It is now almost two weeks since the Inhabit Conference, our favourite conference of the year. Tom and I both feel at home there. It felt like a big family reunion, a gathering of old friends and the making of new ones. It enriched our faith and challenged us to consider new possibilities for life and faith.
The first plenary got off to a good start with Nicole Baker Fulgham, founder and president of The Expectations Project challenging us with the question: Why should a child’s zip code determine their destiny? Poor districts have poor schools and poor educational results. Nicole encouraged us to consider how we could reach out to the public schools in our area to bring about longterm transformational change through our churches.
Alexie Torres-Fleming, executive director of Access Strategies Fund, and an activist, community organizer, advocate and urban planner from the South Bronx, NY followed with an even more powerful message about our need to transform lives and systems by motivating people to stand against oppression and fearlessly speak truth to power. I was particularly impacted by her description of the Good Friday walk aimed at crucifying every injustice in the neighbourhood and nailing them to the cross.
Tom and I were privileged to give the opening welcome and prayer for this session as well as conducting smart labs on the first day.
Rebecca Joy Sumner facilitated some friends, including MSA team member Andy Wade, in an amazing liturgy which re-imagined the prayer of Saint Francis not in lofty words with no clear way to hit the ground but with the gritty reality, street names, history, names, and faces of their neighborhoods. You can find the prayer they read here and download a worksheet of a dare issued from my parish at Everett Christian Church to yours as we all collaborate locally for the global coming of love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy!
Forrest Inslee, another member of our MSA team facilitated a small group discussion with tiny house enthusiasts that will provide a focus for ongoing discussions about alternative housing and simplicity. and, we hope the construction of a tiny house model by next summer which could provide inexpensive housing for young people and those at the margins.
We also enjoyed music from Sean and Julie Hall of February Birds who will lead our worship at our 24th annual Celtic retreat.
John Pattison author of Slow Church reminded me that church happens not in the sanctuary but in the streets.
As usual there was a very special contribution from our three amigos Dwight Friesen, Paul Sparks and Tim Soerens whose book The New Parish has helped many of us us feel connected and rooted in this wonderful movement. The need to breathe into the holes of our communities and amplify businesses that can support it is a heart felt and important path to sustainability.
I often sit at my office window looking out at the mountains. This morning I cannot see them because they are shrouded in cloud. It does not take much faith to believe that they are still there however. Beyond the clouds the majesty of the mountains still rises in all its glory.
The clouds of our lives – the fears, the worries, the distractions – cloud our view of the glory that is God too. We need to trust that if we wait long enough it will one day be revealed again.
What is your response?
Sit quietly for a few moments with your eyes closed. Visualize your favourite mountain scene in all its glory. Now imagine clouds drifting in to obscure the view. How does it make you feel to lose sight of the beauty you love?
Now think about your own life. What blocks your view of God’s glory? What are the clouds that are getting in the way? Is there something you could do to disperse those clouds? Or is there a response that would make you more accepting of the clouds and more trusting of the glory they obscure?
Often when the mountains reappear they have changed from my last view of them. They change with the seasons and with the light. Sometimes there is a new layer of snow. Or the snow might be melting. Sometimes, at the height of summer there is no snow at all. At sunrise and sunset they are set off against amazing red or yellow skies. They are always spectacular, but I wait expectantly for their reappearing and look intently for the changes.
Telling our stories of love and of grief are often what dispels the clouds in our lives. But with the telling of those stories God’s glory, or at least our perception of it, changes too, especially with the seasons of our lives and with the Godly light we are aware of.
Expect the unexpected – Snow covered Olympic mountains
What is your response?
Sit with your eyes closed again. This time imagine God and your impressions of God’s glory. Relive your story – think of its griefs and its joys. How has you story changed your perception of who God is over the years? Write down your reflections on God’s glory. Thank God for your changing perceptions.
Looking at the mountains reminds me of Psalm 121:
I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
Read through this psalm and listen to this song based on Psalm 121
Sit in silence and allow the peace of God to wash over you. Is there any further response God would ask of you?
Like many of us I have been grieving today for the people of Nepal. The devastating earthquake and its its mounting death toll is overwhelming. Our hearts go out too, to all who are responding. May God be with them and protect them.
My friend Keren Dibbens-Wyatt posted this prayer earlier today and I thought that some of you would appreciate it.
A prayer for the people of Nepal. Thank you Keren Dibbens-Wyatt for this
Lord please be the guiding light in the darkness for those in and around Kathmandu. Help to rescue the trapped and the wounded, send your angels to comfort and to lead by the hand all those who need help.
Have mercy on the souls of those taken, and help immediate medical care get through to the injured, and bring to safe harbour all who are running scared, hiding or lost. Help those making temporary infrastructure, shelters, hospitals, roads, and morgues, those repairing power lines and getting supplies and expertise through to the needy. Protect them all from aftershocks and further tremors.
Be strength to the weak, balm to the broken-hearted, calm to the traumatised, warmth to the cold, supplying clean water and food to all who need it. Then begin the long road to healing, dear Lord, and stay always to pour loving kindness on this place and these people.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
I have just finished reading Sybil MacBeth’s book Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God. Its message really resonated with me, partly I am sure because I am having fun painting on rocks and discovering the joy of play as a focusing point for prayer.
This is a remarkable little book. I would highly recommend for anyone who becomes distracted when they pray, can’t sit still for more than a few minutes, or who finds the use of words alone restricting when they try to draw close to God. Doodling, drawing and colouring are all creative acts that can help us to move beyond multitasking to achieve a laser focus on the people we want to pray for and the God we want to pray to. Giving our creativity free reign like Sybil suggests is a liberating way to enrich our prayer life and strengthen our faith.
I love Sybil’s comment A clipboard turns any place into a prayer corner. It is not where we are that determines the effectiveness of our prayers but our ability to find a quiet place in which we can zero in on what really matters. So get out some paper and coloured markers or pencils and start praying in colour. Follow the simple directions Sybil gives on her website and discover the joy of praying with all your senses.
A couple of weeks ago, in my post Thinking Beyond the Resurrection, I talked about the garden I was creating to help me focus during the Easter season. It has worked even better than I expected. The “standing stones” I wrote on draw my attention each morning and I often find my eyes drifting to them throughout the day as well. In a world of multi tasking they encourage me to pause and single task by listening for what God might say. Sometimes I rearrange them as different words catch my attention, inviting me to respond.
Yesterday my meditations gave rise to the following prayer which I thought you would appreciate:
Listen to what the heart hears,
Beauty for ashes,
Joy from pain,
Freedom through forgiveness.
Let God’s love speak to you,
Do not lock away what is broken,
Nor leap over your suffering.
Discover humanity in the one who has hurt you.
Joy comes in the morning,
Death gives way to life.
Have you ever wondered what’s in your soil? How many organisms really reside in that precious topsoil that we so take for granted when we garden? This is the time of year I spend a lot of time thinking about this. I have just been outside picking greens for our evening salad and repotting tomatoes ready to go in the soil next week. And if you are wondering, for those in Seattle yes I do have tomato plants available for purchase again – this year guaranteed organic and herbicide free.
Yesterday I checked out the Home Grown Edible Landscape website and this article entitled What’s in a Teaspoon of Soil caught my attention. The results might astound you. In a teaspoon of soil there is:
- 1 million to 1oo million bacteria
- 150 – 500 micrograms of fungal hyphae
- 10,000 to 100,000 protozoa
- 15 – 500 beneficial nematodes
- a few to several hundred thousand microarthropods
Wow I thought – this is amazing and as the article commented It’s crowded in there. The complexity of our planet’s ecosystems is awe inspiring and the deeper we dig (no pun intended) the more complex it seems to be. The complexity of a teaspoon of soil is incredible but the amazing thing is that every teaspoon of soil is different. Different structure and different life. And then just when we think we have it all figured out we go and add some compost and the life and structure changes. It is enriched and nourished by what we have added and as a result is able to give birth to more life.
God’s first love is the soil. This is how it has to be, because without healthy soil and the fertility and food it makes possible, there would be no terrestrial life of any kind. God’s love for us – described definitely in John 3:16 as God’s giving of his son to us – only makes sense in terms of God’ love for the earth that sustains us.
Thinking about that, not surprisingly started me thinking about the God who created it. God too seems more complex the deeper we dig. And when we try to place a part of God under the microscope as we can do with a teaspoon of soil what we find is incredible.
Unfortunately our microscopic examination of a teaspoon of God makes us feel we undertand all about God. But of course we don’t. Every teaspoon of soil is different just as every teaspoon of God is different. And every teaspoon nourishes different kinds of life. Some of us grow well in sandy soil, others in rich loamy soil. What nourishes you may not nourish me. In fact the more we know about God the more complex God seems to be and the less we feel we understand. And then just when we think we understand compost gets added and the very nature of our understanding changes. It becomes richer, nourished and enlivened just as God.
Imagine what it would be like if we could place all the soil on the planet under a microscope at the same time – the complexity would blow our minds & the calculations of how much life existed would freeze our brains. Of course it would be impossible to build a microscope big enough for that to happen. So why do we try to do that with God? We think that we can place God under the microscope and understand all of who God is and what God is capable of. Yet really we are only looking at a teaspoonful of God.
A blessed Earth day to you all. This seems like an appropriate time to post some info about the upcoming Spirituality of Gardening seminars that I will be doing over the next couple of months.
The first is in Denver with Kathy Escobar at the Refuge May 30th. If you are in the area I hope you can join us. You can sign up on the Facebook event page or contact Kathy Escobar (kathyaescobar@gmail.com) for more details
The second is in Calgary Alberta, with Denise DeNeve at the FCJ Christian Life Center, June 13th. I am really looking forward to this and hope that some of you can join me there. If you have friends in the Calgary area please let them know.
The third will be at A Rocha Canada in Surrey British Columbia on September 19th so if you are in the Vancouver, Abbotsford or Mission area this is the event for you – save the date as we will soon be posting more details.
And don’t forget it is also time to sign up for our 24th Annual Celtic retreat August 7-9, to get the early bird special rate.
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