by Christine Sine
Tom and I have just returned from one of our quarterly retreats. This time we relaxed in a beautiful hotel on the beach at White Rock in B.C. Canada. Much of my time was spend contemplating the following passage from To Bless the Space Between, by John O’Donohue.
Before it occurs a beginning can be a longtime in preparation….
When the heart is ready for a fresh beginning unforeseen things can emerge. And in a sense, this is exactly what a beginning does. It is an opening for surprises. Surrounding the intention and the at of beginning there is always exciting possibilities. This inevitably excites artists. So much can actually happen between the moment the brush is taken into the hand and the moment it touches the canvas. Such beginnings have their own mind and they invite us to unveil new gifts and arrivals in one’s life. Beginnings are new horizons that want to be seen; they are not regressions or repetitions. Somehow they win clearness and become fiercely free of the grip of the past.
As I reflected on this I realized how often I confuse the start with the beginning. A new project, a new vision, a new idea does not begin until it is fully formed and clarified in our minds. Yet the idea has started long before that.
As many of you know I am entering a new stage of life with a new vision and a new pathway. I am impatient for all the pieces to come together. I am ready to begin, but it is not yet time. God has reminded me that this is still a time of refreshment, relaxation and renewal. It is a time to wait for God to begin, to continue to compose the song of life that God has placed within my soul and allow it to be heard in new melodies when God has fully formed it. I am excited by what I see starting to emerge and look forward to sharing my new beginnings with you in the coming months.
What Is Your Response
As I continue this walk I find myself asking some new questions that you might like to reflect on too:
- What is my unique God given gift that the world needs to see?
- What is the new joy filled horizon God has placed within me that wants to be seen?
- How am I choosing to cultivate that gift and enable myself to move towards that choice?
Each day is a new beginning for all of us, a time in which unforeseen and sometimes surprising things can emerge. Sometimes these are small and seemingly mundane things like the emergence of a new flower in our garden or the visit of a friend. Sometimes they are monumental like the emergence of a new vision or direction in life as I am experiencing.
Whatever the beginnings that are before you take time to prepare and to reflect. Look back over your last couple of days: What unforeseen and surprising things emerged in them? Write them down. What new gifts have they unveiled for you? Write these down and offer a prayer of thanks to God.
Now look ahead to the coming days and imagine with joy and anticipation the new things that God is preparing for you: What is the new horizon in you that wants to be seen?
by Lilly Lewin,
Here in the mid-south, we are already planting vegetables in the garden, and starting our front porch planters. The true gardeners are going full force getting in their early crops, and Home Depot and other garden centers are bursting at the seems with mulch, potting soil, and plants of all colors and kinds.
Other places in our country just had another snow storm this week, not a big one, but it still looks more like winter than spring. I realize that here in the Northern hemisphere we are living in or waiting for spring while you, in the Southern Hemisphere, are thinking of harvesting and living in fall. Regardless of where you live, you can let the gardens around you, the plants and trees and even vegetable patches remind you of what God is up to in your life. I spent many of my growing up years on a farm. One of my grandfathers was a farmer and my other grandfather was a florist and nurseryman. The grandma I am named for had a green thumb. So I have a bit of dirt under my nails and in my dna, but I am not one of those people who reads seed catalogues and has the gift of canning. I wish I did. What I do love is a beautiful sunflower or a bunch of day lilies in a field. I was super excited to see that the tulips I planted much too late in the fall actually bloomed this spring!
I love that God started people in a garden. God longs to restore us to the garden again. God has given us the beauty of this planet to reveal the wonder of our Creator.
As someone named after a flower, flowers and growing things awaken me to God and God’s love for me.
Maybe you didn’t grow up with a vegetable garden in your yard and maybe even succulents cannot survive in your flowerpot but I think we all can appreciate the hard work and patience it takes to grow things, and the beauty of the plants and trees around us.
What if we started looking at gardens more intentionally?
What if we allowed the garden patches around town or even the plants we see at the local garden center/ Home Depot remind us of what God is up to in our lives?
Gardens need fertilizers… sometimes this is a stinky business.
Growth can be stinky, it isn’t easy.
Gardens need water. They need sunlight. And weeding and pruning are needed to help gardens grow.
Fruit and veggies are produced to share with others.
Who do you want to grow alongside this season? Who do you want to share your Easter Season with you? What is the produce you are sharing with others?
Consider that Gardening is a process. It takes time.
Whether it is a flower garden or a vegetable one, there is usually a lot of planning that happens before the planting. What kind of plans are you making for new growth in your garden?
Are you taking time to let God grow good things? What seeds need to be planted?
What weeds need to be pulled? Are you allowing God to show you the weeds?
What does God want to plant in your life right now? What does God need to weed out?
Sometimes the roots of weeds are very deep, they might take a hoe or a spade to dig them out. Any pests eating away at the new leaves?
Remember that there are Seasons.
Even in California, there are growing seasons for different plants and vegetables.
God is a seasonal God. What season does God have you in right now?
There is a time for tilling the soil. There is a time for planting the seeds. And there is a time for harvest.
There is a time to lay fallow.
How is your soil? How is the soil of your heart this Easter Season? Does it need tilling, cultivating, weeding? Are their rocks that need to be removed? What birds or other pests are threatening your garden?
What is your soil in need of now? Are you willing to let God till the soil?
How does the soil of your heart need to be replenished, enriched?
Gardening is messy, dirty and takes time. It is subject to the weather.
You have to trust God to grow what you plant.
It’s organic.
You have to trust that the seeds you plant today will grow into beautiful flowers in the months to come.
You often have to wait to see the fruits of your labor.
And if it’s time to let yourself lie fallow, know that God is in the midst of this too.
Allowing a field or garden to lie fallow enables an even more abundant harvest in the future.
Trust the Gardener to grow something beautiful in you and through you.
Some things to try:
•Put a garden trowel or a pair of garden gloves somewhere you can see them regularly. I often put symbols on my coffee table, but you might want to put it on your desk or even create a centerpiece with a pot of soil, some garden gloves and some seed packets to remind you of what God is growing in your life.
•Plant some bulbs or seeds and wait for them to grow.
•Buy someone else some flowers or share some from your own garden and/or share some vegetables you grow or buy at a farmers market with a neighbor to brighten their day and show God’s love in a practical way.
•Pull some weeds in your yard, and ask God to remove the weeds in your heart and show you the roots of old habits or old junk that is getting in your way and needs to be pulled out.
•Notice the flowers in your neighborhood, notice the weeds and the wild flowers. Allow God to surprise you with beauty along the way.
By Shelby Hofer. She is a full time stay at home mom to two little ninja-pirates, a part time missionary to Switzerland, and a full time lover of Jesus. When she’s not being yelled at for trying to pee alone, she enjoys coffee, talking and listening to people’s stories. —
Right now feeding my baby looks eerily like that scene from Jurassic Park where the T-Rex has just gotten out of his fence, and they are in the cars and trying not to move because if they do they’ll attract his attention and get eaten!! Yeah, that’s my life right now. My littlest pirate ninja has been such a pain in the ### when it comes to taking her bottle lately that when she FINALLY starts to eat, it’s like, “Nobody move! On pain of death!” Because the second we twitch our noses, she immediately starts crying and won’t eat again. Ugh.
Sometimes, after a whole day of trying to get both of my little pirates to eat, and repeating myself about a hundred thousand million times, and listening to my toddler repeat HIMSELF a hundred thousand million times, and making 3 meals, and cleaning, and working, and trying to stay relatively clean (by “clean” I mean, that you can’t actually smell me from 4 feet away) I just want to scream at the first person who sneezes when I’m trying to feed the baby. And scream at my toddler for not. Eating. His. Food. That he totally loved yesterday. And scream at my hubby for unloading the dishwasher. (what?)
It’s nice to have my hubby around for accountability, in that it would be way more embarrassing to be caught in the act of losing my $#*% and that helps me to hold it together until bedtime. Though it’s something that I battle, pretty much daily. Being a mom is hard. Because we are everything to everyone in our family, all day, every day. And then we try to be a good friend, and a good daughter, and a good wife, not necessarily in that order. And we try to parent out of our marriage, but how do you do that when you are flinging past each other all week just trying to keep afloat? Oh yeah, still working on that one.
Everyone says, “This too shall pass”, and I kind of want to punch them in the face sometimes. Yes, I know it shall pass, but it sucks crazy right now. And it’s hard. And it’s painful. And it’s messy. And it’s uncomfortable. But this is my life. And lately I’m trying to focus on finding the joy.
Joy is not happiness. You can have joy and NOT be happy. Joy is the bright spots in the midst of the craziness. Joy is the moment when my toddler says “please”. Joy is the days when I feel like a rock star because I’ve done 3 loads of laundry AND put them away. Joy is the moments when you get a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.
So hang in there, mama. Sometimes the T-Rex bites your hand off, and sometimes you get to pet it and it gives you a lovely snuggle. Those are the joy moments. And while we don’t always have the energy to choose joy, we can practice looking for it.
1 Thessalonians 2:19-20 “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.”
In the next few months at Godpsace, we desire to be sharing the ‘joy spots’ of God’s new kingdom in your life, neighbourhoods and churches that expresses the joy of God’s kingdom breaking into ours. What are some of these little ‘spots’ in your life that you see every day? Here is a reflection by Talitha Fraser —
I walk home from the restaurant and it rains. Hard. After a long, sticky, humid day, the wild water is a welcome relief – cleansing, cooling, sparkling. It feels made just for me this moment: that sky, those lights, these puddles. I grin conspiratorially with anyone I meet. Fancy all those looking down and running to get out of the wet, those looking out not thinking to leave their house and relish in the beauty of this. Familiar sights are made fresh by this new light, washed with mist and rain – it is a marvel and so many are missing it. You have to be present to the moment that you’re in. I am present to this one and it is a present to me. It was pretty life-giving – drenched by more than just rain.
By Shelby Selvedge —
I recently have spent some time learning more about labyrinths and the purpose behind them. I was asked to draw a labyrinth and it prompted me to want to know more about it in hopes it would inspire my drawing, it did. What stuck with me is the process of releasing or focusing on something on the way toward the center, gaining insight or revelation in the center, and then bringing that back to the rest of your life.
This process reminds me of how I experience God through nature. God speaks through nature, his creation. This is a prominate way he speaks to me. When I am stressed, have a decision to make, a hurt to process, or an idea I want to explore I often seek out time amongst the trees, by a lake, in the mountains, or on the beach. Hiking or walking in nature is the most frequent way I delve into nature. It is like walking a living labyrinth.
I have an intention, something on my mind, as I embark on my walk, hike, or climb. I release it to the wind, the trees, let it out in my footsteps, and feel it flow around my body and out with my breath. Whether I end up at the top of a mountain, by a water fall, or around the lake before heading home, something always flows back in and gives my thirsty soul life. For me it can be a feeling, an idea, or resolution, or even simply God’s peace. On my way home I carry what I received in my interaction with nature, the living labyrinth, and bring it back to my more routine moments.
Its not a one time event but rather one I do frequently. It never looks the same either. Sometimes it’s a grouling climb to the summit of a mountain pushing every fiber of my being, other times a walk around Greenlake, or sitting quietly in a forest. It doesn’t matter the type of way I choose to interact with nature but my intention and mindset behind it.
What ways do you interact with nature as a living labyrinth?
Do you see God revealed in nature?
How can we mindfully enter nature as if it were a labyrinth: releasing, receiving, and returning?
It is a week since Easter Sunday and we have just celebrated Earth Day and Good Seed Sunday. Here in the Pacific NW we are watching the emergence of new life as trees burst into bloom and perennials burst fresh from the ground. . I have put away lenten images and redecorated my sacred space with images of new life and resurrection to match the joy of the season.
It seems however that in many ways resurrection has passed us by. We are back to life as usual. Just as the disciples returned to their nets, unsure what to do with the rumours of Jesus reappearance, we are unsure what do with resurrection in our own lives.
These pivotal days of our faith seem to make little difference in the way we live. Why I wonder? Why aren’t we transformed by the resurrection?
Living Into the Resurrection Seems so Overwhelming for Us.
Perhaps it’s because living into the resurrection seems so overwhelming for us. We think we need to dash off to be a missionary in some other part of the world. Or we need to give up the job we love to work with the homeless in the inner city. Or we need to sell all our possessions to live with the poor.
Yet that is not what resurrection is all about. This is a season of light and joy and believe it or not, light and joy don’t take spectacle to live out. Jesus did such mundane everyday things in the days of his reappearance and looked so ordinary that his disciples didn’t always recognize him.
What is your response?
What are the joy spots in your life that speak of resurrection living? Take time to reflect on your life and how it has been changed by your relationship with Christ. What are the daily, weekly and seasonal activities that you feel most represent the joy of resurrection living. How could you express that joy in this resurrection season?
The risen Jesus seemed like a very ordinary person. If we were in charge of his PR campaign there would have been neon signs in the sky, interviews on CNN, audiences with world leaders. Approaching this Jesus would have been impossible, and following in his footsteps totally unimaginable. But that was not how Jesus came.
- He came to Mary as a gardener not as a king. He was so ordinary that she did not recognize him at first, after all who really looks closely at the servant who tends the gardens?
- He made breakfast on the beach for his friends. Again it took them a while to recognize him. And it needed a bit of a miracle – 153 large fish weighing down their nets – for them to truly see who he was. Perhaps their eyes skimmed past him because of the ordinariness of how he looked and how he acted.
- He came as a stranger and walked for a whole day explaining the scriptures to a couple of his disciples before they recognized him. A stranger who walked rather than riding in a carriage is hardly a king, let alone the risen son of God.
- He comes to the disciples, afraid and hiding behind closed doors. He let them touch him, calmed their fears and sent them out to change the world.
Resurrection living is not complicated. It is about ordinary people doing ordinary things just as Jesus did – simple acts of hospitality, companionship to the fearful, talking to strangers. These were the things that brought the joy of resurrection living into the lives of those early disciples.
What is your response?
How could you more effectively live into the resurrection at this season? Are there situations in which you could offer breakfast to your colleagues or friends? Or perhaps you could take some kids out for a hike, talk to them about their life concerns and answer their questions. Or maybe their are strangers at church whom you could ask out for a cup of coffee and a chat. The possibilities are endless. How could you practice the joy of resurrection living today?
By Lilly Lewin
So why is it that little kids get to have all the fun in church?
This is a question I often ask in my experiential worship workshops. It’s rhetorical, but I really wonder why we think that kids are the only ones who need to have crayons and paper in a worship gathering. The church I grew up in was the kind that had offering envelopes and welcome cards in the pews, along with the little golf pencils that fit into holes especially made for them. During worship, I would draw pictures on every card and envelope in my area of the pew. As I got bigger and could write, I would draw pictures and often write notes to the pastor and put them into the offering plate. Having been on church staff I know the church secretary probably was not happy about my artistic enthusiasm!
That was back in the dark ages before coloring sheets and kid’s bulletins were even thought about. Today we have those, and even kid’s worship bags with goodies that help kids stay quiet during the service, and sometimes they are even related to the theme of the sermon. But those of us who are “big people” now, we are invited to just sit and listen. What about those of us who are not auditory learners? What about those of us who need to do something while we listen so we can remember? Just because we grow up doesn’t mean we grow out of our learning style! And most of us are not auditory learners!
I am on a mission to see that everyone gets to do art during worship if they so desire. This started several years ago when I was a part of a congregation that had a kid’s table in the back for children to use during the service. It had lots of colored paper and baskets filled with crayons and markers! That gave me a brilliant idea! Let’s make an adult art table! In that particular church, there were rows of chairs in the front of the sanctuary and then round tables in the back. So I started bringing art supplies and paper and putting them on the back tables. Then I would sit back at one of the tables and draw in response to the sermon. I used to be a copious note taker, but it’s much more natural for me to draw a picture in response to the sermon and/or the singing worship rather than just take notes. There was a young man in the congregation who was an artist by profession, and my humble art supplies encouraged him and gave him permission to bring his own sketchpad and supplies to draw with during worship.
We really do need to give people permission to express themselves in worship beyond singing! We need to say it constantly, not just once. It can take many months before people really believe that it’s ok, even encouraged. I honestly didn’t embrace my artistic self in church until the last few years. After leading workshops on art in worship, I finally gave myself permission to BE an artist in worship. Now I bring my sketchbook, colored pencils or crayons to church, and draw both in response to the singing worship and to the sermon. Sometimes I use words and pictures and these help me remember the message. Recently I set up an art station at a church here in Nashville and the pastor said, “why don’t we get clip boards and hand them out to people who want to draw?” A fantastic idea. So we bought a bunch of colored pencils (Crayola are inexpensive and have great color) and some inexpensive clipboards and I handed them out as people came into the church like one might hand out bulletins. I’d ask, “would you like to draw during church?” This surprised some people but made others excited. Some would leave their doodles on the clipboards, some took them home, some drew amazing pictures in response to the sermon and would bring them for me to see. I started posting my worship drawings on my instagram feed with the hashtag #artinworship and #sermonsketching so other people could catch the idea that they too could draw, create art, in worship.
Regardless of your church flavor you can start putting art supplies in the pews or have a basket of clipboards with colored pencils attached in the foyer or narthex and have someone invite people to use them. An actual, real person needs to hand them out and invite people “to play.” Also if you have room in your worship space you can set up an art table with other art supplies and invite people to use them during worship. And remember, it definitely matters if you have the invitation from whoever is up front. We need to give everyone permission to express themselves in worship beyond singing and encourage the artists among us to share their gifts.
find me on instagram @lillylewin and at freerangeworship.com
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