Today’s prayer is taken from one of our new set of prayer cards. I have been using it each morning over the last week as my focus for meditation. On the back of this card is a short reflection:
An old story tells of a Godly monk who asked his student: How do you know when the darkness is dispelled and the dawn has come? Is it when we can tell the difference between a dog and a goat? the asked. No said the wise old man. We know the dawn has come when we can see the face of Jesus in the countenance of another. Where do you expect to see the dawn today in the faces of those you encounter?
As I have pondered this question this morning, I realized that the first person I need to see the face of Jesus in is myself. The words in days first like I look for you, really caught my attention. How often, I wonder, do I not look for Jesus because I am hiding? How often am I like Adam and Eve in the garden – hiding because I know I have done something wrong.
Jesus wants us to come out of hiding, to search for him with our whole hearts and our minds and our souls. He wants us to look ourselves in the face and see his nature reflected there. What difference would it make in who we are and what we do if we made that simple commitment?
A couple of weeks ago I posted this photo with an earlier version of this prayer and encouraged you to consider getting ready for the season of Advent when our theme on Godspace will be Lean Towards the Light. I thought this would be a good time to prod your memory before life got too caught up in the preChristmas frenzy.
I commented then:
In our celebration of the coming of the baby Jesus we often forget that the light of Christ is already shining in our world. So my question for the season is: How do we lean into the light of Christ? It is easy for us to spend so much time and energy on preparing for Christmas that we do not allow the season to prepare us for the coming year. So how do we lean into the light that will shine through us and out into God’s broken world over this coming year?
In the Northern hemisphere, as we pass through the darkest season of the year, and look towards the coming of the Christ light, we may be aware that darkness is the place in which new seeds germinate. Or we may think like Bruce Coburn in his song Lovers in a Dangerous Time, that we have to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.
In the southern hemisphere where Advent and Christmas are marked by the long days of summer, leaning towards the light might engender images of growth and harvest or of late summer sunsets splashed across the sky.
Whatever images come to mind for you, prayerfully consider how these can be reflected in your faith as you get ready for the celebration of Advent and Christmas. It is not too early to get ready.
Showing the light of Jesus at this season should not just be about going to a few more church services, lighting a few candles or singing carols in the streets. It should be about getting down and doing the things that Jesus would do.
I think there are three questions we need to ask ourselves as we move towards the end of the year:
- How can I prepare inwardly for this season and maintain a balanced life that radiates the joy, love and light of Jesus to those I meet?
- How can I reach out to others in ways that will have a lasting effect and enable them to lean in more fully towards the light of Christ?
- How can I ignite the flame in others so that they too will radiate the light of Christ?
Tom and I will go on one of our regular retreats in a couple of weeks to prepare ourselves for this important season of the year.
What do you plan to do so that you are fully prepared for the celebration of the coming of Christ into our world.
– Andy Wade –
When has it ever been just us at the table? It seems our house is always buzzing with extra people around for meals – and we like it that way. But even when the house is quiet and the table seems empty of people, it’s never just us at the table.
The table is teeming with past conversations, stories told and re-told, laughter, awkward silence, and so much more. But even beyond memories, it’s still never just us at the table. The food – picked, packed, shipped, prepared – each step along the way represents untold stories and lives. Dishes and utensils handled first by seemingly nameless, faceless individuals. But behind each a story and series of relationships. Even the table itself and the chairs we sit on were built by hands unknown.
At first it may seem silly to ponder these things. Yet in the interconnected and interdependent world created by God, there lies a profound and important reality: bound together by design, no one, not even the remotest hermit, lives outside of the fellowship of life woven together by the hand of our creator.
This most basic of realities is easily forgotten in our fast-paced, distracted living. Even the act of sharing Communion together, that Eucharistic (thanksgiving) partaking together of bread and wine, too frequently becomes detached from the deeper meaning behind the meal and the One who gave himself for the life of the world.
It is never just us at the table
Back at home, around my own table, I begin to wonder, how do I give life and voice to all those who made this meal possible? In a sense, every meal is a love feast, a communal gathering to share bread and drink giving thanks to God for the gift of life and the bounty of creation.
To be honest, in my early years of exploring this I did so with a heaping helping of guilt. To “share” this bread and drink with all those who made it possible meant that I must pay attention not just to what I eat, but also:
- How it was produced and made its way to my table
- Whether soil was destroyed and water contaminated to make this meal possible
- Whether the hands that picked it were treated with respect and with justice
- If I was eating something shipped from across the world, burning fossil fuels to make that extravagance possible
- Whether the company behind the product was doing business responsibly and the store I purchased it from was justly paying and supporting its workers
- And so many more issues!
It all seemed quite overwhelming and yet, to just sweep these questions under the rug also seemed like injustice toward the ones who sacrificed that I might flourish.
Where is Justice at My Table?
My grandmother’s prayer nearly every meal was, “Thank you, Lord, for this food. Please bless it and make us ever-mindful of the needs of others.” But what does it mean to truly give thanks to God in whose image we are all created? Beyond mere words, what does thankfulness look like? And what does it look like to be “ever-mindful of the needs of others”? As we share this meal together, can I point to places where Christ has been invited to join us?
These are all questions that inspired me to lead our Justice at the Table workshop. The format for the day begins with exploring our relationship with food and the land, unpacking our personal “food stories”, and then identifying the key food-related issues we’re aware of and that concern us the most.
From there we’ll explore these and other issues in the context of Eucharist/Communion; more specifically, what are the implications of community and thanksgiving made possible in and through Christ?
My goal is ultimately to help each of us craft a practical plan of action based not on guilt but on the specific issues each of us is currently wrestling with in the context of our very personal and/or family/small community journey of faith.
TIMES of distress are paradoxically also times of challenge. When we least want to make for change, change it seems most wants to take us with it. And this makes for somewhat a lonely pilgrimage, full of doubt and groaning contemplation.
We want the answer to what ails us, but amidst the confusion that overwhelms there’s no easy way forward. What works one day doesn’t work the next, and so on.
God invites us to take the pilgrimage out of what we’re suffering into the Godhead of his wholeness. The Father cares for his children. The Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness. The Spirit advocates for us on his behalf.
God’s invitation involves taking us as we are into something new for the present and future. In a pilgrimage that starts from today, we learn not to look back, whilst taking with us the precious possessions of our persecutions as impetus for purpose and prosperity. These very trials are what forge our way forward. We wouldn’t have been forced back into the Godhead if not for them. Our trials have compelled us to draw near to God. We had found that ‘pilgrimage’ was the only way to successfully disentangle ourselves from the rot of soul stagnation.
Suffering takes us there: to where our souls are loneliest and most vulnerable.
We’re there for a purpose: for a fresh infilling of the Lord. And then… to not look back.
So as we set forth on this new adventure, one promising peril in the first instance, we must take courage. We must take faith to risk enough to keep stepping, eyes fixed on Jesus. We must take humility to not be put off by the relational stumbling blocks ahead. We must take perseverance enough to rest when we’re tired, instead of giving up. We must take on loan the joy of a hope that will arrive in us as we arrive at our destination. We keep pressing forward in the hope that one day we’ll be able to look back with some fondness for where we’ve come from.
The journey of pilgrimage has its perils and its promises. We cannot hope to attain the promises without embarking on something potentially perilous.
We can know that he who begins the journey with us will not forsake us part way through.
The lonely pilgrimage out of spiritual frailty into wholeness is never lonely as we look back. Our courage to journey litters our memory with worthy insights and joys.
© 2015 Steve Wickham.
————————————————————————————-
“Steve Wickham is a Baptist pastor serving in Perth, Western Australia. He is passionate about the inclusive church, pastoral care and discipleship. Steve has Degrees in Science, Divinity and Counseling. He writes three blogs: (Epitome) http://epitemnein-epitomic.blogspot.com.au/ and (ex-ceed) http://inspiringbetterlife.blogspot.com.au/ and (TRIBEWORK) http://tribework.blogspot.com/.”
Last week I facilitated a Rest in the Moment retreat that has had me thinking a lot about the need to pause at regular intervals throughout the day for prayer and refreshment, something that to be honest I am not always good at myself. This prayer came out of my reflections.
What is your response?
Read through the prayer slowly allowing it to center your life and open your mind to be receptive to what God might say to you. Now I ask you to follow along as I unpack my own responses to each sentence and then sit for a moment and ask yourself: What is my response? What surfaces in your mind as you read through this prayer and sit in the presence of God with it? Write down what you sense God is saying to you. What responses is God asking of you?
Open yourself to the God who is present all around: As I sit in God’s presence and open myself to God’s movement in the world around me, it is the pain of the world that surfaces for me – the recent shooting in Oregon; the ongoing pain of my African American friends who face ongoing violence in so many aspects of the society in which they live, the refugees who are fleeing from violence and often exposed to violence as they run, those who are victims of domestic violence. There are so many painful and violent situations that come to my mind. I lift these up in prayer, aware of my helplessness to change the situation.
Take time to notice the markers of God’s abiding presence, rejoice in God’s activity in you, in others, in our world. It is easy to be overwhelmed with the pain, but where are the God sightings, the joy moments that assure me God is present? These are what I like to focus on – the young man who ran to overpower the gunman in Oregon and was shot as a result, the people like Leroy and Donna Barber who work constantly to help us understand and overcome racism; organizations like World Relief that work with refugees around the world. These are the markers, the sign posts that tell me God is indeed at work in our world.
Pause to acknowledge how far you have come on the journey towards life. My responses are so different from what they once would have been. Now I respond with compassion and I hope, the love of God, once I would have responded with fear, anger and judgement. I sit and thank God for the journey that has led me this far.
Hold onto the signs that point us onwards along the pilgrim path, leading us towards the still centre into the heart of the One who makes all things new. I rest today secure in the fact that God is still leading me. I know there is much in my life that needs to continue to change. There are many places in which my heart is still not aligned with God’s, but I continue to walk and I hold onto the signposts that direct me – the scriptures that continue to speak to me, the friends that support me, the strangers that make me uncomfortable in places I need to be prodded.
God is indeed making all things new and I am grateful to be a part of that.
How does God ask you to respond?
Watch the video below. Is there any other response God is asking of you?
Gil, Melody, and their kids.
Last Saturday I facilitated MSA’s Rest in the Moment Retreat. Part of what this time made me very aware of is how essential sacred pauses throughout the day are not just for the rhythm of our lives but to stir the creative gifts and ideas that God has placed within us.
Gil George was one of the participants. He commented: It was a wonderful, restful, and creative time. I got to engage in poetry again, and wrote a poem of rest:
Pressing Pause
Waiting is an act of worship
It is a sacrificial act
To lay aside what I want NOW
Or NEXT or “in a second” or
Instead of what IS now
Waiting is a pressing pause
It is a mindful act
To accept what is here NOW
And know that now is holy
If only I can pause to look
Waiting is a taste of peace
It is an accepting act
To welcome what exists NOW
As a sign that love surrounds
Pressing pause sustains
Gil is a follower of Jesus in the Pacific Northwest who has been part of is part of many denominations over the years. He is a poet, technical consultant, recently completed his call as Senior Pastor of Clackamas Park Friends Church, is a graduate of George Fox Evangelical Seminary, and is discerning his next steps in his ministry life.
Gil is married to Mel and has been blessed with an adorable daughter whose 8th birthday is approaching way too rapidly and another adorable daughter who turned 3 this September.
Gil is available to speak on Lament and Worship, Equipping Communities to Serve With People Experiencing Poverty, Multi-Cultural Community, Welcoming and Appreciating Diversity in Worship Communities, and Living in Community. Gil is also available to consult on connecting churches to social media, livestreaming worship services, and can help provide technical support and implementation services. Gil also gives weekend retreats for small to medium groups on Writing Psalms for Personal and Communal Worship. Please send an email to giltheextrovert@gmail.com for scheduling information.
Pressing Pause by Gilbert George is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work athttps://extrovertedquaker.wordpress.com/2015/09/26/pressing-pause/.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available athttps://extrovertedquaker.wordpress.com/about/.
I am delighted to announce the publication of our new prayer cards. I am really excited about this set which I think will be a wonderful assistance for prayer that many of us appreciate. I am already using my set! The 10 cards provide 3 morning prayers, 3 evening prayers and 4 that can be used at any time during the day. On the back is a 2-3 sentence reflection. These have been drawn from the most popular prayers and reflections on Godspace over the last year.
I realize more and more how essential tools that call us to prayer throughout the day are. Pausing to sit in the presence of God for a few minutes at regular intervals is good for our physical, emotional and spiritual health.
Enjoy. They will make great Christmas and birthday gifts as well as tools for use in therapy, spiritual direction and recovery groups. Please let me know how you use them and what you think.
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!