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Godspacelight
by dbarta
Lent 2014

Is Your Life Out of Synch?

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Snow day in Seattle Tom and Christine in Australia

This morning I was very frustrated. My phone and computer calendars have not been in synch since my return from Australia. I have spent the morning rescheduling appointments and grumbling. My mood was not improved by the fact that my body clock is still out of synch too. As I look out on a wet Seattle morning with the snow turning to slush, I think longingly of the 85F days I left behind in Australia less than a week ago.

Then I read Andy Wade’s great article Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again? That’s the problem I realized. Not only has my phone been on constantly since my return but my life has been too. Catching up after almost three weeks away takes a lot of time and effort and it is easy not to take the time to refresh and resynch my life. Taking time to breathe in deeply the fragrance of God’s love. Relishing the joy of being back with our dog Bonnie who is once more full of life. Drinking in the beauty of a winter shrouded landscape. These are the things that resynch my life, the things that make me feel I have switched off and switched on again.

For Andy Sabbath is a discipline that reboots his system. Lent is too. I appreciated his reminder of this. It is easy for me to focus on what I am encouraging others to do for Lent and not enter fully into the season myself. Andy explains:

It used to be that Lent was more of a private journey for me. But over the years I’ve begun to appreciate how important it is to walk this journey together. You see, it turns out we’re not a bunch of individual computers that can simply be turned off and on again. There’s something embedded in our humanness that causes us to quickly revert back to the old operating system with all its old viruses and bugs. It turns out that we need to walk this journey together because others can see what we fail to see… refuse to see… that all we really did was turn the system off and on again, but nothing actually changed. (Read the article here)

So what does this look like for you? Although Lent is still a month away, here at Mustard Seed Associates we’re already preparing. I’m looking forward to our Return to Our Senses in Lent retreat. I am also looking forward to exploring together as a team A Journey Into Wholeness and to reflecting on the blog series with posts from many collaborators around the world. This is always an important season of reflection for me, but I definitely needed this reminder today that I need a spiritual reboot. And in case you are wondering all I needed to do to resynch my phone and computer calendars was to switch the phone off and on again.

How do you conduct a spiritual re-boot?

February 10, 2014 1 comment
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Lent 2014resources

Prepare Your Heart for Lent with St Matthew's Passion by Bach

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Take time to listen to St Matthew’s Passion as preparation for Lent and Holy week

You may also like to check out the more extensive list of Music Resources for Lent and the other resource lists in this series

  • Celebrating Lent with Kids 
  • Resources for Lent 
  • Daily Scripture Readings for Lent. 

Closer to Holy Week I will post another set of resources for Palm Sunday and beyond.

And don’t forget to check out the MSA resources:

Our latest resource, 40+ Activities for Lent and Easter, which can be downloaded for free from the MSA website. This guide is designed to be used in conjunction with our other new resources (below) or as a stand alone guide:

  • A Journey Into Wholeness: Soul Travel From Lent to Easter – now available in paper and e-book form
  • Lenten Prayer cards
  • Daily reflections that will be posted on the Godspace blog and also on the Facebook page, Coming Home to the Story of God
February 8, 2014 2 comments
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Lent 2014

Daily Reading Plans for Lent – Which Will You Use?

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

This post is out of date, please see our current version here.

With Lent only a few weeks away, I know that many of my readers are already looking for scripture plans and devotional books to read, so I thought that this year I would start early with listing Lenten resources. This year, I am starting with possible plans for daily scripture readings. Obviously there are hundreds out there. Written, online, downloadable you choose. I have tried to provide these from a number of theological backgrounds. If there are others you think should be on the list please let me know. And by the way the photo is of a 500 year old Bible – seemed appropriate for the season especially (at least to me) that though the method we use to study may change, the message is timeless.

Daily Readings

Sacred Space – Daily Prayer with the Irish Jesuits

Pray as You Go – also from the Jesuits. Daily prayer for portable MP3 players.

Biblegateway.com’s Reading plan for Lent – can also be downloaded as an app.

Church Father’s Lenten Reading Plan

A Reading Plan for lent and Easter from the Salvation Army

Download The Bible App – The plans deliver a relevant scripture verse to users each day that are themed around the topic selected by the user with one specifically for Lent.

An interesting 5 apps for Lent from ccr.org.uk.

Seven Apps to Help You Through Lent

The Daily Office From the Book of Common Prayer

Presbyterian USA daily readings

The Daily Office from the Episcopal Church US

Reflections from Forward Day by Day

Godspace Resource Lists

 

A series on Lent and creativity:

Our new free download: What Do You Hunger For: Creative Exercises for Lent 

Get Creative and Play Games for Lent;

Five Ways to Foster Creativity in Kids During Lent

Seven Tips for Creating Sacred Space For Lent

Let’s Get Creative with Lent

Let’s Get Creative – Doodle Your Way Through the Lenten Calendar

Meditation Videos

Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?  This meditation is designed for Good Friday and does not have music.

Lenten Reflection Video by Christine Sine

Is This A Fast – meditation video by Christine Sine

An Invitation To Journey – Lenten Video by Christine Sine

February 8, 2014 5 comments
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Lent 2014

Lentils Have Nothing to Do With Lent

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Ashes on our foreheads

As you know I am getting ready for the celebration of Lent. Probably you will not be surprised to hear that this year we plan to use A Journey Into Wholeness for our daily reflections. I will also use the amazing new Lenten prayer cards as a focal point on my desk. I plan to write my weekly commitment on the back of the appropriate prayer as a constant reminder throughout the day of how seriously I need to take this commitment.

Monday the MSA staff will talk about the practices we plan to adopt for the season. Usually Tom and I assume the discipline of the $2 challenge, restricting our daily expenditure on food to $2/day for at least one week of Lent. That means a lot of lentils, beans and rice. Pad Thai is also good. It also means relying on vegetables from the garden. Definitely vegetarian. No eating out. Making everything from scratch – maybe even getting back into bread making.

In researching recipes to get ready for this challenge, I have read about lentils. The lowly lentil has been sustaining human kind for thousands of years. Some foodies once considered lentils as poor man’s food and refused to eat them because they are so inexpensive. Ironic isn’t it? Although they may be cheap, lentils are very nutritious, filling, and more importantly, arguably the most flavorful of all the legumes. The name lentil has nothing to do with Lent but they make a great Lenten staple. So lets go on a diet this Lent – not to lose weight but to identify with those live on the fringes of society.(more info here)

The Ayme family in their kitchen house in Tingo, Ecuador, a village in the central Andes, with one week’s worth of food.

The Ayme family in their kitchen house in Tingo, Ecuador, a village in the central Andes, with one week’s worth of food.

Believe it or not I love this. I revisit the images in Hungry Planet, by Peter Menzel, like the one above that depict what people in different parts of the world eat each day, (see other images here) and am reminded of the privileges of our lives – the food we take for granted and the blessings of always having enough.  Yet in other parts of the world many still struggle to find enough to eat each day. Bread for the World tells us that worldwide, the number of hungry people has dropped significantly over the past two decades, but 842 million people continue to struggle with hunger every day.1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty — on less than $1.25 per day not just for their food budget but for everything.  And most sobering of all, each year, 2.6 million children die as a result of hunger-related causes.

So will you join me in taking Lent seriously this year not just for your own inner journey but for those at the margins and for our planet as well?

February 7, 2014 0 comments
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Uncategorized

Where Do You Belong?

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Bunyip of Berkley's Creek

One of my favourite Australian stories is a children’s book called The Bunyip of Berkley’s Creek. It tells the story of a bunyip, a mythical creature from aboriginal folklore which emerges from a billabong (swampy lake) and sets out on a journey of discovery.

Who am I the bunyip asks those he meets. Now it is a long time since I read the book but here is what I think the responses where. A duck says the platypus as he looks at the bunyip’s huge webbed feet. Ugly says the kangaroo when he catches a glimpse of the bunyip’s grotesque face.  You don’t exist at all says the scientist ignoring the mythical creature in front of him. Tired and dispirited the bunyip returns to the billabong alone. Then as he watches another creature emerges from its depths. Who am I? it asks. You’re a bunyip responds the delighted first bunyip and you look just like me.

All of God’s creatures, even the mythical ones need a sense of where they come from and where they belong. I was very aware of this last month as I spent time with my family in Australia. This was my first trip since my mother died last year and I was not quite sure how I now belonged to this family I hardly ever saw.

As you can imagine much of our time was spent reminiscing, sharing stories not just about our childhood but about our ancestors.

My father was Greek but it is probable that my maiden name Aroney is a rendition of Aaron. Perhaps way back we have Jewish blood in us. My ancestors migrated to Constantinople, then to Spain and finally to the island of Kythera off the southern coast of Greece. In the early 1900s many headed for Australia. Blue eyed Greeks, maybe mixed with Viking blood, no one is sure, but we all wonder and speculate. We want to know where we come from. We want to know where we belong.

My mother’s family is harder to trace. Her parents migrated from Scotland in the early 1900s, her mother from Aberdeen, her father from Keith. Her maiden name was Milne, a common Scottish name and her Dad’s family probably goes back a long way in Scotland. But Mum’s mother’s name was Cato. Is it Spanish? Again no one knows but we can speculate. Her family was part of the aristocracy and the Scottish nobility had close ties to the Spanish Court.

These discussions have been very important for me. They have assured me that I will always belong to this family, not just the present generation, but all those who have gone before too. This provides a sense of rootedness, an anchor for my soul.

As a follower of Jesus however, I know that the sense of identity I gain from my biological family is not enough. My identity is now rooted in being a child of God and my sense of belonging is tied to my true home in the kingdom of God.

Becoming a Christian asks all of us to take on a new identity and a new place of belonging.  It challenges us to be reshaped according to a different culture. Old priorities are turned upside down and we enter a process of unlearning, learning and relearning.  The kingdom of God culture of love, generosity, compassion and mutual care, transcends the cultures in which we grew up and from which we draw our stories. Living into this culture is meant to anchor us in ways that the stories of our birth families never can.

So my question for all of us today is: Where do we feel we belong?

 

 

 

 

February 6, 2014 2 comments
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Prayer

The Disciple's Prayer – Jamie Arpin Ricci

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Taize-worship-Krista-retreat-004.jpg

I love the Lord’s prayer and over the years have posted numerous versions that I think are well worth meditating on. Like many of us,I have spent hours reading and rereading the words, often rewriting it in my own words. I could not help but think of this as I watched this version which Jamie Arpin Ricci sent me yesterday. It was discerned together as a community while studying the Sermon on the Mount. Enjoy

You may also like to check out some of my other favourite versions.

The Blogger’s Lord’s Prayer by Andrew Jones,

Unpacking the Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer – An Adaptation 

The Lord’s Prayer – How Should We Say It.

 

February 4, 2014 0 comments
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BooksPrayer

We Are Takers – by Walter Brueggeman

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

 

Awed to Heaven Rooted in Earth

I love this beautiful prayer by Walter Brueggemann, which comes from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. I love Brueggemann’s theology but this collection of prayers is a real treat.

You are the giver of all good things.
All good things are sent from heaven above,
rain and sun,
day and night,
justice and righteousness,
bread to the eater and
seed to the sower,
peace to the old,
energy to the young,
joy to the babes.

We are takers, who take from you,
day by day, daily bread,
taking all we need as you supply,
taking in gratitude and wonder and joy.

And then taking more,
taking more than we need,
taking more than you give us,
taking from our sisters and brothers,
taking from the poor and the weak,
taking because we are frightened, and so greedy,
taking because we are anxious, and so fearful,
taking because we are driven, and so uncaring.

Give us peace beyond our fear, and so end our greed.
Give us well-being beyond our anxiety, and so end our fear.
Give us abundance beyond our drivenness,
and so end our uncaring.

Turn our taking into giving … since we are in your giving image:
Make us giving like you,
giving gladly and not taking,
giving in abundance, not taking,
giving in joy, not taking,
giving as he gave himself up for us all,
giving, never taking. Amen.

February 3, 2014 0 comments
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Christine Sine is the founder and facilitator for Godspace, which grew out of her passion for creative spirituality, gardening and sustainability. Together with her husband, Tom, she is also co-Founder of Mustard Seed Associates but recently retired to make time available for writing and speaking.
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