Twenty-five years ago, my congregation began offering contemplative prayer events, sometimes in a class setting on Sunday mornings and sometimes at quiet day retreats on Saturdays. I went along to try out silent prayer with others. I learned how to do centering prayer and the prayer of examen, as well as lectio divina . I took to contemplative prayer like a duck to water.
Watercolor painting by Dave Baab
I realize others don’t always have the same experience that I did, but for me, contemplative prayer was like coming home. In the midst of the verbally oriented faith that I experienced at church and in smaller gatherings, contemplative prayer gave a sense of God as big and wild and wonderful—the mystery beyond our comprehension, and yet also our refuge and fortress, a source of peace, comfort and security.
I needed that sense of peace. My life in those years was tumultuous and stressful. My husband was deeply unhappy at his work. Our kids had entered adolescence, and we were baffled and frustrated by their increasingly challenging behavior. I had finished a seminary degree and was a candidate for ordination as a Presbyterian minister, but I had no idea when or if I would ever be ordained, or even if I really wanted to be.
I felt called to congregational ministry, but I was doing some part-time writing and editing for the Presbytery and Synod, and writing was becoming an increasingly significant part of my life. I was worried about my future. Would it include church ministry or writing? How would I decide?
I came to contemplative prayer and found relief from the turmoil and a glimpse of “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). I enjoyed the sense of personal peace that came from contemplative prayer for several years before I had a major aha moment. This burst of insight came from an article in the journal Weavings entitled “Prayer as Availability to God” (Sept/Oct 1997).
The author, Robert Mulholland, points out if contemplative prayer involves listening to God, then we will become more attuned to God’s purposes and goals if we engage in contemplative prayer. If contemplative prayer includes offering ourselves to God, then the more we pray in this way, the more we will be able to participate in God’s purposes and goals. In other words, we will become more available to God.
Until I read the article by Robert Mulholland, I hadn’t realized that contemplative prayer was playing a role in tuning my heart to God’s values and empowering me to serve God more fully. The more I reflected on my experience with contemplative prayer, I realized that along with the peace, I was indeed sensing God’s guidance more clearly and growing in my ability to follow God’s leading.
Contemplative prayer, then, is not just a nice thing to do that helps us find relief from the pain of daily life. It does do that, but the peace God gives through contemplative prayer enables us to look beyond our own troubles and issues to the wider world that God loves so much. It is a peace that empowers us to long for what God cares about and to engage with God in loving the people in our hurting world.
Today is the World Day of Social Justice, and I invite you to consider the connections between your prayer life and your availability to God.
- In what ways does your prayer life help you listen to God and engage with God’s priorities in the world?
- How does listening to God speak to you of social justice?
- In what ways does prayer help you engage with God’s priorities and call you to action on behalf of the poor and marginalized?
This post is excerpted from Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation by Lynne M. Baab.
This reflection is excerpted from the book, Belonging and Becoming: Creating a Thriving Family Culture, chapter 3, A Thriving Family Finds Its Rhythm.
I like to know what to expect and what’s expected of me. I like getting new calendars, making to-do lists and reading course syllabi. Although I don’t always come off as the most tidy and organized person (my room is usually cluttered, my sleep schedule is unpredictable), I love having expectations that I feel confident will be met.
When I was growing up, our weekly and daily family rhythms were a source of stability. I knew to expect to have dinner together unless other plans were made in advance. I knew that on Thursday nights we’d have Dad and Kid Night, while mom went out and got a break. I knew that on Friday nights we’d all eat pizza and watch a movie and that on Sunday nights we’d check in as a family.
I could count on yearly traditions as well. I knew Mom would give us that day off of school for out birthdays, and we’d have breakfast in bed while we looked at baby pictures. I eagerly awaited the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas when we’d have Santa’s Workshop days when we made gifts for friends and family.
Having an established rhythm built trust within our family. We were expected to show up for the rhythms of the day, the week or the year, and we expected Mom and Dad to do their part in upholding the sacredness of our traditions and routines. These rhythms provided space and time for checking in, for celebrating, for learning or playing together, and for supporting each other through rough seasons.
As we have gotten older, the rhythms have shifted to accommodate our changing needs. We still check in as a family once a week, ask each other about the highs and lows of the past seven days and pray for whatever challenges each person is facing. Sometimes the check-in is rushed by the necessity of homework or other outside commitments, but knowing that we’ll all be in the same space soon, sharing about our lives, is comforting and valuable.
Rhythm is a powerful tool for ensuring that the way we choose to spend our time reflects what’s most important to us. During the school year, my rhythms are mainly based on my schoolwork, my family, my friends and maintaining my emotional/spiritual landscape – all things that are important to me. Truth be told, I don’t have this down yet. But due to our family practices, I have a solid framework for cultivating and striving for rhythms that will create space for the most important things in my life.
Hailey Joy Scandrette is Founder and Editor in Chief of Ignighted Magazine, an online magazine and community of people ages 18-30 seeking to follow the teachings and actions of Jesus through incarnational living. She is also the daughter of Mark and Lisa Scandrette, authors of Belonging and Becoming: Creating a Thriving Family Culture. This piece is excerpted from the book (pp. 78-79) in the chapter, “A Thriving Family Finds Its Rhythm”.
Slowly the snow is giving way to reveal the garden. It’s been a long winter, colder and snowier than normal, a stark contrast to the past several winters. Even as seed catalogues arrive weekly, it’s difficult for me to think about gardening when everything is cloaked in white.
The warming shelter I help run is still open for another three weeks — four if the weather remains cold and wet — reminding me that even with this brief respite from the cold, winter is not over. The Indigenous people of Hood River Valley remind us not to plant crops until the snow has melted from Mt. Defiance, ancient wisdom calling us to tune our lives to the seasons of creation rather than the culture of hyper-productivity. We’re still in a season of rest.
“Gardening is a lot of work!”
We don’t often think of rest when it comes to the garden. In fact, I know several people who would rather have all grass, or even pave the yard to keep things really simple. I used to believe gardens were a lot of work. I would spend hours in the spring digging and turning the soil.
With sweat dripping from my brow while my glasses slipped down my nose, I would dig deep, often two feet down, to loosen the soil. I’d pluck every weed, every clump of roots left from last year’s crop, until I could rake the garden into a flat brown empty canvas ready for planting.
During the spring, summer, and autumn, I would be out in the garden pulling weeds for hours. The garden was neat and tidy. Nice straight rows of vegetables stood out against the rich bare soil that separated them. Ah, this is how a garden is supposed to look!
At certain times throughout the season I would grab my organic fertilizer and carefully apply it around the plants. They needed food, after all. I would also watch carefully for garden pests and spray them with neem oil or other organic pesticides. The garden was beautiful, but it took a lot of work!
Spiritual insights
Have you ever approached your spiritual life like this? It’s a lot of hard work! I need to do my morning devotions without fail. I need to keep an active prayer list of all the folks I’m praying for. I need to clear out my calendar so that I can attend every church service and event. I sweep my spiritual house clean and fill it up with busy work. On the outside my life looks quite spiritual. Some even admire me for my commitment and resolve. Inside I’m exhausted. Faithfulness is a lot of hard work, after all.
Learning from God in the garden
Over time I began to realize I had created a lot of work for myself in the garden. Even my organic gardening was more work than it needed to be. As I read about other approaches and watched the less tended parts of my garden, I began to see something amazing: sometimes things thrive best when you stop working against the natural rhythms created by God.
I quit digging up my garden. I discovered that when I didn’t disturb the worms and other critters in the soil, and when I didn’t pull out all the remaining roots and other food they thrive on, they did the digging for me! Not only that, they also provided rich nutrients for the soil.
In the spring, I lightly weed just where I’m going to plant, and I pull out any noxious weeds that spread like wildfire. It doesn’t take long, and the only sweat I break is because the sun is beating down on me.
I’ve barely added any fertilizer in the past several years, opting instead for rich compost created in my worm bin and out in my compost heap. Almost all the nutrients in my garden are produced in the garden. When you allow it to live its natural rhythm it feeds itself! I work much less and enjoy much more.
Spiritual insights
Over the years I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to fit into spiritual boxes created by well-meaning folks but who didn’t really know me. We all have a kind of spiritual temperament, a natural rhythm and style that works well with how we were created. Morning devotions may be perfect for one person but a complete failure for another. Journaling might unleash deep spiritual insights for some, gardening for others, and long periods of deep meditation for still others. All of these are tools intended to deepen our relationship with God and one another, but they are not the purpose of our faith.
At the heart of permaculture is understanding the landscape. Where does the light shine and for how long during the day? Where does the wind blow? Where does the water naturally collect? Understanding our core spiritual rhythms and temperament is similar to understanding the way that our land responds to the rhythms of nature. Every person, like every physical space, responds differently.
There is a rich, self-sustaining spirituality inside each of us. The Holy Spirit is there to help us discover it. When we begin to work in harmony with how God created us and with God’s presence within us we discover our relationship with God is much smoother, much deeper, much richer, and much less frustrating than before.
- Do you relate to any of the things I’ve mentioned here?
- As you were reading, did other new insights come that you’d like to share?
- How familiar are you with our own spiritual landscape?
Below is a short video about a permaculture garden. This is a great introduction to what permaculture is and how it works. This is very similar to what I’ve done in our yard (though appropriate for our northwestern climate). An additional benefit which I didn’t anticipate: with less work and more time to enjoy, I’ve discovered the garden to be even more a place of worship.
February sees the second largest card-sending date of the year (after Christmas) – Valentine’s day – with an estimated billion cards a year. It has never been a particular favourite of mine, perhaps because as a teenager I never received any cards!!
The theory is that you send a card to someone you admire or love, but without signing it. The one time I did get one, it drove me to distraction that I did not know who it was from, or even if it was a joke!!
The origins of the day (apart from as cynical money-making exercise by the card producers) are shrouded in mystery as far as the saint is concerned, with a plethora of legends. Indeed, there may be more than one saint involved!
However it is widely agreed that there was a 3rd century Valentine who was martyred for his faith in Jesus. The link with romantic love comes from two stories: one that he secretly married couples so husbands wouldn’t have to go to war, the other that while imprisoned he healed the jailer’s blind daughter and on the day of his execution left the girl a note signed, “Your Valentine.”
If you type “love” into the internet search engine, you get one thousand and twenty million possible links. In 1967 the Beatles released the single “All you need is love”, which was deliberately composed because it was a message which could be understood by everyone. Love is the most basic of human needs and has given birth to much creativity whether in song, art or writing.
Orson Welles had a rather sad view of love, saying “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” Many would disagree with that: our love and friendship at their best give us real connection with each other and do a great deal to dispel a sense of loneliness.
So if all we need is love – what kind? C.S. Lewis in his book “The Four Loves”, describes the 4 types of love which the Greeks had separate words for:
- Storge: family bonds
- Philia: the bond of friendship
- Eros: the bond of sexual love
- Agape: unconditional love – the love of God
We may not experience all those kinds of love, and all are imperfect. The one kind which is guaranteed however – whether we get a card this year or any year, is the love of God.
Love defines God, it is the very essence of who He is, and must have drawn people to Jesus more than the fascination with His teaching or curiosity value at His reputation.
It is an individual love – we are called by name, recognized, individually loved, not just part of the world God loves in some vague collective sense, but picked out, personally known and cherished. It is a self-giving love which took Jesus to the cross and kept Him there when the merest thought would have released the rescue hordes of heaven.
Through the brokenness of the cross there shines a dazzling beauty of grace….which can transform our sometimes fractured lives – His love “can take broken things and make them beautiful” (Ellie Holcomb)
That is a love, I believe, that is worth receiving this Valentine’s Day.
Last week I talked about my preparations for Lent, and the process I am planning to follow each week. This week I have worked on putting a special journal together for the season. I did something similar for Advent and so enjoyed the journalling experience that I decided to try it again.
For Advent I used this process, but found myself a little frustrated with my inability to add and move pages around in the journal I chose. So for Lent I started from scratch. It has been a very meaningful, reflective spiritual practice.
Collecting Materials
First I needed to take time to think about what I wanted to accomplish during Lent and what would best serve my purpose. I ended up buying a simple 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 binder, some filler sheets and dividers. I also found some parchment paper out in our office that I cut down to be small enough to add pages for doodling and colouring on.
Question: What would you like to see happen in your life this year? What would be the best form of journalling for recording your journey? What materials would you need to accomplish this?
Meditating on the Cover
I didn’t like the cover on the binder I bought so decided to design my own using recycled materials. I planned to use an old woolen sweater I had knitted years ago. It was worn out but as I often found with my own handiwork, I could not bear to throw it out so intended to wash and felt the wool. Unfortunately our water was switched off on the day I set aside for this project because of some plumbing work that was being done. So I had to rethink.
It was a chance to use my imagination and creativity in new ways. In my chest of sewing materials and found some scraps from a dress I made for our honeymoon 25 years ago. It is a beautiful piece of Swiss cotton my mother gave me. So as I cut it out, hemmed it on my sewing machine which I pulled out for the first time in 10 years, and crafted it to fit snuggly over the binder. You can imagine the thoughts that were going through my mind – memories of Tom’s and my first days together, memories of my Mum and memories of the couple who gave me the sewing machine 30 years ago.
Who would have thought that making a journal cover could be such a wonderful experience!
Question: How could you make the creation of your journal into a meditative process? What might God say to you in the midst of it?
Putting the Pieces Together.
Part of what I enjoyed with my Advent journal was the colouring of the lettering of my weekly themes. So I decided I wanted to do this again for Lent. Once again I had fun choosing decorative themes:
Replace despair with hope – doodle gum
Let fear become love – zenfyrkalt
Cast out mourning with Joy – vtks encantar
transform indifference into caring – doodlowers
Triumph over oppression with Justice – spring
Let death give birth to life – Kingthings spyrogyra
I printed the words out on parchment paper so that the colour would not bleed through, punched holes in the pages and added them to the journal. I added some extra parchment pages to each section for creative doodling and drawing, some lined paper for reflection and separated each theme with tabs so that I could find where I am at easily.
Question: How would your project come together?
What Have I Learnt?
This has been a fun, reflective project as a preparation for Lent.
- It made me think about the season with intentionality – what is the purpose of Lent and what to I hope to see happen in myself during the season?
- It inspired my creativity. The moment I gave myself permission to think outside the box and imagine something new I felt God’s creative energy welling up within me. We call ourselves co-creators with God yet rarely apply creativity to our spiritual practices
- Obstacles I encountered were not roadblocks but opportunities to explore new paths. I could so easily have given up or put my project off when I realized the water would be turned off but I stopped to reflect on what new thing God would have me do instead. The new path was far more inspirational than my original thoughts.
- Any activity can become a spiritual practices if we give it our full attention and listen to what God is saying in the midst of it. The entire project only took me about 3 hours, plus the time to purchase my supplies.
- The process is as important as the product. Just as a journey is as important as the destination, so is the creative process as important and the product produced. We are not made to be consumers but creators and the process of creation enriches us and helps us grow.
- Preparing for a new season can be fun, creative and inspirational. Not only did the process inspire me but I am looking forward to Lent with renewed energy and enthusiasm too.
- Creativity is an never ending journey. I am not finished with my journal. I still want to create a design for the front cover, and I want to write out some of the prayers I have posted in the past from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa and others , but this is enough for now. I will mull over it and allow the spirit of God to lead me in the weeks ahead knowing that in the process God is indeed leading me out slavery and into new freedoms.
What is Your Response?
Last week I asked you to join me on this journey towards the rebirthing of Easter. Lent is meant to be a season of transformation. It is a time to create new ways to move forward into the purposes of God., to prepare us for the new life of Easter. I pray that you will take time to consider your own Lenten journey and how God would inspire you to move forward.
Block out a few hours this week to get ready. Define your own Lenten practices and use your creativity to shape them in ways that make them special for you.
Andy Wade —
I woke up this morning to one-half inch of ice covering everything, including the near-foot of snow that fell the past couple of days, which was on top of the foot of snow still covering the ground after a storm on December 9th. We’ve had a real winter here in Hood River, Oregon.
I’m now sitting here at my desk looking out over my snow and ice-encrusted garden. The dead sunflowers tower over the snow, icicles clinging to them like mini-daggers drawn in protest to the winter assault. Rain is finally falling. Not the freezing kind, but the cool wet rain that slowly dissolves ice and snow. All this reminds me of a saying from the desert monk, Abba Poemen:
The nature of water is yielding, and that of a stone is hard. Yet if you hang a bottle of water above the stone so that the water drips drop by drop, it will wear a hole in the stone. In the same way the word of God is tender, and our hearts are hard. So when people hear the word of God frequently, their hearts are opened to the fear of God. Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers p. 59.
Here at Mustard Seed Associates we’re in another season of listening, of allowing God’s word and plans to drip, drop by drop, until we grasp clear direction for the coming year. This, the season of Epiphany, is a time to be surprised by revelations from God. It is a season to listen deeply and respond as God’s purposes are revealed.
Juxtaposing Epiphany with Lent, in my mind, is pure liturgical genius. Our first response to God’s revelation, beyond our initial reaction of surprise and joy, is repentance. How shall we live into epiphanies received from God? As with the travelers on the road to Emmaus, sometimes our response needs to be immediate action. Often, though, we must sit with the revelation, allowing it to sink deeply into our souls and transform us. It is out of this God-infused transformation that we act most faithfully to God’s call.
- What have you been hearing from God this Epiphany?
- Which of these revelations need to be acted on now?
- Which do you need to sit with, pray about, and allow God to prepare you for?
Resources to Help You Prepare for Lent:
- A Journey into Wholeness: Soul Travel from Lent to Easter
- Lenten Prayer Cards
- Praying with Nature Prayer Cards
- FREE:
- And this comprehensive list of ideas, links, and posts
Fundraising Update
We want to again thank each of you who gave to our end-of-year fundraising campaign. Your financial support is so crucial to us at this juncture of MSA/Godspace and we are deeply grateful. Although we weren’t able to raise nearly what we had hoped, each donation brings us a step closer to being able to continue to provide resources, connections, and inspiring posts. Thank you!
If you are still interested in contrubuting it’s never too late to donate!
Shalom,
Andy Wade
Director
Mustard Seed Associates/Godspace
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