I heard yesterday that our good friend Treena Kerr died last week. Treena was the wife of former TV cook Graham Kerr. A few hours later I heard that Phyllis Tickle had also died. Two such dear people whose lives have impacted many of us over the years.
I remember the last time we were together with Graham and Treena Kerr we talked about mason bees. In the midst of our conversation Graham asked me Are you a wasp or a bee?
Bee on Borage
Mason bees are the pollinators in the garden. They are gentle industrious creatures that go from flower to flower and from garden to garden gathering pollen. Unlike honey bees they do not develop hives but lay their eggs in holes in existing wood. Without them the fruit would not develop and we would have no harvest. Even honey bees are a valued addition to any garden. Their sweet nectar cannot be equalled and is regarded by some as the food of the gods. Wasps on the other hand are parasitic. They lay their eggs in the host and their young eat and eventually kill the host.
Graham reminded me that the Western church is filled with WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) when it should really be filled with bees. What we need are church members who go out into their gardens (communities) and spread the pollen of God’s good news enabling the flowers (people) to produce fruit that will one day be harvested to feed others. At the same time are we bringing back sweet honey to our own communities that can nurture the young and make them able to become mature adult bees (followers of Christ)
Treena and Phyllis are both people who have been like mason bees in so many gardens and their deaths will be a huge loss to many. Phyllis leaves behind a wonderful array of books that will continue to impact our lives. Treena’s zeal for the work of God’s kingdom was often expressed in poetry and I wanted to end with one of her poems that so expresses who she was:
Life.
Where is life?
I turn to find that life is
What?
Life.
What is life?
Is it just a path on which one wanders
To and fro?
Life.
How is life?
When does one begin to see the reason?
Are our ‘doings’ right or wrong? Or –
are they right for us but wrong for others?
Are others reason for this life or
are we?
Life.
You seem to leave one drifting
in a bubble without light.
No blues or greens,
no shades or red
Just opaque nothing,
fish-eye dead.
Life .
Where are you?
What are you?
Who are you?
Can you make my life worthwhile
so I can make a life of worth
for others that I love?
I know not,
where,
or what,
or who you are?
Life.
I searched and wondered,
Then was told one day,
The Man of Life once said,
“ I am the Way
the Truth,
the Life.”
Life,
Now at last I know, that Life,
is laying down my life,
for Life!
As many of you know, 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 initiatives. Using our MSA process of spiritual reflection, group discernment and creativity we encouraged them to consider new and innovative possibilities for the future of their organization.
Join the Changemaking Celebration
Tom inspired participants with material on new forms of changemaking and encouraged them to view discipleship as a new design opportunity to create a better way of life. This material was based on his upcoming book Live Like You Give A Damn! Join the Changemaking Celebration. The manuscript will go to the publisher at the end of September, with an anticipated publication date of April 2016.
In May, in conjunction with Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, Tom and Forrest Inslee facilitated a similar process to that conducted with Serve Globally, with a local church facing an uncertain future. We are excited to see the implementation of ideas from this consultation in the development of new ministries and opportunities for the church facilities.
Over the summer many of you participated in yet another practice of enquiry and discernment as we enlisted your help through this newsletter and social media to address the challenges posed by vandalism on Camano Island. The responsiveness to all these situations has been far greater than we ever anticipated, affirming for us the value of the MSA process, which is at the heart of our developing Center for Imagination and Innovation.
We have ordered the mini-cabin that will be constructed next month on Camano Island as an off the grid caretaker dwelling. It has already stirred our architect to sketch out new possible designs for affordable but more sustainable tiny houses, and we are excited about where this project will lead us through further discussion and discernment. Please consider contributing to this special project.
Andy Wade continues to develop the idea of gardening with God and neighbour in mind. He challenges us all to think beyond community gardens and start a revolution, reimagining our yards, neighbourhoods and communities with the production of food at the centre. This has garnered a lot of interest. Andy ran two classes at the annual gathering of Pacific NW Mennonite Churches in Albany, Oregon in June, inspiring us to make this seminar available through the MSA website.
A Busy Season Coming Up
Our Fall retreat, Rest in the Moment, will be held at the Mustard Seed House in Seattle this coming Saturday, September 26th. As we zoom towards the busyness of end of the year celebrations, all of us need to take time for retreat and refreshment. There is still time to sign up and join us. Or if you live outside the Seattle area, consider your own retreat day using our e-course Return to Our Senses.
Justice at the Table with Andy Wade on October 24th is another exciting opportunity. Join us as we explore together the intricate connections between our faith, fellowship and the food we eat.
New Resources Coming Soon
In the next few weeks we will launch two new MSA resources:
- Our new prayer card series Rest in the Moment will be available next week. This series of ten cards invites us to pause for morning, midday and evening prayers with short reflections on the back that invite us to enter into the presence of God. For many of us this will provide an important and rich new spiritual practice for the coming season.
- Our long-awaited recording Brigit and the Hospitality of God, composed of songs, liturgies and responsive readings adapted from last year’s Celtic retreat, will also be available for download at the beginning of October. This is a wonderful way for those of you who cannot join us in person to participate in our worship and celebration.
On Godspace, too, as I mentioned in an earlier post, new resources will prepare us for the upcoming season. October and November will focus on journey and pilgrimage, and for Advent our theme will be Leaning towards the Light. Not only do we expect to post daily reflections, but we will also offer a daily photo challenge: Reflections of Hope. MSA collaborator Jean Andrianoff will provide a word for each day along with an Old and New Testament reading that inspire us to take photographs as we reflect on the theme. So keep your eyes open and your cameras ready. The information about this challenge will be available next month.
Thank you for your continued support, prayers and encouragement for all of us at MSA.
“Beekeeper keeping bees” by Michael Gäbler. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beekeeper_keeping_bees.jpg
When my dad died, he was acclaimed for his many roles, as a pastor, administrator, family man, and avocational gardener and, not the least, as a beekeeper. We buried him with a Bible on his lap, open to Psalm 119:103: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
There was always honey in our house, full gallons in the kitchen, sixty-pound drums in the basement. Mom used it in baking and beans. Dad dolloped it on oatmeal. He commended it as medicinally preventive when a cold was coming on. “Take a spoonful of honey before you go to bed,” he urged. “Just let it slide slowly down your throat.” It not only tasted good; it was good for you.
Once I left home, he supplied all the field-fresh honey I could use. Later I bought it from his protégé. So I’ve never run out of the real-deal, the kind sold at roadside stands. But I’ve been using more of it recently, in simmered beans and blueberry muffins and Moroccan carrot salad. Over the weekend, eager to make a hefty batch of granola—Tom Brokaw’s special recipe—I saw that my honey jar was all but empty even though I’d purchased some on my recent trip “back home.” (Don’t even think about getting through airport security with two pounds of sweet syrup in your satchel. You’ll have to leave it behind.)
I walked through a grocer’s aisle and passed up the Sue Bee and honey bears. I’m distrustful of the commercial processing, flash heated and pressure filtered. So to pacify my inner child, I drove to a nearby farmer’s market. It’s citified. Expensive. But I found what I was looking for, from Pennsylvania fruit orchards, at a price I’d never yet paid. I laid down cash. “I came out especially for this. I couldn’t bring myself to buy it in the store.”
“Thank you,” said the vendor, placing my bill in a box.
I’ve come home satisfied and gratified, especially as I dip a teaspoon, twirl the drip, and lick the sweetness straight from the jar, for a brief moment imagining a sore throat.
Another psalm-line comes to mind, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (34:8). The sensory image, of tasting God, is a stretch for many Christians who don’t see spiritual nourishment in the Eucharist. (Those who do often sing a lyrical “taste and see” as they receive the host.) We’ve tasted temporal gifts. But tasting God? How’s that?
In her book Craving Grace, Lisa Velthouse notes the Hebrew, rather than later Greek/Western, reliance on figurative language when referring to God—as “a shield, a rock, a king on a throne, a hiding place.” And honey. She describes a rabbi teaching five-year-olds on their first day of school. On each desk he places a new copy of the Torah/Pentateuch. On each book cover he sets a small square of wax paper on which he drizzles a dab of honey. Taste and savor the sweetness. And then with a staccato, booming voice, he admonishes, “‘Never! Forget! What God! Tastes Like!’”
I didn’t grow up thinking of Wonder Bread and grape juice as food for the soul. I grew up singing a sentimental nineteenth-century gospel song grounded in an adjective I just now appreciate at a deeper level: “’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” [Louisa Stead, 1882].
I hardly know what it means. But I’m connecting it to my dad’s extracted gold, served at the table raw from the hive. “It’s good for what ails you,” he’d say.
————————————————————————————-
Evelyn Bence”s most recent book is Room at My Table: Preparing Heart and Home for Christian Hospitality. Her personal essays have appeared in the publications including Washington Post, Washingtonian, Christianity Today, and Books & Culture.
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
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