Unexpected
Today’s post is by Kimberlee Conway Ireton, author of The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year.
My year of prayer is taking an unexpected turn. Or maybe the turn started last Easter, in my first year of prayer, when I felt prompted to learn more about human trafficking, particularly of young girls for sex. What I learned horrified me, to say the least, and I began to write about it. With the help of several generous friends, I raised over $1o00 for International Justice Mission (IJM) and Love 146, two organizations working hard to combat sex slavery.
As a result of my research and writing last year, I signed up for International Justice Mission’s weekly prayer update. Every Thursday I’d get an email with a half dozen or so requests for their work around the world. I confess, I’d usually read through it and say a couple of yes, God’s or thank you Jesus’s before deleting the email.
In the intervening year, though, I’ve learned a lot more about the work that IJM does—and the prayer that undergirds it—and I’ve been stunned buy the stories I’ve heard and read of God’s providence and provision and care both for the justice workers and for the people on whose behalf they’re working. God really does answer prayer.
And that makes me want to pray more.
So, much to my surprise, my year of prayer—which I originally envisioned as being somehow about me—is turning out to not be about me at all. (Shocking, I know.) God is slowly calling me out of myself; calling me to pray beyond the borders of my small house, my big family; calling me to set aside my doubt and my questions for a few moments and just. pray.
In the past several months, I’ve become more intentional about praying over IJM’s requests. Thanks to my iPhone, I can read the email anywhere, so I recently started pulling up the IJM prayer requests whenever I’m standing in a line. This means I now pray over them multiple times each week—at the grocery store, the post office, my favorite coffee shop, even the library.
The more I pray, the more I want to pray. I confess that the cynic in me expects that this is just some sort of honeymoon phase. Yeah, I’m all gaga about Jesus and prayer right now, but it’ll fade. The rest of me hopes my inner cynic is wrong. I pray about that, too—that when my googoo eyes wear off, I’ll still love Jesus, still love prayer, and that if I don’t, I’ll still practice it anyway.
The funny thing about all this—at least to me—is that I am one of those people who’s always buried her head in the sand. I never wanted to know about the awful things happening in the world. I didn’t want to feel the pain of other’s suffering. I didn’t want to feel the guilt of not doing anything about it. And I certainly didn’t want to risk hearing God call me to some far-off place without indoor plumbing.
Yet here I am, eagerly awaiting the next prayer email from IJM, emails that frequently break my heart and make me weep for people I’ve never met. I’ve even started fantasizing about maybe going on a mission trip someday. How is this possible? Who is this person I’m becoming? I don’t know.
What I do know is that I want to do something about the horrors in this world, and prayer is doing something. As Bethany Hoang says, “for every follower of Christ, being obedient to God’s commands to justice is….a daily, on-the-ground, person-by-person work of prayer.” Prayer is the fundamental work of a Christian.
I don’t understand how prayer works any more than I did a year ago. But I’m starting to see that how it works is less important than that it works. And that my work is to stop thinking so much about prayer and actually pray.
It is just over a week until our wild Camano tour at the site of the future Mustard Seed Village. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the vision for the village and about how to live more sustainably. More information and sign up here
St Francis & waterfall create sacred space
Our understanding of sacred space has been trivialized and stereotyped by its confinement to churches and to the use of proscribed symbols that we believe are Christian. Once again my love for Celtic Christianity has guided me. The Celts found themselves intertwined with their surroundings. The land was not simply raw material for exploitation but an intelligent, living presence. The fabric of the land was home not only to man and animal, but also to the spirits of the forest and the crops, the underground dwellings of the ancestors, and the gods themselves.
The early Celtic Christians did not do away with the symbols of the culture, they transformed them into symbols of their faith. The high places of the druids were planted with the high crosses of Christianity which became important teaching stations. The stories of Celtic gods were transformed and interwoven with stories of Celtic saints. And all of creation was translucent, unveiling the presence of the eternal God revealed in Jesus Christ.
We too can use symbols and sacred elements that speak to our faith today. If we seek renewal, contemplation and healing as well as beauty in the garden then we can very deliberately incorporate symbols, shapes, and patterns that enhance this. If we see our interaction with the garden as an invitation to participate in the divine act of creativity and imagination this becomes an even more meaningful relationship that renews and nurtures our souls as we grow and change. If we see our gardens as translucent beauty through which God glory shines then we very deliberately incorporate elements that speak to us of God.
So what are the threads you want to weave into your garden to enhance its revelation of God? Here are a few suggestions:
Crosses and statues: these are the expected “Christian” symbols in our gardens and they can play an important role as focusing points for us. St Francis is the commonest statue encountered in sacred gardens but statues of Jesus or Madonna also appeal to many. Others prefer bird baths and feeder, sundials, fountains or totem poles that remind them of the wonder of God and the temporal nature of human existence.
Irises and archway
Paths, patterns, mosaics and mazes. Meandering paths and stepping stones invite us to explore. Spirals, labyrinths, and mazes entice us into contemplative walks. Mosaics and other patterns created from pebbles, tile wood and stone, add beauty, texture and meaning.
Patios, benches, and gathering places. These can invite us to sit alone and mediate or can provide places for groups to gather. Shared fellowship and food in a garden adds another dimension of sacredness as we partake of God’s banquet feast together.
Arches, gates and arbors. A canopy of grape vines provides a translucent roof of living light within which we can sit and savour this fruit of God. Arches like rainbows remind of us of the interplay between heaven and earth and gates beckon us to private places where we can move deeper into intimacy with God.
Leo Tolstoy via wikimedia
A young boy once lived in a house in a forest. He and his brothers played in the woods, ponds and fields that surrounded their home. One day an older brother told the child about a green stick that was buried near a ravine in the deepest part of the forest. If you find the stick, the brother said, you will enjoy great happiness, and by the power of love bring happiness to all mankind. At once the boy began hunting for the fabled stick. His search continued throughout the rest of his life.
The boy in this story is Leo Tolstoy, the home, Yasnaya Polyana and the green stick represented the inspiration he received in nature. In Tolstoy’s literature, landscapes and ornamental gardens signify the emotional state of the characters he created. Yasnaya Polyana was his realm of inspiration. He described it as his cathedral, his sanctuary, his muse. Today its more than 1,000 acres are still cloaked with inspiring forests of oak, ash, maple and birch. It has become a place of pilgrimage for all who love Tolstoy.
Tolstoy’s favourite resting spot – a birch log bench in a small clearing – has its back to a large open field of bright yellow mustard weed and faces directly into a thick grove of fir trees. Here Tolstoy would sit and meditate. From here he watched the subtle changes of nature like the thawing of the earth and the sounds of grass growing, two images that appear in Anna Karenina.
Tolstoy’s garden of inspiration features a forest landscape, but a garden of inspiration can be composed of any elements that inspire us because of their special meanings. They are private sanctuaries created from a storehouse of happy associations where childhood memories, creative imagination and natural beauty are brought together in a way that can often feel like paradise on earth.
And to finish off a short video on Yasnaya Polyana. It is fairly amateurish but still worth a watch.
Several years ago Tom and I had the privilege of visiting St Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai desert. This is one of the oldest working monasteries in existence, and monastic life in the area dates back to the 4th century.
I still remember visiting the Greek orthodox church with its amazing collection of icons, chalices, manuscripts and works of art. Heavy incense filled the room. It was a feast for all my senses and a powerful reminder that for many early Christians places of worship were designed to usher us into the kingdom of heaven.
Sacred spaces should stir all our senses, and there is no better place to imagine how this could be accomplished than in the garden. The Irish poet and mystic John O’Donohue said that our senses are the gateway to the soul. And its true. A beautiful flower not only delights our eyes but also touches something inside our hearts. The fragrance of a rose transports us to a place of divine encounter. Even weeding becomes a contemplative act that invites us to touch, smell and enjoy.
Sight: Gardens are a place to experience the richness of the glory of God. Savouring every nuance of light, colour, texture and sound touches and transforms our souls, not only revealing the visible world but sometimes the invisible as well. Gardens shimmer with the presence of God and in their midst we often feel that the veil between earth and heaven is nonexistent.
Smell: A pleasant fragrance in the air awakens our sense of smell. It also often stirs our memories which isn’t surprising as scent is our strongest connection to memory. So as you plan your sacred space consider the fragrances that awaken your memories of loved ones, special places and significant events. How can you incorporate these in your garden?
Taste: Fruit, vegetables, edible flowers, and herbs are a delightful aspect of any garden and should be included in any sacred space. Every flavour-filled bite is a foretaste of the kingdom banquet feast. It is also a reminder of the generosity of a God who fills all of us with lavish abundance. My friend Craig Goodwin, planted his vegetable garden in the shape of a labyrinth, a wonderful way to blend the sacred and the edible
Hearing: Many of us love the silence of sacred spaces within a garden. But silence in a garden is never empty. It is filled with the sounds of wind in the trees, the buzzing of bees, the melodies of songbirds, and the sounds of circardas, frogs, and other garden creatures. Wind chimes, fountains, and waterfalls can all enhance the delight that garden sounds provide for us.
Touch: Have you ever run your hands through a bush just to experience the sensual delight of its texture? Lamb’s tongue feels like velvet. Tree bark feels like paper. Cacti draw us to touch their spines and prickles. And often what we reach out to with our hands reflects our inner state of mind. Touching can comfort our distress, make us feel loved or help us express our angst.
So as you plan your garden sacred space take time to reflect on not the ways that your interaction with nature draws you into the presence of God by stirring your senses. Pretend you are entering a cathedral and imagine yourself decorating this space as a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
This post is part of a series on creating sacred space check out the previous posts:
Creating Sacred Spaces – 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
I posted this last year from Earth Ministry and thought that it was definitely worth reminding ourselves again of why we as Christians should be concerned for God’s good creation. I had hoped to write another Earth Day reflection for today but the Inhabit conference consumed too much of my time this weekend.
You might also like to check out some of the Christian organizations that are concerned for creation and some of the prayers I have posted in the past for this day:
Good Seed Sunday – Celebrate with A Rocha
Evangelicals Do Care About Creation
Renewal – Students Caring for Creation.
Earth Day To Do List from The Soulsby Farm
And the two postcard style prayers I wrote earlier for this year:
I don’t usually blog on Sundays but was chatting to Lilly Lewin at Inhabit this weekend where I learned about this wonderfully creative Stations that she produced in response to the Boston marathon. I wanted to share it for those who might like to use it for their Sunday observances. Check out the entire post and her blog: Praying in Response to Boston marathon and Global Violence
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PRAYING IN RESPONSE TO BOSTON MARATHON and GLOBAL VIOLENCE
Stations created April 16, 2013 in response to the bombings at the Boston Marathon and as a prayerful way to responds to violence in our everyday world.
Use all of these stations created and set up together as a prayer experience for your small group, youth group or your whole church, or just pick one or two to do as a corporate prayer response during worship. Or just use the run/walk prayer yourself this week as a part of your personal prayer /devotion time.
Feel free to use these stations to inspire you to create your own prayer stations. I would love to hear about how you used them in your community.
Praying for peace and healing for us all!
Lilly
Read the entire post: Praying in Response to Boston marathon and Global Violence
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