Return to Our Senses – front cover
I am delighted to be able to share with you the review that Austen Sandifer just wrote for Englewood Review of Books on Return to Our Senses: Reimagining How We Pray. I am delighted with the response this book continues to receive and the interest it has raised. If the book has impacted you I would love to hear from you too.
It was with the thought of bridging the rhetoric of mindfulness and prayer that I picked up Christine Sine’s new book, Return to Our Senses: Re-Imagining How We Pray. I expected it to be about engaging our senses in full awareness of the omnipresence of God in creation and in our daily moments. I was not disappointed; this volume is filled with prayer techniques that focus on honing such mindfulness and wonder. Indeed, many of the methods that Sine suggests are ways to increase awareness of our spiritual journeys and the presence of God through the visceral experiences of our bodies. In a book that is accessible to a wide audience, Sine clearly explains and mixes traditional contemplative prayer methods, like Ignatius of Loyola’s Awareness Examen, with Christian mindfulness techniques, like breathing as a practice of engaging both breath and spirit (the Hebrew word ruah and Greek pneuma are single words indicating both meanings), with love and generative aspects of God consciously made part of every breath-cycle. Read the entire review.
This afternoon Tom and I head to Australia to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday. I have never looked forward to a trip with so much excitement and anticipation. Part of my excitement has been fueled by the memories book I have compiled for her. I know she will be delighted, but what has surprised me is my own reaction. I have loved sharing with my friends, even posted the shutterfly link on Facebook.
Mum’s family boat
Mum – early family photo
The photos go right back to mother’s childhood.
Myself with brothers Nick, Rod and Greg
Mum and Dad with myself and brothers Nick and Rod
They embrace my own childhood.
Aroney family wedding
And they include photos of all my brothers and their families.
Myself age 9
And of course there is my signature photo on Facebook
So why has it been important for me to share? Partly I think because this is a part of my past that few people know much about. It is 30 years since I lived in Australia. Most of my friends have never met my family. Yet they are an important part of who I am. Without them I am not whole. They draw me close to my family, to the friends with whom I share and to the God who has created all of us.
Family memories are important for all of us. They shape our lives and they shape our faith. And they created a sacred space that is as precious as any other place in which we meet with God. Like any sacred space, they should not be kept to ourselves. Memories of our family and upbringing are important to share – even the painful ones – for it is often in this sharing that we find the wholeness God desires for us.
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Check out the other posts in this series:
Creating Sacred Space Do We Really Need Churches
Every Garden Needs A Sacred Space
Reclaiming a Sacred Space – Cheasty Greenspace: A Place of Goodness and Grace by Mary De Jong
Creating a Sacred Space – Stir the Senses
A Garden of Inspiration – A Story of Leo Tolstoy
Symbols and Elements that Weave Together a Sacred Space
Why Being Spiritual may be More Important Than Being Religious by Rob Rynders
Celtic Spirituality – What Is The Attraction?
In the Barren Places: Finding Sacred Space for the First Time – James Rempt
A Tree My Most Sacred Space by Ryan Harrison
Sacred Buildings by Lynne Baab
This week’s Facebook prayers have all revolved, at least for me around the stress of getting ready for an international trip while going through huge transitions in Mustard Seed Associates (More of that next week)
Celtic Cross
Lord Jesus Christ
To you I lift my hands,
To you I sing my song,
To you I give my heart.
May your life be evident in me.
May your love shine where darkness once reigned,
May your promises bring hope and joy and peace.
Christine Sine https://godspacelight.com/
Who is there like you,
God of mercy and grace
who loves us as you do?
Who knows and understands
our actions as you do?
Who hears the thoughts and words
of our heart as you do?
Who knows our joys and sorrows
and shares them as you do?
Who feels the pain we endure
and comforts us as you do?
Who hears as we confess our sins
and forgives as you do?
Who takes a broken heart
and makes it whole as you do?
Who finds a life that’s lost
and welcomes it home as you do?
Who is there like you,
God of mercy and grace
who loves us as you do?
(http://www.facebook.com/faithandworship?ref=hl)
May our hearts be a Christ like fragrance
rising up to God.
May we spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere
like a sweet perfume.
Let it lavish the hungry with abundance,
And touch the grieving with compassion.
Let it bless the oppressed with justice,
And release the bondage of the prisoners.
Let it anoint the sick with healing,
And bring joy to those who doubt.
So that the fragrance of Christ wafts throughout the world,
Bringing refreshment, renewal and new life.
Christine Sine https://godspacelight.com/
O Christ, the Master Carpenter
who, at the last, through wood and nails
purchased our whole salvation:
Wield well your tools
in the workshop of your world,
so that we,
who come rough-hewn to your bench,
may here be fashioned
to a truer beauty of your hand.
Amen.
Arthur Gray Butler ( 1831-1909)
Forgive us, Lord
our need to be in control,
the pattern for each day
written by human hands,
each moment mapped out,
presented to you
for approval.
Grant us, Lord
the confidence to let go,
hand our days over to you,
follow where you might lead,
each moment lived out
in humble service
and gratitude.
(Faithandworship.com)
God in you all life is born,
In your promises all hope is found,
In your love all creation finds its purpose.
We sit in awe,
We drink in your mercy,
We are filled with your faithfulness.
Christine Sine https://godspacelight.com/
Love comes to us
fragile
as a tiny seed
which can
germinate and grow
into the tallest of trees,
or wither
and die
if left carelessly around.
Love comes to us
fragile
as a tiny child
who is
salvation and grace
for sinners wanting release,
or judgement
for hearts
that offer just stony ground.
(http://www.facebook.com/faithandworship?ref=hl)
The Lord is my light and my salvation,
Why should I be afraid?
The Lord is my strength and shield,
I trust him with all my heart.
The Lord leads me with faithfulness and love,
He helps me through storms and dangers,
And my heart is filled with joy.
Christine Sine https://godspacelight.com/
(inspired by reading of Psalm 26-28)
Sophia Rising by Monette Chilson
Is yoga an acceptable Christian spiritual practice? That is one of the questions that will arise for many of us as we read Monette Chilson’s new book Sophia Rising: Awakening Your Sacred Wisdom Through Yoga.
I love the way that Monette weaves her own faith journey through her exploration of yoga. Her choice of Sophia as the name of God she uses throughout the book will immediately send many outside their comfort zone. However she explains:
Most of us will pay lip service to the fact that God transcends gender, but our experience – because of the stigma associated with the feminine divine in Western religions – does not include prayers, images or words that let us express this truth. Whether the aversion to referring to God in feminine terms stems from patriarchal roots, a desire by early Christians to separate themselves from Goddess worhsip or to differentiate themselves from gnostic communities, the result has been a severing of the sacred feminine that has silenced voices that would pray to God our mother. Sophia embodies those missing pieces, giving us the prayers, images and words we need to complete our limited human perspective on who God is- and who God wants to be in our lives (13)
In the second chapter of Sophia Rising, dubbed The Heart of Yoga, Monette describe one of her favorite applications of pratyahara, the Benedictine practice of mindful eating. For those of us who love to garden, cook and eat it is a wonderful invitation.
“If you want to experience taste in a sacred context, try slowly and silently eating a bowl of soup on a cold night. Not only will you savor the taste of the soup as it moves over your tongue, but the warmth of it will move through your body, extending the experience beyond that of a meal where we eat and move on to another bite, another thought, another activity before the food is even down our throats.
While soup is soothing and a great way to ease into mindful eating, you can expand your experience into a seasonal rhythm. Soup is perfect for a winter practice. A salad full of the first greens of spring can usher in the warming winds of the season, awakening our taste buds to the delicate treats ahead. Juicy strawberries and peaches, dripping from our chins, call us to the informality of summer, while crunching into a crisp apple is the perfect way to transition our taste buds to back to the routine that fall brings with it. Who would have thought that yoga could be so delicious?!”
As Monette explains, it is an interesting paradox that in narrowing our focus, we expand our awareness. By restricting our intake of stimuli, we actually increase our consciousness of God’s presence in any given moment through acts as simple and mundane as eating.
Sophia Rising disturbed, enriched and challenged me. It’s provocative and well researched content stretched my views of spiritual practices and Christian faith in a healthy and inspiring way. I do not currently practice yoga but this book definitely tempted me to begin. And for the many of my Christian friends who do practice yoga and yet have never been sure how to integrate the practice with their faith, this is a must read book.
Today’s post in the series Creating Sacred Space Do We Need Churches? is contributed by The. Rev. Daniel Simons, Priest and Director of Liturgy, Hospitality, and Pilgrimage for Trinity Wall Street. He can be contacted at dsimons@trinitywallstreet.org.
Trinity Wall Street via http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/
We worship in the architectural decisions of those who came before.
One of the great heritages that a church passes on is its buildings. Yet how we inherit the worship space of a particular time, make it our own, and hand it on to others is a delicate question. If we are mere preservationists then worship can be frozen, becoming itself an object of worship, which is idolatry and the death of lively spirituality. On the other hand, if we forget that we are just a tick of the clock’s hand in time and rebuild to suit the fad of the moment, we can mangle the coherence of a particular age’s architectural voice or leave behind a dated legacy that can’t speak beyond its generation (many churches are still cleaning up liturgical spaces designed in the ’50s and ’60s).
Trinity Wall Street is not exempt from these considerations. Our church (meaning the people of God) is housed in two spectacular edifices: Trinity Church, the third building on the site and now dwarfed by the elegant old skyscrapers of early Manhattan, but for many years the tallest building on the island; and St. Paul’s Chapel, a city treasure that is New York’s oldest public building in continuous use.
One of the tributes to the architects who designed Trinity and St. Paul’s Chapel is that the buildings have needed so little redesign over the centuries. Every time we put St. Paul’s to another use the founders would have never considered, we discover what perfectly designed proportions we’re working with. We have had dinners, concerts, dances, and classes there, and after 9/11 it was a clinic and a kitchen and a dormitory. And then, of course, we have worshipped in so many different styles there, and it all works harmoniously because those who built it were listening deeply to the poetry of the space.
But that doesn’t mean we haven’t radically changed those spaces. Somewhere along the line at St. Paul’s, the pew boxes that had kept people warm in winter became charming but impractical, and all but two, including George Washington’s, were removed. And then, about six years ago, the pews were removed entirely. Having experienced the capacity of the chapel to be something much more than a church, Trinity’s leadership listened deeply to the need of the moment and decided that the bones of the building could withstand, and even incorporate, that radical decision. In the years since, that choice has proved itself to be a good one, and once-skeptics now comment on what a new range the chapel has.
I’m not making a case for removing pews; I’m making a case for listening deeply both to a building’s heritage and its call to mission in the moment. There are often ways of having both. This year we are beginning to consider a master plan to renew the interior of Trinity Church. Much of it is the boring but important stuff: heating/cooling/sound/light. Some of it goes into that deeper stewardship of prayer: shall we make some of the pews moveable so that we increase the flexible use of the space? How does the altar area relate to the people, and is there a one-sizefits- all solution, or do we want flexibility there too? How do we make the rear of the church more welcoming to visitors—more porous to the outside world while maintaining its coherence and integrity?
As the architects work on these questions, we are all wrestling with this tension: any change we make affects those who come after us. In the same way that our architects gave us such good bones to work with in these buildings, our work has to be thoughtful and careful enough to be appreciated by our spiritual descendants, who will have different concerns from ours that we cannot yet see.
Tradition is the process of handing on the past to the future. In that process we inevitably leave our own mark. In every age the call is faithfulness to the Gospel as we hear it, the call to follow Jesus in our own time.
Sidebar: Our mark in some ages calls for great reform, in some ages holding steady, and sometimes we are even called to leave the building entirely. Look at your building—what does it say about the community that built it? How has it shaped you and how have you shaped it? How does it help or hinder you in living out the Gospel now? What do you think God is calling your community to do or be in this next chapter of mission, and how will that be reflected and enhanced by what you do with your building?
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Check out the other posts in this series:
Creating Sacred Space Do We Really Need Churches
Every Garden Needs A Sacred Space
Reclaiming a Sacred Space – Cheasty Greenspace: A Place of Goodness and Grace by Mary De Jong
Creating a Sacred Space – Stir the Senses
A Garden of Inspiration – A Story of Leo Tolstoy
Symbols and Elements that Weave Together a Sacred Space
Why Being Spiritual may be More Important Than Being Religious by Rob Rynders
Celtic Spirituality – What Is The Attraction?
In the Barren Places: Finding Sacred Space for the First Time – James Rempt
A Tree My Most Sacred Space by Ryan Harrison
Sacred Buildings by Lynne Baab
Sacred Space – Listening to the Trees by Richard Dahlstrom
Today’s post in the series Creating Sacred Space Do We Need Churches? comes from Richard Dahlstrom. Richard is the author of “The Colors of Hope: Becoming People of Mercy, Justice, and Intimacy”. You can look for him in the forest, where he’ll be listening for God’s voice amidst the trees. If you can’t find him there, you can find him at www.richarddahlstrom.com
Listen to the trees
Jesus warned us that the Bible could get us into trouble. He told the religious experts of his day that the searched the scripture, thinking that in them they’d find eternal life. And yet, he goes on to say, they were unwilling to come to him that they might actually find life. It’s as if the profound and life altering possibilities of intimacy with our creator had been reduced to a formula. Take 15 minutes of morning; add a chapter of Bible reading; toss in a dash of prayer and presto! Spiritual Maturity to go!
These formulaic criteria for spiritual maturity are always, always, getting us into trouble. In a hyper-educated society like ours, there are lots of people who confuse the amassing of knowledge with spiritual maturity. For them, Christ is found careful lexical studies of Greek words, long sermons, note taking, and Bible memorization. The complaint of Jesus, articulated in the previous paragraph, exposes the reality that I can do all of this stuff and still not know Christ. Instead, my so called knowledge runs the risk of filling me with pride and arrogance.
The problem isn’t the Bible. The problem is our invalidation of other powerful forms of revelation, in particular creation. One can’t read Psalm 19, or Psalm 104, or Romans 1, or Genesis 2 and 3 without recognizing that the entire cosmos is one endless sermon. The heavens are preaching, from the rising of the sun, to the flinging of the stars through the nighttime sky, to the rising again. That endless hydration cycle and the seasons preach of God’s provision; the bright green of new life each spring of Jehovah’s character as the source of all life; the mountains as places where the glory of heaven touches earth and we’re transformed.
For too long evangelicals have bought into the false dualism that exalts mind over body; heaven over the earth; and text of the book over the text of creation. God’s in all of it! We who breathe the air of false dualism daily, throughout our sterile concrete cultures, absolutely must find ways to listen to God once again in a context where the text of the book and the text of creation can intermingle.
That’s why, 17 years ago, my wife and I did away with our chemically supported lawn, and planted a forest in backyard – cedar, fir, hemlock, and redwood. It’s grown into a sacred grove, a canopy of green that shelters life for birds and squirrels and provides a rich soil for other flora on the forest floor. That’s where I sit most mornings, with a cup of coffee, and a Bible, to meet with Jesus. The intermingling of Bible and creation has become, for me, the context in which God speaks to me most clearly, most profoundly. I’m reminded of God’s faithfulness to, and love of, all creation every morning. Various elements speak to me, such as new saplings, or fresh green sprigs, rain or wind or sun sneaking through the trees. God’s alive in it all, shouting. The book text interprets creation – the creation text interprets book. Indeed, my backyard is a sanctuary, opening my eyes and ears to God’s revelation and preparing me for each new day.
May all of us find or create sacred spaces where the creation text and the book text can kiss. It’s there we’ll find hope. It’s there we’ll find transformation. It’s there we’ll find Christ.
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Check out the other posts in this series:
Creating Sacred Space Do We Really Need Churches
Every Garden Needs A Sacred Space
Reclaiming a Sacred Space – Cheasty Greenspace: A Place of Goodness and Grace by Mary De Jong
Creating a Sacred Space – Stir the Senses
A Garden of Inspiration – A Story of Leo Tolstoy
Symbols and Elements that Weave Together a Sacred Space
Why Being Spiritual may be More Important Than Being Religious by Rob Rynders
Celtic Spirituality – What Is The Attraction?
In the Barren Places: Finding Sacred Space for the First Time – James Rempt
A Tree My Most Sacred Space by Ryan Harrison
Sacred Buildings by Lynne Baab
Garden seminar Port Townsend
This last weekend was one of the busiest I can remember for a long time. On Saturday we were in Port Townsend where I conducted a garden seminar in the morning followed by an evening with my husband Tom on Port Townsend 2018. Tom has done this type of creativity workshop for many years and I am always impressed with the results. Participants came up with some wonderfully creative ideas on how their community can respond to the changing times and changing ways of where they live.
Sharing creative ideas Port Townsend 2018
And as I walked around the beautiful garden our hosts Coe and Janet Hutchison have carved out of the overgrown mess they inherited I could not help but think of my current blog theme “Creating Sacred Space” . This is indeed a sacred space that they have created – a place of joy, serenity and closeness to God for them and for those who visit. And special for us to get together with friends we have not seen for a while. Check out more photos on facebook
The team from Bainbridge arrives
That evening we dashed back to Seattle so that we could drive up to Camano Island early to help with the raising of the beams for the roof of the our first Mustard Seed Village building. This too is a sacred space for me what the Celts would have called a thin space where heaven and earth seem to meet. I love to wander the land soaking its beauty and rejoicing in its serenity. I also loved being there for this next step in the development of the Mustard Seed Village.
Huge bolts to hold it all together
Working hard to get the beams up
It is slow but awe inspiring progress and each step overwhelms me with the generosity and faithfulness of God. A dream that was lodged in Tom’s heart over 20 years ago is slowly coming to fruition. The dream has grown, changed and been shaped by the hands of God over the years and we are excited about its future. And the community that is forming around this dream as new volunteers come to help, is both encouraging and astounding. It seems that God brings exactly the people we need at the right time – experts who can get the job done properly. We appreciate your prayers as we work to complete this first structure. And hope you can join us for the 22nd Annual Celtic Retreat when we will dedicate the building. Lots more photos on Facebook
Beams are up and ready for the roof
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