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Godspacelight
by dbarta
Celtic spiritualityPrayer

Earth Day Meditation.

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Earth day is coming. I find myself constantly thinking about the wonder of God’s creation as is reflected in this meditation prayer.

Earth prayer.001

April 15, 2013 0 comments
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EasterPrayer

Stillness and Sleep by Kimberlee Conway Ireton

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Today’s post by Kimberlee Conway Ireton (author of The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year) was inspired in part by chapter 1, “Learning to Breathe,” of Return to Our Senses: Re-imagining How We Pray. It beautifully reflects my curent theme of Practicing Resurrection.
CloudySky3

CloudySky2

CloudySky1

It’s Easter. For another five glorious weeks it’s Easter. I love that the Easter season is so long. It goes on and on and on. N.T. Wright suggests that we balance the 40 days of Lenten fasting with 40 days of Easter adding. From Easter Sunday to Ascension, he says, we should take up, embrace, include, toss our spiritual hats in the air, and celebrate.

This year for Easter, I’m embracing two much-neglected practices in my life (I think they’re much neglected in almost every American’s life, but that’s beside the point): sleep and stillness.

Sleep

As the mother of four children aged 2 to 9, I am chronically tired. My kids have more energy in their pinky toes than I have in my whole body. I run out of energy long before the day runs out of hours, long before it’s time to put my kids to bed.

So for Easter, instead of forcing myself to just. keep. going, I’m stopping. When my kids go to bed, if I feel tired (and most of the time I do), I go to bed, too. When I put my 2-year-old boys down for a nap, if I feel tired, I let myself fall asleep with them, instead of making myself get up, fold laundry, do the dishes, check email, or whatever not-so-imperative thing I think I have to do.

I am giving myself the gift of sleep for Easter.

Stillness

I am also giving myself the gift of stillness. Two books that I’ve recently read have prodded me to let myself just stop and simply be.

In Deepening the Soul for Justice, a marvelous little book by Bethany Hoang (director of the IJM Institute for Biblical Justice), Hoang writes of the IJM practice of “stillness,” a half-hour at the beginning of each work day in which all employees turn off cell phones, email, social media and stop all work (before they’ve even begun, no less!) in order to seek God in prayer and Bible reading and, well, stillness.

In my life, a half hour of stillness is hard to come by on a daily basis. Most days, at least one of my kids wakes up before I do and usually one or more is awake when I fall exhausted into bed at the end of the day. But I do have days when I can carve out a half hour during the boys’ nap…or afterward, if it’s sunny and I can send all four kids outside to play. I wish I could say I practice a half hour of stillness every day. I don’t. But it’s been such a blessing to even have it as a goal, to be able to say, this is important.

And it is important. It’s important for my mental health, but it’s also important for my physical health and crucial to my spiritual health. As Hoang points out in her book, “if our attempts to seek justice do not first begin with the work of prayer, we will be worn and weary. And our weariness will not be that deeply satisfying, joy-filled tiredness that comes from the worthy battles of justice, but rather a bone- and soul-crushing weariness.”

Boy, do I know that weariness, though it comes not from fighting for justice, but from trying to raise four children to be rational, emotionally healthy human beings and kind-hearted, whole-hearted Christ-followers. Only far too often I’m trying to do that work on my own strength, instead of starting with prayer, continuing in prayer, ending in prayer, day after day after day.

Hoang says that the work of being still (and it is work, this carving out of time and quiet in the midst of a child-full life) is a “declaration to ourselves and to God that the first work of seeking justice is the work of prayer.” In my own life, I need the reminder that the first work of parenting is the work of prayer. And so: stillness.

But legalist that I am, my practice of stillness can easily turn into just one more item on my to-do list, which is where James Bryan Smith’s gentle counsel comes in. In his book The Good and Beautiful God, Smith encourages his readers to “find five minutes each day to sit in silence. Get a cup of something warm and delicious, find a comfortable chair, and just sit quietly. That’s all.”

That’s all. Five minutes. A warm drink. Silence.

I sit in the rocking chair in our living room, so I can look out the window at the eastern sky. I sip hot tea. I keep a notebook on the sideboard beside me so I can jot down anything I don’t want to forget (like the fact that I still need to schedule a vet appointment for the cat or that there’s laundry that needs to be put in the dryer). I stare out the window, watch the clouds scud northward, the tips of the maple across the street tossing in the wind, the dance of the dangling lady-of-the-valley blossoms just outside the window.

It is amazing how this one practice of simply sitting and sipping tea and staring has come to be one of the most treasured parts of my day. If my boys keep sleeping and my older two keep playing elsewhere in the house, my five minutes sometimes stretches into ten or fifteen or thirty. I am doing nothing, just sitting and staring.

But James Bryan Smith assures me that this simple practice of just sitting “will help you slow down and become more present, more able to focus on God in your midst. It might lead you into a regular practice of developing ‘rests’ that make the notes (your actions) in your life become beautiful music.” This is what I want: a beautiful life that reflects our beautiful God.

And so I sit, declaring to myself and to God that stillness is the rock in which any work I do must be rooted because God is the Rock of stillness in whom I am rooting myself in these moments and, as Bethany Hoang avers, “God alone can move and act through us to bring about greater levels of transformation than we could even begin to dream about on our own.”

“Now to him who is able to do far more than all you can ask or imagine, according to the power at work within you, to him be glory and honor in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” —Ephesians 3:20-21

*****

It’s still Easter! There’s still plenty of time to celebrate the season. Christ, our God, died and rose again that we might have life and have it to the full. I invite you to embrace sleep or stillness (or both!) for the remainder of this season, to let the way of quiet release usher you into the marvelous reality of Christ’s resurrection, a gift of such lavish grace that all we can do is receive it.

April 12, 2013 2 comments
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Prayer

A Franciscan Prayer of Blessing

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

As you know I love to post prayers on my blog – both those by well known saints and those little known. While cleaning up a pile of what I thought was junk a few weeks ago I came across some beautiful prayers that people have sent me.  Unfortunately I do not remember who gave me the prayers or where they originally came from.  It was a good reminder to me that hidden in the midst of what we think of as junk are often nuggets of gold.  And these nuggets of gold are only unearthed when we take the time to dig deeply into a pile of junk with observant eyes and listening ears.

This  prayer of blessing though often attributed to St Francis was actually written by Sister Ruth Marlene Fox,, of Sacred Heart Monastery in Richardton, ND.  Its message so resounds in my soul that I find myself using it on a regular basis and I think it is worth publishing again and again:

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers,

half-truths and superficial relationships,

so that we will live deeply in our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression

and exploitation of people and the earth,

so that we will work for justice, equity and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer,

so that we will reach out our hands

to comfort them and change their pain to joy.

And may God bless us with the foolishness to think that

we can make a difference in our world,

so that we will do the things which others say cannot be done.

April 11, 2013 6 comments
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creation careGardening

A Garden Blessing for Earth Day 2013

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

I am currently in Washington D.C. where the cherry blossoms and magnolias are in full bloom. The beauty of God’s creation is awe inspiring and so I could not resist republishing this prayer from To Garden with God together with one of the photos I took at the National Arboretum yesterday. It is also Earth Day in a couple of weeks and this is a wonderful season to remind ourselves of our responsibility to God’s good creation. Enjoy!

Garden blessing 2013.001

You can find the prayer without the photo here.

 

April 10, 2013 3 comments
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creation care

Practicing Resurrection – Planting Trees Helps Girl Survival In India

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine
Photo by Matt Freer - used with permission

Photo by Matt Freer – used with permission

Last week I received a link to an article from my friend Steve Goode reminding me:

In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.

Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members.

This is an issue that I have always been passionate about and I am always frustrated by how complex it is and how difficult to eradicate. The needs so overwhelming and our ability to make a difference seems so limited. I was delighted when I came across this article by Lindsay Tanne:

In Bihar, India—where the bride’s family traditionally pays a dowry—residents are planting the seeds for women’s progress.

Families in Dharhara village have started a new tradition: planting 10 trees whenever a girl is born.

But the gesture is not just symbolic—when it comes to marriage, the benefits are as sweet as the lychees and mangos that will grow.

Subhas Singh, the father of a 19-year-old daughter who is set to marry this month, describes the trees he planted as “our fixed deposits.” He explains that he sold off the fruit three years in advance to pay for his daughter’s wedding. Read the entire article

The planting of trees is not just life giving to those women whose families sell the fruit to provide for their weddings. It is also life giving for the environment.

This story reminds me of one of my heroes of the environmental movement- Wangari Maathai  who started teaching women to plant trees around their villages in Africa. Her actions started a movement that spread around the world. May the planting of these trees too start a movement that spreads and changes lives.

 

April 9, 2013 2 comments
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Easter

Can Solar Cooking Stop Rape in Africa?

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

This video brought tears to my eyes when I came across it a couple of years ago. Practicing resurrection, redemption, renewal indeed. It is amazing to think that rape and violence against women could be reduced by solar cooking. Solar cooking can bring peace and dignity to women’s lives. What impact I wonder could our own creativity provide for people at the margins?

April 8, 2013 0 comments
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Gardening

Time to Garden

by Christine Sine
written by Christine Sine

Its garden day at the Mustard Seed House. We will be transplanting tomatoes, and other summer vegetables, weeding and tidying up the porch (I hope). Our garden never looks as tidy as we would like but it produces lots of food – including these wonderful early greens (had our first garden salad this week).

Early garden greens grown under row covers.

Early garden greens grown under row covers.

All of this reminded me that I have not mentioned how you can be a part of our garden efforts here;

  1. If you live in Seattle and would like to participate in our garden days – good times of food, fellowship and gardening – let me know
  2. I have started over 120 tomato plants, and more basil and squash – obviously more than we can plant. Each year we sell vegetable starts as a small fundraiser for MSA so if you would like to buy your plants from us (sorry only if you can pick them up) here is the order form.
  3. And it is also time to sign up for the Spirituality of Gardening seminar on May 18th.
  4. Those of you who do not live in the Seattle area may like to consider developing your own garden community and perhaps, like other groups we are connected to,  you would like to use To Garden With God as a resource – lots of garden reflections, liturgies and prayers to start your garden days with. Even recipes to help you with what to do with the produce. It is available in black and white, colour and ebook versions. You can even get it together with Snohomish soap’s wonderful hand cream and garden soap in our garden bundle.

garden.seminar.2013

April 6, 2013 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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