The word “mandala” is from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit. Loosely translated to mean “circle,” a mandala is far more than a simple shape. For both Hindus and Buddhists it is a spiritual symbols that represents wholeness. It can be seen as a model for the organizational structure for the universe or of life itself.
In various spiritual traditions, including Christian, mandalas are increasingly being employed for focusing attention, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation.
If you are like me you may feel rather intimidated by the creativity and artistic skill that seems to be involved in a mandala but it really is a great tool to explore.
I enjoyed these simple instructions, though it did take me a little more than the 5 minutes they say it takes to master the art.
Today I am posting two prayers for the end of the third week of Lent. This first prayer is usually accredited to Mother Teresa though it was probably written by Keith Kent. It was found written on the wall of Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta. It seemed appropriate for this season of Lent:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
The second prayer is written by Mother Teresa and comes from the book No Greater Love.
“We cannot find God in noise and agitation.
Nature: trees, flowers, and grass grow in silence.
The stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence.
What is essential is not what we say
but what God tells us and what He tells others through us.
In silence He listens to us;
in silence He speaks to our souls.
In silence we are granted
the privilege of listening to His voice.
Silence of our eyes.
Silence of our ears.
Silence of our mouths.
Silence of our minds.
…in the silence of the heart
God will speak.”
(Photo: By Túrelio, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2246938)
Life can sometimes feel like a game. The ancients saw gods as toying with us, rolling dice to decide our fate, making bizarre bets with one another about our choices. Many people still see the Lord God this way, imagining that he is making some kind of sport from the ups and downs of our lives. A flighty, unpredictable God who is made in our image, instead of one who has allowed his beauty to be reflected in ours.
God is not playing a game with us, whether we are pawns or bishops. This is no cosmic chess match, though our capitalist driven-media and consumerist lifestyles in the west might entice us to think so, pitting winners against losers and dangling carrots of worldly success before our twitching noses. Sometimes we live as though we were participants in an international snakes and ladders tournament. We struggle to climb the board, thinking that winning is what matters, taking our turns and occasionally sliding down a cunningly placed serpent, or rising up random rungs. Our happiness and too often our faith, rests on this false cosmology; some win, some lose, I’ll have better luck next time, and when I win the lottery of life, this is what I will do. But this is a foolish kind of dreaming. Real dreams, ones that are worth pursuing, are about who we are, not what we can gain.
The truth is that our God cares beyond what is sensible, beyond limits, to the point where he lets us participate in our own redemption. He cares about the real you, the real me, the eternal self that is hidden in Christ. The Lord knows that when we get our being right, when we know who we are in him, our doing right follows supernaturally. “If you love me,” says Jesus, “You will keep my commandments.”(John 14:15 ESV) If we get the first part clear, the second will flow out of us.
Because of this, our God does not want us to be successful on our own terms. Nor does he want us succumbing to this rollercoaster of fortunes as if it mattered, when the bedrock of our lives needs to be set firm in him and him alone. It does not warm his heart if we are made CEO of a large corporation, it does not bring a smile to his face when we get accepted into the golf club. His grin breaks out when we start a difficult day by thanking him or give him praise in our seemingly insurmountable problems. His heart swells with pride when we stop to speak to the homeless person on the corner or leave our homes to nurse those in a crisis zone. And this unfathomable heart is warmed with overflowing compassion when we stand firm in our faith, singing our love to him on our way to the bankruptcy court or refusing to curse him when another child succumbs to malaria. And it is these actions, these attitudes, along with prayer, that change the world, bringing it closer to him, because through each person of loving integrity, through each offered intercession, God’s glory is reflected and his love worked into the world like yeast. Jesus was forever teaching his disciples that the kingdom comes by process, by stealthy growth. Most Christians will change the world this way. As Dennis Lennon wrote: “Significance and value are not had by snatching at them, but by following our Lord into powerful obscurity, working quietly in the world as seed, yeast and salt.” (page 42, Weak Enough for God to Use).
We are not playing a game, then, but fighting a long campaign of light against darkness. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are already on the winning side. We are God’s plan to make all things new. But here’s the rub – winning often looks like losing. Winning is sometimes holding out in a long battle against illness without losing our faith. Winning is sometimes standing firm on truths of God-given scripture after experiencing a terrible loss. Winning is occasionally more dramatic – being beheaded, or nailed to a cross. Our victories will all look different, and many times not be the world’s idea of success. They are won by endurance, by resisting, by holding on. They are won far more often in poverty, depression, sickness and injustice than they are on yachts or in boardrooms, won in Thoreau’s “lives of quiet desperation” that the majority of us lead.
God’s kind of success is the reconciliation of all things to himself. A drawing in, a reaching out with holy eternal arms to encircle all life and bring it to the centre. It is the “oneing,” as Mother Julian put it, of us all, of the whole of creation. This is the work we are all invited to participate in, a holy co-operative. This is why we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
© Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2015
Links: websites http://www.kerendibbenswyatt.com/ or http://www.stillwatersministries.co.uk/
Or connect with Keren on facebook https://www.facebook.com/KerenDibbensWyatt
You can download Keren’s free ebook “Christian Prayers for the World” on ibooks, Lulu or Kindle. Christian Prayers for the World
Sadness Adrian Dica http://www.saatchiart.com/adriandica
I sit here on Ash Wednesday thinking about reconciliation. Webster’s defines reconciliation as the resolution of differences. And my body reminds me of how long it has been overtaxed. I am reaping the dubious rewards of decades of misuse. I have a rib which dislocates apparently on a whim, next to no useable cartilage in my right hip socket, and a spine which has been broken repeatedly. I am not paralyzed solely by the grace of God.Bad luck, but what does this have to do with repentance and surrendering that which prevents me from intimacy with God?
I learned to not take care of my body, the vessel given me by God to house my soul and carry out His work from my family and my life experiences. This is not to fault my family. They couldn’t teach me what they didn’t know. What they knew was how to survive. So I survived. Not exactly the picture of abundant life offered by Our Lord. My life has been defined by repeated trauma of various types and emotional abuse. I deal with two chronic illnesses: bi-polar disorder and non-serological Rheumatoid Arthritis.
In 1998, the CDC published a long term study documenting the strong correlation between adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and a number of chronic diseases, social and emotional difficulties. The ACES study recognizes three categories of adverse childhood experiences: household dysfunction, abuse, and neglect. Household dysfunction includes substance abuse, divorce and or separation of parents, mental illness, spousal battery, and criminal activity. Abuse can be psychological, sexual, or physical. Neglect can be both physical and emotional.
People with higher ACE scores have increased risks for alcoholism, chronic depression, perpetrating domestic violence, liver disease, smoking, COPD, rape, and attempted suicide. We are more likely to engage in high risk sexual behavior as teens. Our work performance can be impaired adversely impacting our finances. And we have a higher rate of antidepressant prescription usage. Those of us who have survived repeated childhood trauma suffer a double whammy. Long after the actual trauma has taken place our bodies show the wear and tear. When I’m feeling particularly worn out, it feels like my body can’t stop fighting. The external threats are gone; some of them are dead, even. But my body is still primed for defense and when it can’t find anything external to fight, it fights me. I am not the only survivor who feels like she’s in a pitched battle against herself.
So this Lent, I am focused on reconciling with my body. I ask forgiveness not for having suffered childhood trauma, but for perpetuating the self-disdain, disgust, and outright self-hatred that resulted from that trauma. It is tremendously difficult to live into the greatest commandments: to love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…and your neighbor as yourself when you don’t know how. I can’t love others and hate me.
As a Christian, it pains me to acknowledge this about myself. As the Missioner of Christian Formation for my church, I am tasked to model mature faith for the youth in my congregation. I take this charge seriously. It is my dearest hope and highest goal for my kids to be whole, healthy, faithful Christians engaged in loving service to God’s creation. I know that I cannot give when I am depleted from lack of care for my body and soul. So do they.
I repent of punishing myself because I was hurt and somehow concluded it was my fault. I repent of accepting as truth the devaluation of my person based on the malice of others. Finally, I repent of treating my body as though it was a curse rather than the blessing God intended it to be. I choose to ground myself in the reality of God’s love. May we all learn to love God, our neighbors and ourselves better this Lent.
Sources:
Trident Reference Publishing. The New International Webster’s Standard
Dictionary, 2006 edition. 2006. Trident Reference Publishing.
Michelle Pittenger is the Missioner for Christian Formation at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Lompoc, CA 93436. She is currently in the discernment process. She is also trained in The Color of Woman Intentional Creativity method as an artist. She can be reached @ formation@stmaryslompoc.org.
Lent is time when we refocus our minds, hearts, and souls on Christ and his loving sacrifice for us. These 40 days are meant as a time of centering and reflection as we approach the Easter season. It is an opportunity to reconcile our inward beliefs with our outward practices.
This season, I suggest that some of our Lenten disciplines be to lean in to God’s heart for racial justice. What if, instead of chocolate, we gave up some of our privilege? What would it look like to make radical sacrifice for the sake of reconciled body of Christ?
In addition to several good devotional resources available online, here are some practices to help you begin your Lenten journey for justice:
Fast
- Fast from dominant culture news media, instead seeking out news converge from the perspective ofmarginalized groups.
- Fast from sporting events and broadcasts that feature racist or appropriative mascots.
- Fast from fashion and culture magazines that promote narrow beauty standards.
- Fast from books by white authors, substituting for a broader library of choices.
- Fast from TV shows and movies that do not have robust representation of people of color on screen and behind the scenes.
- Fast from national chains and corporations, instead patronizing small local business, especially those owned by people of color.
- Fast from fuel. Ride public transit, taking the opportunity to get to know those that ride throughout the year.
- Fast from products made by companies with unjust manufacturing or hiring practices.
- Fast from being comfortable. Spend these weeks as a guest at another church. Join groups actively discussing tough issues of racial injustice. Listen. Just listen.
- Fast from material possession. What items have you accumulated that would better serve others in your community?
- Fast from fear. Re-examine who we are told to be afraid of and why. Consider how you might make your church a more welcoming space for folks often greeted with fear.
- Fast from your desire to be a leader, instead allowing yourself to be led and creating new leadership spaces for people of color.
- Fast from an attitude of saviourism. Partner with those around you who are already doing good work.
Serve
- Seek out local prison ministries and volunteer to serve in whatever way they deem most helpful
- Get involved with the DREAM Act movement and other immigration reform initiatives.
- Give time and money to university departments and organizations that support students, histories, cultures of otherwise underrepresented groups.
- Find out if your state has passed, or is considering a Kill-at-Will bill (aka Stand Your Ground), and get involved with the work already happening to combat such legislation.
- Mentor local youth through Boys & Girls clubs, or similar organizations.
- Call your state and local representatives and ask for changes in mandatory sentencing laws (look reps up here).
- Find out when local spring elections are taking place and volunteer to drive voters to the polls.
- Take time to scan names and faces of missing children who often get ignored by the media, and check back for updates to the lists.
Pray
- Commit to praying daily for issues of racial injustice.
- Pray that God’s hand would move in a mighty way against injustice in incarceration, stop-and-frisk policies, abusive deportation, Native rights,healthcare access, and discriminatory hiring practices.
- Pray that the Lord’s comfort will rest upon students and parents caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline, those behind bars, those struggling to find food or housing, those who travel unceasingly to to find work.
Personal change begins on the inside, but then bears fruit in what the world experiences from us on the outside. Many of the steps above will take you well beyond the Lenten season, requiring longer term commitments and sacrifice. But isn’t that what Lent is really about? Through power of Christ’s death and resurrection, we become transformed disciples, setting aside our own worldly desires to act as the hands and feet of God on earth.
Katelin Hansen (@BTSFblog) is the editor of By Their Strange Fruit (BTSF), an online ministry facilitating justice and reconciliation across racial divides for the sake of the Gospel. Katelin also serves as Director of Music at UM Church For All People, a multi-class, multi-racial church in an underprivileged neighborhood of Columbus, OH. This article was first posted on By Their Strange Fruit.
If any of you is thirsty, come to Me and drink. If you believe in Me, the Hebrew Scriptures say that rivers of living water will flow from within you. Jesus was referring to the realities of life in the Spirit made available to everyone who believes in Him. (John 7:38,39 The Voice)
The Spirit of God is like a river flowing through our lives yet we rarely think about what that river could look like.
What is your response.
Sit quietly for a moment imagining the Spirit of God flowing through your life. What imagery comes to mind? Do you think of a mountain stream, fast running but small, or of a broad, majestic river meandering across the plain?
Imagine yourself pausing to drink from that stream. The waters refresh and renew, they pour life into your body. How does that make you feel?
Rivers begin in the mountains, tiny rushing streams that cascade down mountainsides, and shoot rapidly through gorges in a hurry to get to the sea. Then they meet another stream, and then another. Their waters mingle, slow down, coalescing into a river that meanders across the plain where cities spring up to draw from its life giving waters. Now the movement is less urgent and less defined.nThen it bursts its bank, makes new channels, some loops are cut off forming small peaceful lakes or billabongs, tranquil places for wildlife to rest and recuperate. The flood waters spread out across the delta, depositing its heavy load of silt across the farmland with rich nourishing life for the crops that are grown and for the birds and animals that enjoy its abundance.
What is your response?
Imagine the seasons of God’s movement in your life.
Are there times that you have felt the Spirit of God, rushing through you like a mountain torrent? Write those down and reflect on their impact in your life.
Are there times when you have seen your stream mingle in community with others to create a wide river beside which still others can gather to draw life giving water? Write these down and reflect on their impact.
Are there times when the waters of God have overflowed your river spreading nourishment across the food that we eat and the wildlife that surrounds us? Write these down and reflect on their impact.
We humans love to confine the path of a river. We straighten out its curves, pave its banks and build levies to confine the flood waters. We pollute it we industrial waste so that we can no longer drink straight from its banks. The life giving silt flows out into the sea, its nutrients lost forever. When floods come they burst through the levies with devastating results, destroying homes, farms and livelihoods.
What is your response.
Where have you tried to confine the Spirit’s flow in your life and that of your community? What has been the impact? What is one thing you could do to change that?
Where have you wanted to drink from the waters of God’s stream but found them to be polluted? Where does that pollution come from? Is there one thing you could do to change that?
As you listen to Down in the River to Pray, take note of each of the river photos and imagine the twists and turns of the river from its source to the sea. What part of the river are you in now?
There is one photo that is obviously a man made canal rather than a river – take note of how different it is from the God created rivers. Sit in silence at the end of the song and allow God to speak to you. Is there any further response you feel you should make?
We live in a visual world which beckons us to stop, look and reflect. But most of us are too busy to do so. Rethinkchurch.org has a great suggestion for a very visual way to celebrate the season of Lent that calls us to do just that, one which you may want to start now even though the season is half over.
Whatever your practices this season, will you join this photo-a-day challenge and share with the community how you perceive each word or phrase for the day? No explanation needed, unless you want to. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Learn more.
Not surprisingly, this exercise brought to mind Christine Valter’s Paintner’s book Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice, in which Christine redefines photography as a receiving rather than a taking skill. She points out that the traditional perspective of photography is aggressive – we shoot or take photos. Yet really we are receiving an image, the transmission of light from a scene or object that God has created.
By bringing the camera to the eye and allowing an encounter with the holy to open our hearts, we have the possibility for a transformative potential from the photographic encounter. Look through the lens and imagine that it is a portal to a new way of seeing. (15)
So if you have more time than the exercise above calls you to, take some time to reflect on your photo. and consider some of Christine’s provocative questions:
What is hidden and what is revealed in your photo.
What is mirrored back? Traditional SLR cameras use mirrors to create images and in life we need polished inner mirrors that cultivate our capacity to see God more clearly in more places and experiences.
What new way of seeing either of God or of yourself has this photo opened for you?
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