I have just returned from Surrey British Columbia where I facilitated a spirituality of gardening seminar with A Rocha, a wonderful organization that does environmental education, community-based conservation projects and sustainable agriculture.
To be honest I was rather envious of their beautiful rows of vegetables – kale and carrots, brussel sprouts and cabbages in lush rows. And in the barn where we met, boxes of onions and garlic as well as bags of dried beans waiting to be threshed.
When I returned home to my own messy, overgrown and very weedy garden I was amazed that it too was loaded with produce. Beans, tomatoes and basil all waited in abundance for me to harvest them.
I was immediately reminded of this scripture:
So the ones who water and plant have nothing to brag about. God, who causes the growth, is the only One who matters. The one who plants is no greater than the one who waters; both will be rewarded based on their work. We are gardeners and field workers laboring with God. You are the vineyard, the garden, the house where God dwells. I Cor 3:7-9 The Voice.
In the garden our job is to prepare the soil, plant and nurture the seedlings. Then we sit back, relax and watch God make the plants grow and produce fruit.
In life too our job is to prepare the soil, the community in which others can grow and produce fruit. We may plant seeds, then water and pull a few weeds, but it is God who makes people grow into the people they are intended to be.
There is nothing more satisfying in the garden than watching God grow a plant, and there is nothing more satisfying in our Christian walk than watching those we have discipled grow and flourish. We need to learn new lessons from the garden and stick to our job – preparing the soil, planting, watering and weeding, but allowing God full reign in the growth of the plants.
What is your response?
Think about the seeds you have planted in the lives of people around you. What harvests have you seen their lives produce? Offer prayers of gratitude for God’s growth in their lives.
Now think of the seeds that others have planted in your life. How have you seen these flourish and grow? Write a letter of thanks to those who have planted and nurtured your growth.
My messy garden
We can kill but only God can make things grow one of the participants in my seminar commented. The truth of this resonated in my heart as I thought about the parallels with life. In the garden we can easily kill what we have planted. Through neglect or sometimes through too much care we kill what we should have nurtured. Plants more often die through over watering than through under watering.
In life too only God has the ability to make things grow. But we can certainly kill – we kill people through wars and indifference to suffering. We kill the image of God in people through abuse and oppression and we kill creativity by trying to remake them in our image instead of in the image of God. Planting too early, planting in the wrong soil, giving too much water and fertilizer can all kill the new disciples we so earnestly want to see become mature followers of Jesus with a rich crop of fruit.
What is your response?
Prayerfully think of those you know who have not produced the harvest you suspect God intended for them. Are their ways in which your actions may have killed God’s ability to grow them and stifled their ability to become the people God intended them to be?What changes might God ask of you so that you are less controlling?
Now think of your own life. How willing have you been to trust God in your own growth or have you tried to control and manipulate what God is doing? Prayerfully seek God’s forgiveness and relinquish your life to God.
It is hard to believe that we are more than half way through September, zooming towards the end of the liturgical year, Advent and the celebration of Christmas. Harvest festivals, thanksgiving feasts and Christmas parties are already being planned for those in the Northern hemisphere and south of the equator trips to the beach, BBQs and summer vacations are on the agenda.
Here at Godspace we are gearing up for the celebrations too and invite you to participate with us. Join the journey. Consider writing for Godspace, contribute your thoughts and creative ideas. Take photos for our upcoming Advent photo challenge. Invite your friends, be a part of the journey we are creating.
September – November Pilgrimage & Journey
All of life is a pilgrimage, a journey towards God and neighbour. This idea has been very much on my mind and heart over the last few months as I watched friends move, or go on pilgrimage. It has stirred even more deeply within me as I watched the forced journeying of refugees and listened to the stories of those who continue to journey along the pathway of discovery that the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson last year initiated.
It is amazing how quickly we gather unnecessary clutter, not just objects we don’t really need but habits and rituals that complicate rather than strengthen our faith. Pilgrimage brings us back to the essentials of life and faith. It often initiates a journey within and without as we explore new depths of relationship to God and grapple with new possibilities of how to engage with our neighbours.
In her recent book The Soul of a Pilgrim Christine Valters Paintner says: Pilgrimage calls us to be attentive to the divine at work in our lives through deep listening, patience, opening ourselves to the gifts that arise in the midst of discomfort, and going out to our own inner wild edges to explore new frontiers.
Over the next couple of months on Godspace I would like to explore the concept of pilgrimage and invite you to explore it with me. Would you like to share some of the new frontiers that your life journey has brought you to? What are the faith essentials it has brought you back to? What is the clutter it has encouraged you to divest yourself of?
Advent and Christmas – Leaning Towards the Light
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.
The theme for Advent and Christmas was inspired by listening to Lean Toward the Light by Carrie Newcomer which you might also like to listen to here:
In conjunction with our daily Advent and Christmas reflections we will also offer a daily photo challenge, focusing on Reflections of Hope This is being put together by Jean Andrianoff. who will provide a word for each day and an Old and New Testament reading that inspire us to take photographs as we reflect on the theme.
I am very excited about our themes for the rest of the year but as you can imagine this is also creating more work for us. If you or anyone else you know would be interested in helping with the administration of the Godspace blog please let me know. I am looking for someone who can facilitate the uploading of guest posts – making sure we have all necessary author information and photographs and then posting these posts onto the blog.
A couple of weeks ago I held an apple party here at the Mustard Seed House. We cored and peeled enough apples to fill 2 dehydrators and freeze 21 bags with 6 cups of apples in each. Many of these went home with my helpers. It was a wonderful little community gathering with lots of fun and fellowship. And I was delighted at the opportunity to share our overflowing apple harvest.
Apple party at the Mustard Seed House
The next day, I peeled and cored more apples with my friend Heather Choate who taught me how to make apple pie. Now I really feel as though I have become an American!
Learning to make apple pie with Heather Choate
The day after I was able to share one of the apple pies we made friends for my days on the Mercy Ship M/V Anastasis.
Mercy Ships gathering
It was reflecting on this series of events that inspired the prayer above. Spiritual growth and the building up of the body of Christ so often happens through ordinary. everyday encounters like this, encounters that often revolve around the garden where community and life is shared.
I and so many people I love are trapped in circumstances that are belittling, difficult, stressful, and constrictive. How shall we escape the smallness?
Maybe we don’t need to. Maybe the confines are our vice for being carved, our crucible to be refined in, our bonsai pot in which to be wired, pruned and shaped. This I feel is a process I’ve been through over these last two decades, especially during the last few years with two lives and two disabling chronic illnesses joined in the same small house, mostly jobless and crammed in.
And now the prospect of freedom looms large in my heart and it is scary, it feels difficult.
How the seedling transferred to a bigger pot in the strange greenhouse longs for its yoghurt pot on the window sill, and yet how it longed then to be brought outside!
Change must and does come, and it is rarely welcome, we are creatures of habit.
All I can do, wanting to hide away and be silent and unseen, yet told to shine, is to trust. Trust the gardener, trust the one who made me, the one who knows. If I feel enclosed, hedged in, panicked, maybe I am being pruned.
If I am in limbo perhaps there is a life to come.
If I walk out into acres of meadow and an open sky, and am overwhelmed, perhaps it is time to stand up and be counted, or even harvested.
When we agree to this road, we are asking to be perfected and that is no easy thing.
Marble in the hands of Michael Angelo could expect to be hewn from its mountainside home, tied to a cart, dragged slowly to a city miles away, stood on end for months, examined minutely, hacked, then chiselled, then scraped, then polished. All the time with no idea of what it was becoming, of what beauty and truth was being discovered.
But this painful, long journey is part of what it means to become a new creation, to share in the sufferings of Christ as we are transformed from glory to glory in preparation for the day we truly become ourselves in him.
Life is not a test, it is a creative process, and we either allow or disallow it. We can remain untouched by holy hands, or we can set ourselves entirely within God’s mercy. It is not just a journey of self-discovery, but of participation in the divine work of redemption, in the incarnation of creation, both for ourselves and those around us.
We long for freedom, but it will not be given to us until we are ready for it.
© K Dibbens-Wyatt 2015
A Christian for over 30 years, Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a writer and contemplative with a passion for prayer and the edification of women. She longs to draw others into deeper relationships with the Lord. You can connect with her at http://www.kerendibbenswyatt.com/
Check out Keren’s other posts on Godspace here
My husband Tom and I have just returned from a consultation with the executive staff of Serve Globally, the umbrella organization for the Evangelical Covenant Church’s overseas mission inititatives. Using our MSA process of spiritual reflection, group discernment and creativity we encouraged them to consider new possibilities for the future of their organization.
At one point I facilitated an exercise in creative doodling.
In this particular exercise I had participants begin by bringing a question they were grappling with into their minds, closing their eyes and doodling for 30 seconds with their non dominant hand. They then opened their eyes and reflected on what they had drawn, adding to the doodle and shaping it further in response to the question still hovering in the front of their minds.
An exercise like this is a powerful tool for unleashing our imaginations. Research has found that doodling can boost cognitive function and may even assist in the creative process. Doodling may even keep your brain engaged when you start to tune out.
Part of the reason, I suspect, is that in a process like this we are no longer in control of what our hands are creating and for creativity and imagination to be unleashed we really do need to allow ourselves to lose control.
As I contemplated this, I was reminded of Thomas Keating’s Welcoming prayer and its encouragement to release the control of each day to God. I posted about this a couple of months ago, and in a follow up post commented: Losing control is scary for us because it pushes us into the unknown, but it here that we come to know the unknowable God.
For some reason this reminded me of Peter stepping outside the boat to walk on the water towards Jesus in Matthew 14:22-34. It wouldn’t surprise me if he closed his eyes too before stepping out of the boat. It was only when he realized that he was not in control of the situation that he got afraid and wanted to be back in the place of predictability and comfort.
How often do we hold tightly to control when God is saying: Let go, doodle in the dark, walk on the water, step outside your comfort zone and allow your imagination to run free? Maybe if we were willing to lose control and let God then we too could walk on water.
What do you think?
And if you are looking for more spiritual practices that can stir creativity and imagination check out this post Get Creative and Play Games in Lent.
John Mawurndjul, “Mardayin Ceremony 2000,” Gallery New South Wales. I love Australian Aboriginal art, and I’m sure it’s because I love the patterns.
The human brain loves to find patterns, even when none exist. This explains the popularity of conspiracy theories, some of which must be false. (Only some of them? See, I can’t say, “all of which are false”! I love patterns and categories as much as the next person!)
We can use the human love of patterns to nurture our prayer life and to help us observe the pattern of our spiritual growth. Here are three ideas:
- “Word for the year.” Lots of people advocate picking a word in January that you want to have as the theme for your year. My experience is that words pick me, not the other way around. In 2012 and 2013, the word I kept coming back to was “receptivity.” It was so helpful in understanding that God was calling me to pay attention to where the Holy Spirit was guiding me and to where God was already working in my life, rather than always trying to direct things myself or to see what’s missing in my life. I wrote sections in two of my books, Joy Together and The Power of Listening, about receptivity.
In 2014, the word “joy” was forced on me by the Caring Bridge posts of a wonderful (and joyous) man, Steve Hayner. His posts while he was dealing with terminal cancer were the single biggest source of spiritual growth for me in 2014. Those posts have been turned into a book, Joy in the Journey, which I highly recommend.
Suggestion: Look back at last year, or an earlier year, and ponder whether there’s a word that captures what God was doing in your life. Take that word and pray about it, sing about it, journal about it, draw it and talk about it with friends.
- Daily, weekly, monthly or yearly highlights. What was the best thing that happened yesterday? Last week? Last month? Last year? “Every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). We miss so much because we don’t take the time to look and remember. My favorite Jewish Sabbath prayer goes like this: “Days pass, years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.”
Suggestion: Use the human propensity to find patterns to help you see the pattern of God’s blessing in your life. Then turn those highlights into prayers of thanks.
- Theme for the decade. I can see very clearly the major life lesson God was teaching me in my 50s: you cannot change another person. You can speak your own truth, you can say how another person’s behavior affects you, and you can encourage others to change. But you cannot change them. I can’t believe I was in my 50s before I learned this. I would have been a much better mother if I had learned it earlier. This big life lesson has helped me pray and speak differently in so many relationships, and I am a happier (more joyous!) person because of it.
Because I can see so clearly my biggest life lesson from my 50s, I’ve been thinking perhaps I can identify a major life lesson from each decade of life.
Suggestion: look at your life in decades or in five-year blocks and see if you can identify a major life lesson in some of them. Take that life lesson and pray about it, sing about it, journal about it, draw it and talk about it with friends.
The human propensity to see patterns can help us see the patterns of gifts and growth in our lives, which can help us pray and act in new ways. Let your brain’s love of patterns serve your growth in faith. “For you, Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy” (Psalm 92:4).
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Today’s post is contributed by Lynne Baab the author of numerous books and Bible study guides on prayer and other Christian spiritual practices, including The Power of Listening, Sabbath Keeping, Fasting, and Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation. She teaches pastoral theology at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She has also recently published a new novel, Death in Dunedin, a mystery set in her beautiful adopted home town, Dunedin New Zealand.
Visit her website, www.lynnebaab.com, to read her blog, access numerous articles she has written about spiritual practices, and find information about her books.
Check out Lynne’s other Godspace posts here
A couple of years ago I was given a copy of Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings. I picked up the book again this last weekand read through a reflection on Exodus 17: 1-7 by Caesarius of Arles (470 – 543) It profoundly impacted me as I thought about what stirs my heart today. Do I really thirst for justice or am I satisfied with water? and if I do really thirst after justice how is that lived out in my life?
For what did the people Thirst? What then does the scripture mention in what follows? “In their thirst for water the people grumbled against Moses.” Perhaps this word that he said may seem superfluous, that the people thirsted for water. For since he said “In their thirst” what need was there to add “for water”? Thus indeed the ancient translation has it. Why did he add this, except because they thirsted for water when they should have thirsted for justice? “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice.” and again “thirsty is my soul for the living God.” Many people are thirsty, both the just and sinners, the former thirst after justice, the latter after dissipation. The just are thirsty for God; sinners for gold. For this reason the people thirsted after water when they should have thirsted after justice.
What Is Your Response?
What does your heart hunger and thirst for? Is it for God or for gold? Sit quietly for a few minutes and think about how you prioritize your use of time, talent and treasure. Allow the holy spirit of God to speak to you about your priorities. Are there changes God is prompting you to make in your life?
In Micah 6:8 we read
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 NIV
It is one thing to talk about justice it is another to live it out in the everyday decisions of our lives. Acting justly means being concerned about the people who make our clothes, grow our food, build our houses. Making decisions about what and where we eat based on how people are treated is not always easy. Ethically produced, fair traded clothes and food are more expensive, and often more difficult to come by. Investing in unethical companies often brings bigger financial returns.
To live justly we must be willing to ask some hard questions about our daily decisions and commitments and it often means going against the values of our culture. Cheap is good could be the motto of our age.
What is your response?
Sit and think about the food and clothing you have bought over the last few months. . How did you make decisions about which products to purchase? How informed are you about the conditions under which these products are produced?Now prayerfully watch the video below. What changes might God be asking of you?
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