For Lent this year, I chose to add this jigsaw puzzle by American artist Charles Wysocki. On one level it’s a stylized version of Americana–a rural setting with a large sheep in the foreground, with more sheep, simple buildings, and trees in the background.
And yet for me this jigsaw puzzle has also become a way of slowing down and becoming quiet. I’m not particularly legalistic about it. I don’t have to work on it every day. I don’t have a deadline of completing it before Lent is over. But every so often I pause to put a few more pieces together–a few moments in the morning or on my lunch break, perhaps alonger time some evening.
I chose this puzzle in part because of the title. Charles Wysocki called it “Shepherd’s Pal” which is so appropriate for this Lenten season as I reflect on Jesus, the Great Shepherd, the One who lays down his life for his sheep, who knows each one of us by name and calls us (John 10:1-18). It reminds me that whatever I might do, whatever roles I might have in life, I am the Shepherd’s pal so to speak–a follower of Jesus with the great honor of being called his friend (John 15:15).
This jigsaw puzzle also helps me to connect with the brokenness and healing of God’s family. As the body of Christ, the church is meant to be whole and healthy, to function together with each part contributing to the whole (1 Corinthians 12:1-31). To change the Pauline metaphor, perhaps we could also say that the church is like a giant jigsaw puzzle where each piece is part of the bigger picture.
Only it seems we haven’t yet figured out how to put the pieces together. What’s more, we sometimes seem unsure that we’re even part of the same picture. There is so much brokenness–within local congregations and between them, in denominations and in between, over biblical teaching and theology, over the definitions of right and wrong, inside and outside. Jesus’ prayer for unity (John 17:1-26) has not yet been fully accomplished.
And so as I sort through the pieces of my jigsaw puzzle and put them together, I also sort through my questions. Are difference and disunity in this life and in the church inevitable? Is it too simplistic to expect that all of the pieces will fit together smoothly with no missing pieces and no extras? Do we rather need to accept our brokenness with humility as a kind of gift?
My questions dissolve to prayer. I don’t yet have everything together in the perfect picture—not in my jigsaw puzzle and not in the brokenness I see all around me in the church and in the world. I long to heal all those wounds and make all things right, but I am not God. I am not the Great Shepherd, only the Shepherd’s pal.
So I pray, Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy. And I wait for the One who “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). Amen.
April Yamasaki is a pastor and also the author of Sacred Pauses: Spiritual Practices for Personal Renewal. She has recently completed a companion resource–the Sacred Pauses Group Leaders’ Guide and Scripture Index is now available as a free download from her website, aprilyamasaki.com.
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Blessed are those who persecute?
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:10)
As we approach Good Friday it is appropriate for Christians to contemplate the crucifixion of Christ and the persecution that Jesus suffered at the hands of the religious and political authority figures in Jerusalem.
Nor should we forget the faithful who are suffering for their faith in many places in the world today.
But should we Christians turn a blind eye to the suffering that we and our ancestors, the church universal, have inflicted on others in the name of Christ over the ages? For it is historical fact that within a few short centuries the persecuted became the persecutors, that confessing Christians tortured and killed Pagans and Heretics throughout Christendom, calling it good and righteous.
This is no mere historical issue for me or for some of the communities I am involved in, for many people I know and move amongst are Pagan – who self identify as such, and have suffered as such. They are much like you and me, they work in business and teaching and IT, but they differ in one important respect: the worship many gods and goddesses, nature spirits of the fertile earth. And one thing I hear time and time again from them is stories of persecution at the hand of self righteous Christians. They find themselves reviled, vilified, falsely accused of Satan worship and (somewhat ironically) of child abuse, and of being cast out of churches they were trying to connect with.
And yet, I have found that when I approach my Pagan neighbours with respect, more often than not they are respectful towards me. And when I listen in order to understand, they are happy to enter into conversation and are open to what I have to say as well. Many have become friends. And through these conversations in community I have discovered a truth: that disagreement need not lead to disrespect, that truth is best spoken in love.
So what will I reflect on this Lent? I will reflect on the capacity we, the church, have for persecution, as much as we would like to live in denial. I will reflect on the darkness at the door, on the potential Pharisee that lurks within us all. And I will reflect on the Messiah, the one who taught us what real blessedness was about.
Bio
Matt Stone is a blogger from Sydney, Australia, and has been blogging about world
religions since 2004. His writing flows out of experiences amongst Christians, Hindus,
Buddhists, Wiccans and the “spiritual but not religious,” both as a Christian and prior
to that. His work may be found at mattstone.blogs.com.
Spring has definitely come to Seattle. Today we expect it to reach 72F and I have itchy feet to get out and clear all the weeds before the garden seminar on Saturday. I know that will not happen but it did prompt me to send out this reminder.
There is still time to sign up for the Spirituality of Gardening seminar, and perhaps more importantly, time to order your tomato plants and other vegetable starts for the year. You can download the plant order form here.
Or perhaps you would like to swing by May 3rd for our first ever plant sale. This would be a great opportunity not just to pick up plants, purchase books and show your support for the work of Mustard Seed Associates but also to say hello and check out the garden here at the Mustard Seed House. As well as an array of vegetable starts we will have geraniums and other summer flowers, Snohomish garden soap and lotion bars (only $6 at the sale), and other MSA resources. We hope that you can join us.
return of prodigal – Rembrandt
This last weekend has been a garden weekend for me. I have planted the early garden with cauliflowers, cabbages, broccoli, lettuce, Chinese greens, carrots and beets. I use the square foot method – lots of diversity close together for maximal yield and minimal pest control. I start with well composted soil and try to balance those crops that need lots of fertilizer and drain the soil with those that need little fertilizer and are a net gain to the soil. Monoculture demands more fertilizer and pesticides.
At my Spirituality of Gardening seminar on Saturday I will tell participants that one of the most nutritious plants in the garden is the dandelion. The roots can be used for tea, the leaves for salad and the flowers for jelly. It helps to hold the soil together and to bring nutrients up to the surface from deeper down within the soil.
In the garden variety is the spice of life and weeds are an important part of that variety. I think that it is meant to be the same in the body of Christ. We need variety of belief, doctrine and understanding of the truths of God, to build up the soil and reduce the pests so that we can get the best harvest. We need the death of our old understandings to create the most precious nutrient for our soil – compost. And often some of the most important plants (read people here) are those at the margins, the ones that we want to yank out and get rid of, the ones that disrupt our doctrinal certainty and make us uncomfortable – like the mentally ill, the gay and lesbians, the doubters, people of other religions and even the atheists in our midst.
It is no wonder Christ emphasized the need for love not doctrine to hold the body of Christ together. He knew that we were not all meant to think alike or look alike. A variety of doctrines are not only acceptable to God but necessary for God’s family to be healthy. The more alike we all look, the more we insist that there is only one acceptable doctrinal viewpoint, the less adaptable, the less healthy and the less productive we become. The more alike we look, the more “fertilizer” we need and the more “pests” attack us. As Samir Selmanovic says in his fascinating book Its Really All About God we need atheists to ask the questions we are afraid to ask ourselves and we need people of other faiths to broaden our understanding of God. And we need those at the margins to pull us out of our self righteousness and remind us that we are all sinners, only acceptable because of the grace of God. Christ came to the unacceptable and those outside the synagogue, not to the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin.
Jesus reached out to the unacceptable – the Samaritans, prostitutes and lepers – and did unacceptable things in the spirit of love and asks us to too.
Unbind us Lord that we might live,
Unbind us from our sins,
From our prejudices
And our lack of love.
Unbind us Lord that we might live,
Live in unity,
and in peace,
and in love.
This post is now part of a Synchroblog centered on Bridging the Divides and ideas and perspectives that different bloggers might have on ways to heal these divisions in the church. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Christianity is continually dividing these days. Huge chasms have formed between conservative and liberal camps. Theological positions are becoming more solidly entrenched. Differing views on biblical interpretation are separating us, creating walls that separate us from living in community together. Churches are splitting. Organizations are finding themselves in the middle of the fray, unsure how to proceed because of the cost of landing on one side or the other. We hope these posts will bring a healing balm this Easter season.
Here’s the list of other bloggers contributing posts related to healing the divides this month:
- The Virtual Abbess – Abi and April’s Synchroblog – Bridging the Divides
- Caris Adel – Emotional Pacifism: Laying Down My Weapons
- Ty Grigg – Speak Truth
- Jon Huckins – Gay Marriage, World Vision, and a Unified Church?
- Mark Votava – Faith Presence in the Parish
- Mary at Lifeinthedport – let us meet in the borderlands
- Michael Donahoe – Healing Divisions in the Body of Christ
- Jeremy Myers – Unity vs. Uniformity in the Church
- Juliet at Still Learning – A Catholics Love Letter to Evangelical Women
- Dago at Scripture Insights – Jesus the Divider
- Glenn Hager – The Lowest Common Denominator
- Sarah Quezada – Standing on Church Bridges
- Doug Webster – Truth Is Not a Process, Belief Is
- Michelle Van Loon – Bridging the Divide
- Happy at Simple Felicity – are we there yet?
- Travis Klassen – The Church: Coming, Going, or Being
- Bec Cranford – Biblical Interpretation and Inerrancy: Moving beyond myopia to a grander vision of unity
- Teresa Pasquale – Bridging the Divide: Translating Between Dialects, Culture Contexts, and Heart Stirring
- Miguel Labrador – I might be willing to reconsider church hierarchies, if…
- Paul Meier – Healing the Divides Begins Within
- Liz Dyer – You Can’t Get There From Here
- K.W. Leslie – Humility
- Kathy Escobar – 10 ways we can build bridges instead of bomb them
- Loveday Anyim – The “non-Gospelized Rituals” of Pentacostalism
- Caedmon Michael – Bridging the Divides
- Carly Gelsinger – “Church Shopping” at the Wrong “Mall”: A Story of Easter Sundays
- Mallory Pickering – A Splintered People
- Pastor Edwin Fedex – Tearing Down Fences and Building Sidewalks
- Jen Baros – Bridging the Divides: How to Heal
- Phil Wyman – The Impossible Space Between Us
- Bronwyn Lea – When My Children Squabble
- Christine Sine – Unified by Love Not Doctrine
Its almost over. Lent is coming towards its close. Next week is Palm Sunday. Yet for most of us the transformation we long for has only just begun. Where do you still want to be transformed this Lenten season.
While volunteering at New Horizons Ministries in downtown Seattle, WA, I had the privilege of meeting and talking with street youth during drop-in hours on Tuesday evenings. Often, I heard stories with a common theme of young adults running away from home, mostly because of abusive circumstances between parents or other family members. Some believed that they would be able to seek refuge by living life on the streets only to discover how harsh, violent, and unforgiving life on the streets can really be. It is not uncommon for street youth to engage in substance abuse, prostitution, and violence. Some end up violating the law and going to prison, further complicating any progress of abandoning life on the streets and seeking steady employment.
The presence of a high number of street youth is no surprise in the Seattle area. Take a walk through downtown Seattle or the “Ave” in the University district and you will see dozens of young adults wandering the streets, asking for money, sleeping on ground, in doorways of buildings, or playing musical instruments. The statistics for the greater Seattle area are quite staggering. According to Ron Ruthruff, author of The Least of These: Lessons Learned from Kids on the Street and visiting professor of theology and culture at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology:
In the greater Seattle area, an estimated 5,000 youth run away from home each year. Both nationally and in the Seattle area, about 50 percent of these runaways return home. An additional 25 percent of these people have their needs met through service-delivery agencies. The remaining 25 percent of runaway youth, approximately 1,5000 to 2,000 on King County, begin a journey to hard-core street life.
This means that the other half of street youth do not return home and are either living on the streets today or are relying on agency services or perhaps friends for shelter.
I met Army [not his real name], a 20-year-old male from Issaquah, WA on my first day of volunteering at New Horizons. Army Joined the United States Army when he was 18. Unfortunately, he did not successfully complete training at artillery school and was discharged from the military. With that outcome, Army had made the decision to return home to live with his father. When Army called his father to tell him the news, his father had told him that since his son was a failure and did not complete training, he was not welcome back home. Army was heart broken and had nowhere else to go, he chose to live a life on streets. Army showed up one day at New Horizons wearing his uniform and holding a set of discharge papers in hand.
Army had previously lived in San Francisco and stated that the services for street youth there are not as adequate as the services offered in Seattle. Army constantly talked about carrying his knife for protection and had been arrested several times for selling marijuana. He stated that he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C and currently lives on the streets of Seattle with his “street wife,” a young 16-year-old girl who he considers his spouse, although the two have not gone through any religious or legal process to define their marriage.
The neglect that Army had endured gave him a loss of hope. He had no choice but to turn to the streets and sell marijuana to survive, or on warmer days sit with a sign or stand at a corner and ask passersby for money. “I would make up any story I could to make some money,” he said. In addition, Army often talked about the need to survive and the constant need to “watch your back.” I could see the adrenaline rushing through his body as he described what survival on streets was like: “I would always have my knife on me cause you never knew who was trying to steal from you or take your drugs and money,” he stated. Unfortunately, Army is one of the many street youth in the Seattle who constantly struggle to survive in any way they can. However, Army’s situation is not uncommon, additionally Ron Ruthruff stated that, “Kids on the street have their social and economic needs met through street developed relationships. Petty crime, prostitution, and drug sales become their way to survive. These activities contribute to their social status as well as their economic needs”. Forced to live on the streets, this has become the cultural norm and way of life for street youth.
Addressing the issue of poverty is a critical part of ministering and sharing the gospel for Churches to consider when spending time with homeless and street youth. The hopelessness of poverty needs to be transformed into hope because “to be poor means to be insignificant” and that is a deep struggle that many homeless and street young face on a daily basis. Sharing the message that Christ did not come from a house of privilege is a significant way in which churches can empower and inspire street youth. Through a message of faith and hope in Christ’s death and resurrection, street youth can discover a new paradigm and their own importance in society.
Due to the trauma homeless youth have faced, the Church must go about working with them in a more contextualized and open way. In addition the Church must strive to be an open and inviting place for homeless youth that will aid them in their journey towards transformation. Just as Christ has overcome the world so can the homeless youth in our society overcome their circumstances through partnering with the Church.
(an except from Rafael’s master’s thesis entitled Sharing the Gospel With Street Youth)
Bio
Rafael is a Brooklyn, NY native living and working in Seattle. He is an active duty Coast Guard member that spends his time volunteering with street youth in the Seattle area. Currently an M.A. candidate at Northwest University studying International Community Development, he has a heart for street youth and how the church can engage with them in a more impactful way.
This page is out of date. Please see our latest version here.
This is another new list for me. I find that my resource lists for kids are some of the most popular that I post and want to make sure that I expand this aspect of what we provide.
Looking for acivities
Faith at home has some good suggestions on activities to participate in with children.
And Little Takas has a variety of colouring pages available for children of all ages.
Some great resources from the Iowa Farmer. Scroll down for ideas for a Last Supper with kids.
And a Messianic Passover for Families with Children
Catholic Mom has printable Stations of the Cross for Kids
And here are simple directions for making palm crosses
Or you might like to consider making Resurrection eggs
French Easter Bell craft because the bells stop ringing on Maundy Thursday and don’t ring again until the joyous sound of Easter Sunday.
Want to do some Easter gardening:
Or make this Easter garden from Ann Voskamp with your kids.
Or this simpler Easter Resurrection Garden
Looking for recipes:
Think of making Crown of Thorn bread or consider it as part of your whole Lenten experience
or the traditional English treat for Good Friday Hot cross buns
And I love these creative Easter story cookies
And think of sharing this with your kids
This is part of this series on Resources for Holy Week. Here are all the posts:
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