Lectio Tierra. My ears perked up as Pat spoke these words. I know Lectio Divina, but what was this Lectio Tierra he spoke of? In his introduction to “Celtic Spirituality and the Land” at our Celtic Prayer Retreat last weekend, Pat Loughery introduced us to this idea. Basically it’s taking the practice of Lectio Divina, the divine reading of Scripture, and applying it to your encounter with nature.
The Celts knew Jesus as the Word of God. They also saw scripture as the little (in size) book testifying to God and nature as the big book revealing who God is. It was perfectly natural for them to go into nature and learn of God. This makes some folks nervous, and several years ago I would have been nervous as well. But actually we should take comfort in the words of Paul to the church in Rome:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” Romans 1:19-20
We often get caught up in the rebellion mentioned later in this passage, “worshiping the creation rather than the Creator”, which is a significant warning to us about knowing the difference between the two. Unfortunately many of us have over-reacted in fear and forgotten that God fashioned creation to give testimony to who God is. This truth becomes evident as we re-read scripture, especially the Psalms and the parables of Jesus.
With that out of the way, here’s a very simplified outline of how Lectio Divina works:
- Reading the passage through slowly and deliberately several times, listening for God’s voice in the written word.
- Meditating on what you’ve read. Taking time to really hear the words and thinking about what God might be saying to you specifically, right now, in the reading. What word or phrase stands out to you?
- Praying. Having a deep and personal conversation with God about what you’re hearing and experiencing in the passage.
- Contemplating, or resting in the truths you have heard and how they apply in your life.
So what might it look like to enter into Lectio Tierra? I actually wasn’t too surprised that I had been practicing this all along in my garden, on mushroom hunting trips, and out camping.
Reading – Heading out into God’s very good creation, I read the environment around me. How is God present? What might God be using to catch my eye and draw me closer? As I did this exercise at the retreat I noticed a tall stinging nettle. (There are a lot of them there). This nettle was tall and green, but two of the leaves just below the top were black and shriveled. Was there a message here I was supposed to hear? I stopped, looked, listened. It felt like I was trying to force a revelation into being. Then my eyes focused behind the nettles. I had been at the site for almost a week and walked by this tree nearly a hundred times and never noticed. This time it stood out as if to invite me into its story.
A tall, beautiful alder stretched its branches into the heavens. But what first attracted my attention was this ridiculously long and deep scar extending over 15 feet up the side of the trunk. What was its story and how might it be speaking to me? (Or if you’re more comfortable, how might God be speaking to me through this tree)?
Meditating – There is a story in this tree. I have no idea how the scar was made. I’m guessing there was once a large branch there that, either through wind, weight, or another tree crashing down upon it, was violently ripped from the trunk. While I didn’t know the details of that story, another reality was setting in.
This was a serious wound; there was nothing superficial about this. Just shy of the core of the tree, this wound had to have caused great trauma to the tree. Toward the top of this gaping whole I could easily see where layer upon layer of healing had taken place. But even with this severe trauma, the tree continued to grow, its remaining branches joined by new branches to reach toward the heavens. In fact, if you were to come upon this tree and only look upward, past the damaged parts, you’d likely think it was just like all the other healthy trees in the area: rich, strong, full of life.
Praying – I’ll admit up front, the meditation and praying portions seemed to overlap or, more accurately, lead me in a time of cycling from meditating to praying to meditating and back again. Jesus, what are you saying to me through this tree? What lessons, or cautions, do you have for me? There were some obvious ones, but what eventually came together as a whole was how much I am like this tree… we are like this tree.
We all are wounded. For some, the wounds don’t go very deep and almost seem inconsequential. Others of us have deep and painful wounds. Healing doesn’t happen all at once, it takes time. There were layers of healing on this tree. How it survived I don’t know, but it did. It not only survived, it thrived! Somehow it kept growing. It not only grew, it flourished! In my life I often want to rush past the wounds and on to healing and flourishing. But the journey of healing shapes both who we are and how we respond to others.
And this gash. So deep and so long! The wound didn’t just disappear when the tree began to move beyond healing and on to new growth. Oh, how I long to cover up my wounds! We have entire industries created around making the broken and damaged appear unblemished, but what if that is not the way of God? What if, like this tree with its wound in full display, our lives are meant to be transparent? How might we live differently if we knew others saw our brokenness and we saw theirs?
Reflecting back on scripture I’m reminded just how wounded, how broken, the heroes within its pages are. Can we say, “Be more like Peter or Paul”, without also remembering their failures? For that matter, what about Abraham, Moses, and King David? No, like this tree their wounds are out there. But also like this tree they found healing and learned to grow, to thrive.
Contemplation – Resting with these insights, these lessons from a tree, I begin to move into a sense of peace. I can breathe more easily not fearing that someone will come by and rip off the veil hiding my scars. I can embrace my scars. I can seek forgiveness and reconciliation where necessary and receive healing, love, and grace from God and those around me. I do not have to be someone I’m not. Whether through bad choices or bad circumstances, what has happened has happened. There is a wound. What I do now is up to me. I choose the way of shalom, and I can rest.
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Tom and I are currently on vacation on Mayne Island British Columbia. One of my favourite activities is wandering the beach looking for rocks, shells sea glass and other things of interest.
This week as I wandered I photographed a leaf that had just fallen from the tree. I picked up sea glass that had lain there for 10 to 50 years. I passed by the rusted structures left by miners who stopped here on their way to the goldfields. I crunched through the midden, an accumulation of hundreds of years of discards from seafood feasts the first nations’ people had held here. I examined the rocks, many of which had been carried to this beach thousands of years ago by the glaciers.
I feel as though this beach contains the history of the world and as I wander am very aware of my own insignificance and transient existence. I am also aware however of the eternal presence of God infused in every rock that created it and expressed in every person who has enjoyed its beauty. The one constant of all time and all places is the eternal presence and love of God, indwelling, surrounding and enlivening everything. All we need to do is take notice.
by Mtende Mughogho —
It is our delight to welcome Mtende Mughogho to the Godspace writing community. She was born and currenlty lives in South Africa. I love this beautiful poem she has written inspired by the song Good Good Father by Chris Tomlin. We look forward to sharing more of her poetry with you.
One of my favourite songs from our recent Celtic retreat begins Christ has walked this path, the path that we are on. As I listened again to this beautiful song over the week I found myself thinking about the many ways in which Christ walks with me on this path through life;
Christ walks before me
Christ is the guide who shows me how to live. His life is the guiding star for all that I should commit my life to – justice, healing, compassion, generosity, inclusivity. These are some of the characteristics of the life Christ lived that I want to model in my own life
Christ stands behind me
When I am vulnerable and uncertain Christ is there nudging me on, encouraging me and holding me up. He protects me from my shortcomings and the things that so easily push me off track. He guards me from attacks of self centredness, ignorance and doubt.
Christ walks beside me
Christ is my friend. This is something that the Celtic saints knew very well. There’s was not an emperor Christ but a companion. They would often talk to Christ as if he walked beside them in an intimate and companionable relationship
Christ stands beneath me.
Christ is the foundation on which we stand. Our knowledge of who he is and what he has done is the bedrock of our faith, the principles that prevent us stumbling and going astray.
What is your response.
It is always both comforting and strengthening for me to think about the characteristics of Christ that are central to my faith and I like to return to these on a regular basis. Listen to the video below. Think about your own walk with Christ and the characteristics of your faith that strengthen and uphold you. Write these down. How can you continue to develop them?
What is the image that comes to your mind when you think of the face of Jesus?
I love to explore images of Jesus from different cultures. I find that looking at Jesus from a Chinese, African or Latin American perspective often reveals new aspects of who Jesus is to me. If you are looking for a great array of images of Christ from different cultures I heartily recommend Matt Stone’s blog Glocal Christianity
Supper at Emmaus – He Qi http://www.heqigallery.com/
Some of my favourites images come from the art of Chinese artist He Qi. He Qi first encountered Jesus while painting a replica of Madonna during the political unrest of Maos time. In the daytime he painted Chairman Mao and at night he painted Raphaels Madonna, allowing her peaceful eyes to touch his heart. Since then he draws only scenes from the Bible and seeks to incorporate Christian art into his Chinese culture, changing the image of Christianity from a foreign art to a familiar sight. As the first man to get his PhD in religious images after the communist regime fell, He Qi has studied in China and in America. Currently one of the most popular artists in Asia, He Qi’s amazing use of bright colors and stories tell of a Truth that could change the east.
I also love the art painted by a Cameroonian organization called Jesus Mafa. In 1973, Christian communities in Cameroon (Africa) longed for a visual representation of their Jesus. As a group, they staged important scenes of Jesus life which were then painted by a French artist, captivating the African spirit. Their colorful representations have been sold around the world and continue to touch people of all nationalities, showing a mix of the simplicity and profound spirituality with which Jesus changed lives.
Overseas Ministries Study Center used to host artists from around the world for a year long artist in residency programme. I love to browse through their art gallery to remind myself of the diversity of the ways we see Jesus.
There is another interesting set of images of the faces of Jesus on the Rejesus website.
David Hayward has recently created a wonderful set of portraits of Christ. I particularly love his RefuJesus
Contemplated the image of Jesus resulted in one of my first prayers – the one at the top of this post. It also resulted in the video below which I know I have posted before, and it old and needs to be updated but it still inspires me and I hope will do the same for you.
When you think of Jesus what image comes to your mind? How has that changed over the years? What helps you to create a more realistic image of who Jesus was and is?
“There’s an urgent question under discussion among church leaders in Britain: Will those in the millennial generation (aged 18-35) affiliate with the Church? Research suggests that if immediate creative action isn’t taken, a growing number of churches will be unlikely to have a future among the next generation as we race into the 2020s.
First, the good news. God is at work not only through people of faith, but also through people of compassion who are bringing welcome change to our world in what some are calling an ‘innovation revolution’. In the last ten years there has been a veritable explosion of new forms of social entrepreneurship and community empowerment that are bringing remarkable change to the lives of our most vulnerable neighbours, both locally and globally.
And this good news gets better! Much of this new, change-making celebration is being led by young social innovators in the UK and countries all over the planet from Generation Y (those born between 1981 and 1997) and Generation Z (those born between 1998 and 2014).
Since generations Y and Z are the first digital generations, they’re far more aware of the daunting new social, economic and environmental challenges facing our neighbours across the globe. Most importantly, a surprising number of young people want to create innovative ways to solve these international problems.
For example, Alice Boyle is the founder of East London’s Luminary Bakery. By employing disadvantaged women, this social enterprise is building a brighter future not only for these women, but for their families. Alice and her team teach women how to produce professional baked goods and develop other skills. Their aim is to ‘break the generational cycles of abuse, prostitution, criminal activity and poverty, which currently hold these women back from reaching their potential.
The traditional model of doing social and charitable good when you have reached a certain level of economic wealth, namely later in life, is no longer viable,’ observes Claritta Peters, a student involved in the social enterprise movement in the UK. ‘This generation wants their entire lives to make a difference; 31 not just to contribute a share of their discretionary resources as they prosper.’
I suspect that God might be using these young people, largely outside the traditional structures of the Church, to remind followers of Jesus that we are called to be people of compassion, creativity and action. God is challenging us to move beyond token handouts and instead to create innovative new ways to help those in need become self-reliant.”
Tom & Christine Sine
Tom Sine is co-founder of Mustard Seed Associates and blogs over at New Changemakers. His latest book is Live Like You Give a Damn: Join the Changemaking Celebration
Tom Sine, “Does the Future Have a Church?
Christianity Magazine UK, August 2016
Our family circa 1997 in Kowloon City, Hong Kong – our neighborhood for eleven years.
Twenty years ago my wife, Susan, our four-year-old son, our one-year-old son, and I were preparing to head to Hong Kong with Mennonite Mission Netork for our first four-year term. We were just finishing up at Evergreen Mennonite Church in Bellevue, WA, a church we had helped start five years earlier, where I was the “founding pastor”.
Things Are Not Always As They Appear
By this time my emotional life had been in recovery for just over six years and we were ready to go. That wasn’t the case in 1985 when I was experiencing full-on panic attacks. As clearly as if it were yesterday I still remember my first attack. I woke from a deep sleep with tingling in my right arm. No big deal, I’d probably fallen asleep on it and pinched a nerve. But soon the right side of my face started tingling, then my whole right side! “What’s going on?” came my panicked response.
Hoping to alleviate my anxiety, I got up and stumbled to the couch. Nothing on TV, I’ll just read a bit. Picking up “The Door” (formerly “The Wittenburg Door”, a satirical Christian magazine) I opened it and began reading the first article I turned to… “The Lighter Side of Being Paralyzed for Life”! I kid you not, that was the title of the article!
I won’t go into all the details of my next few years of spontaneous panic attacks; suffice it to say that I had just about every test possible and the doctors consistently came back with the reply, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” Of course, from my perspective, they’d either missed something major or I was going crazy.
The view from our flat in Hualien, Taiwan.
By 1988 I was doing pretty well and my wife and I headed off to Taiwan for a two year voluntary ministry stint. For awhile all was well. Then, like a dark shadow oozing across my soul, the panic returned. At one point I was convinced I was going crazy and began fearing what I might do. Suicide crossed my mind several times but, fortunately, I was too afraid of dying to make any real plans.
Returning to the US in 1990, Susan and I attended our mission agency’s re-entry retreat. I shared my story with a good friend there who prayed for me. Miraculously I have not had a full on panic attack since that day! Disappointingly, at least at the time, I continued to suffer from “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” (GAD). Why in the world would God choose to only partially heal me? What’s up with that? I began getting help from a psychiatrist and from medication. Life began to return to “normal”.
And here’s where I return to our adventure to Hong Kong. Our mission agency was well aware of my past; I had been quite open with them about it all. But I was also cautioned several times, “Don’t talk about your anxiety disorder in Hong Kong.” You see, at the time the general public in Hong Kong had attitudes about mental illness similar to Americans’ in the sixties. You don’t talk about these things. Not only are they private, they’re scary and no good leader should be struggling with them. Obviously (and thankfully) our mission agency knew better and sent us to Hong Kong.
Choosing Life
Dutifully I complied with the request not to share about these struggles. I didn’t share my past crises and I didn’t share my current affliction with GAD. But it wasn’t long before I began to talk with Chinese friends who were suffering in silence. They themselves or a family member were wrestling with mental illness and feeling abandoned and alone in their suffering. How could I, in good conscience, not share my own journey?
Slowly I began to open up, first with one or two, then in a sermon in front of the whole congregation. After that sermon, several people came up to me to share their own stories. It was liberating – both for them and for me!
What does all of this have to do with “Learning from the Life of Jesus”? It’s a long story, one I won’t tell in detail here, but I had grown from insecurity to over-confidence in my early-to-late twenties. Being a good Christian, I had outlined several possible career moves – all great things I planned to do for God. The problem was that God has asked none of it from me.
Jesus taught another way. He called his disciples out of their chosen career paths and into the unknown. Can you even imagine what it must have been like for Peter and Andrew, immediately leaving their nets to follow Jesus? How about for James and John who not only left their nets, but also their father, to follow Jesus? We want to be in control. But Jesus bids us, “Come and follow”.
While in Taiwan, in the midst of my deep struggles, I’d had a very clear call to leave behind my past and follow Jesus into a new kind of ministry. I knew when we returned to the US I was to enter seminary to be “equipped”, but for what I had no idea. “Trust” was the word that returned over and over. Looking back it seems ridiculous that God, in the midst of my struggles with panic and anxiety, would push me on to a new path. And yet as I read the Gospels I see that over and over again this is how he moves people away from that which cripples them into a life of healing and fullness.
I don’t believe for a moment that God afflicted me with panic disorder. That is not the kind of God I know. But I do believe I now understand why I was only partially healed. Perhaps like Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”, God allowed brokenness to remain, a brokenness that reminds me that I am not self-sufficient. Just like the rest of the world, I need God, I need daily bread. I am not learning from the life of Jesus when I think I’ve got it all figured out.
Love The Lord Your God With All Your Heart And With All Your Soul And With All Your Strength And With All Your Mind…
All my past scheming for God, my “can-do” attitude, and my natural problem-solving abilities had become obstacles in the pathway down which Jesus was beckoning me. Slowly I began to see that loving God with my “whole heart, soul, strength, and mind” could only happen if I quit tripping over my own feet and began reconciling to the person I was… am.
Thirty years have passed since that first panic attack. Although I’ve tried (under doctor’s supervision) to go off medication for the general anxiety, I’ve discovered I still need it. Similarly I believe I still need my affliction to remain engaged with God’s leading, a constant reminder that I’m not in control. I’ve reconciled to this fact. I’ve reconciled to my own brokenness in this area. And I’ve discovered that this weakness truly is a strength in the creative hands of my Creator.
…And Love Your Neighbor As Yourself
What I’ve also learned over the years is that by reconciling with and embracing my whole being, I can both love God more deeply and enter more fully into the suffering and brokenness of others. It seems obvious now, but at the time I really had no idea that by denying my own struggles, my own brokenness, I was actually limiting my ability to love others. In fact, I would go even further to say that my denial became a stumbling block to others precisely because I perpetuated the myth that leaders are not broken (although I’m confident that many around me knew I really was).
Often it’s easy to focus our attention on the fractures around us. Diving in, we get caught up in our neighborhoods, our church activities, and missional mindedness. As important as these things are, what if they become a distraction from facing the fractures within? Or worse, what if those internal fissures end up becoming sink holes that trap the very ones we’re trying to connect with?
Jesus has some pretty harsh words for those who put “stumbling blocks” in the way of others (Mt. 18:6-7). As I listen to the life of Jesus, to the people he loved, to the grace he gave, to the hypocrisy he called out among the religious elite, I have to wonder how often these “stumbling blocks” appear because we are not reconciled to our own broken places and end up harming ourselves and our neighbors.
As I’ve explored this area of reconciliation in my own life, one thing has become quite clear: the efforts I put into bringing reconciliation to the world around me are profoundly influenced by the level of self-reflection and reconciliation to the person I am. Jesus gives me permission to love myself as I am. Sure, there are parts he wants to change, to heal, but the only way to follow Jesus is to begin right where I am.
Learning from the life of Jesus is a life-long process. We see this in the lives of the disciples as they began that journey and walked with Jesus in those early years. And we see their flaws and brokenness as they grapple with Jesus’ death, resurrection, and what it means for them, and the world, after he ascends into the clouds. Perhaps this is what I appreciate most about the story of God in the New Testament: our personal growth and our ability to lead and influence others is only limited by our brokenness to the extent that we refuse to embrace a love that has overcome all things.
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