenges us to “neighbor” the people around us, he is asking us to make a difficult move. He is asking us to engage with people with whom we feel uneasy, perhaps because of their religious or political beliefs or their convictions about things that matter to us. Jesus is asking us to engage with interest and respect. For many of us, our knee-jerk response when we feel uneasy is to fill the air with our own words because we worry about what the other person might say that would make us uneasy. Setting aside that uneasiness so we can listen is a key listening challenge.
Continued tomorrow: Four more ways it can be hard to listen
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!