Practicing the Presence of Love
The following post is the fifth in a series that is excerpted from my upcoming book Return to Our Senses, which will be available in mid November.
I love Africa and the vibrant fun loving hospitality of my African friends. When I worked in Africa I was intrigued with how prayer wove every part of village life. Everything Africans did had a spiritual dimension to it. Planting the crops, drawing water from the river, even interacting with family and friends were activities that stimulated a prayerful interaction with God.
When I returned to America, I went hunting for this kind of spirituality. Everyone I spoke to referred me to Brother Lawrence’s classic book Practicing the Presence of God. How sad I thought that the only book everyone thinks of that talks about how to enter into the presence of God in the ordinary mundane acts of life is 400 years old. Even sadder is that even though millions have read this little book over the centuries, its truths seem to have had little effect on our faith and our prayer life. Brother Lawrence writes: “I honestly cannot understand how people who claim to love the Lord can be content without the practice of His presence. My preference is to retire with Him to the deepest part of my soul as often as possible. When I am with Him there nothing frightens me, but the slightest diversion away from Him is painful to me.”
How can we be content without the continual practice of the presence of God? The fact that Brother Lawrence could calmly and quietly worship God in the midst of the clatter and the chaos of the kitchen is truly amazing. Noise distracts and exhausts me. I cannot work with the TV blaring or music playing. However as he explains, we can make our hearts personal chapels where we can enter any time to talk to God privately. These conversations can be loving and gentle, and anyone can have them. I hungered for this type of experience that depended not on a quiet place but on a quiet attitude.
Recently I have come across a number of more contemporary books that address prayer and spirituality in this way. Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World was a particularly delightful find. In the introduction to her book she talks about people who call themselves spiritual but not religious: They know there is more to life than what meets the eye. They have drawn close to this “More” in nature, in love, in art, in grief. They would be happy for someone to teach them how to spend more time in the presence of this deeper reality, but when they visit the places where such knowledge is supposed to be found, they often find the rituals hollow and the language antique.
I think all of us hunger for more. We have caught glimpses of the great God of the universe as we played with kids and comforted friends, as we worked in the garden and walked around the lake. Part of us has awakened to God’s breath soaking into our hearts. We know God has cleansed and forgiven us and invited us back into the garden and something has stirred within us.
Unfortunately like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, we find it hard to believe God loves us enough to walk and talk with us. We hide behind hurried lives, self centered ambitions and our own lonely realities, hoping that we can escape the presence of the One who is love. In church too we hide behind the rituals of prayer, song and liturgy, not knowing how to turn them into relationships of love. That continual awareness of the presence of God that Brother Lawrence experienced eludes us.
What difference would it have made to human history if instead of hiding Adam and Eve had come out into God’s loving presence, thrown themselves on the mercy of God, repented and found forgiveness for their actions? What difference would it make to all our lives if we returned to our senses and threw ourselves on the mercy of the One whose loving breath gives us life and whose loving presence fills our world? What difference would it make if we spent more time soaking in the love of God, consciously seeking to center everything we are and do on the One who still aches to walk and talk and communion with us in loving intimate companionship.
This post is excepted from my new book Return to Our Senses which is now available through Mustard Seed Associates at a pre-publication discounted price of $15.
Multinomah Falls Oregon
The following post is the fourth in a series that is excerpted from my upcoming book Return to Our Senses, which will be available in mid November.
One essential element in the creation story that draws us deep into the love of God is water. Life began when the Spirit of God moved over the watery chaos of the deep and brought dry land into being. Throughout the Biblical story emerging from water always symbolizes a transformation from death to life, from chaos to new creation. We see it in the story of Noah and the flood and in the children of Israel passing through the waters that consume the Egyptians. We see it most vividly in the baptism of Jesus. He emerges from the waters with the dove, the loving Spirit of God hovering over him.
Through Christ creation is renewed. Water is no longer symbolic of the threat of chaos but has been transfigured by our loving God into a cleansing force that takes away the sins of the world. In the flood of Noah, sinners were drowned and wiped out. In the cleansing baptism of Jesus sin itself is drowned and the sinners are cleansed and made whole.
I love the imagery in Ezekiel 47:1-12, repeated again in Revelation 22:1-2 of the river of life that flows from the throne of God throughout the new Jerusalem nourishing the trees on its banks. “Life will flourish wherever the water flows… Fruit trees of all kinds will grow along both sides of the river. The leaves of these trees will never turn brown and fall, and there will always be fruit on their branches. There will be a new crop every month, for they are watered by the river flowing from the Temple. The fruit will be for food and the leaves for healing” (Ez 47:9, 12).
Water is essential to life, but unless it is transformed by the blessing of God, it creates floods, devastation and chaos. With the blessing of God however, it cleanses and gives life to the entire creation each day and in every moment. From the moment of our conception, we are wrapped in water’s tender embrace, but we must emerge out of the waters to find true life out in God’s world.
Born Anew Out of the Water
Blessing of water is symbolic, not just of life, but of transformation. Every use of water transforms and renews. When we drink it we rehydrate dry and thirsty cells, we cleanse toxins from our bodies and we revitalize our energy. When we sprinkle it on our gardens it renews the dry and thirsty ground and gives life to every plant. When it rains from the clouds it refreshes and renews the very air we breathe.
Every use of water can be seen as a form of baptism, an opportunity to offer prayers of thanksgiving and appreciation for the gift of water and of life. We can so easily take it for granted, however missing the richness of these prayerful and sacramental moments that using water affords us, reminding us constantly of our covenant with God and reassure us of the cleansing of our souls that has taken place through baptism. Armenian Orthodox theologian Vigen Guroian in his delightful book of garden mediations Inheriting Paradise comments: When we bless water, we acknowledge God’s grace and desire to cleanse the world and make it paradise.
Our bodies are eighty percent water. We are constituted of water and we are born anew of it. It is ubiquitous in our world, a constant reminder of the transforming, life giving power of God. Thanksgiving prayers for the gift of water and the renewal of our baptismal vows should not be confined to a baptismal service. A morning shower and a refreshing cup of tea, these too are baptismal moments, refreshing, renewing and bringing life. As I head out with my watering can onto the porch, here too I experience baptism and as I sprinkle my plants with water and give them life. As I sit and watch the waves crash on the seashore or stand in awe of the breathtaking beauty of a waterfall cascading onto the rocks this too speaks of baptism and the incredible cleansing and renewing experience of water.
I grew up in Australia, a land that is subject to severe droughts, often followed by devastating floods. I quickly learned that water is precious. Every drop is to be treasured and used wisely. Now I live in Seattle, Washington an area that is known for its rainy weather. I don’t just take the rain for granted, sometimes I resent it.
However at the end of summer I am often reminded again of what a gift water is. As the first rain of autumn falls, the brown parched lawns that are such a hallmark of the Seattle summer, give way to verdant green. I sit watching it fall gently on my thirsty garden and drink in the fresh fragrance of the rain cleansed air. In that moment my heart rejoices. Baptism I think. God has drenched the whole earth with love and faithfulness this morning. God has touched me too with a cleansing rain that has seeped into the dry and parched areas of my soul.
Recently as I sat and watched the dawn break on a rain drenched world I wondered: How often do I confess the sin in my life without acknowledging the places where I have already been cleansed by God’s baptismal waters? Wow, it really is like a morning after rain when the light shines more brightly, the air smells more fragrant and song of birds fill the air. Take time to confess before God, not the places where darkness still needs to be uncovered but those wonderful places where God’s light is breaking through. Bask in the touch of God’s approval and love. Hear the gentle voice that whispers: well done good and faithful servant. I suspect that as it was for me, this will be like a cleansing rain, a moment of baptism and a very intimate meeting with God.
This post is excepted from my new book Return to Our Senses which is now available through Mustard Seed Associates at a pre-publication discounted price of $15.
Creating A Sacred Space
The following post is the third in a series that is excerpted from my upcoming book Return to Our Senses, which will be available in mid November.
One of my favorite events each year is a prayer retreat Mustard Seed Associates holds in August on a beautiful parcel of undeveloped land on Camano Island north of Seattle. There are no buildings. Our sanctuary is a cathedral of trees – cedar and maple and alder that rise above is in a breathtaking green canopy. I particularly love to sit in the early mornings before anyone else is awake, drinking in the beauty of God’s awe inspiring creation. This is a sacred space for me, what is often called a thin space where the veil between heaven and earth seems to be translucent and the glory of God shines through in a special way.
Creation Speaks of God
Special places where we feel almost physically embraced by the love of God are important places of prayer for all of us. Be they a comfortable old armchair we return to day by day, a special place to walk or a garden seat that invites us to stop and smell the roses, they should be nurtured and preserved. We also need places to gather for worship. I particularly enjoy the transcendent wonder of the magnificent gothic cathedrals of Europe. Their splendor beckons us into a special place of communion with God. However we don’t need these places built by human hands to create a sanctuary in which we can meet God.
God’s first act in the newly created world we call Earth was not to construct a building, but to create a garden in which to walk, talk and share a loving relationship with humankind. I am sure that every corner of this sacred space, this living temple, was alive with the presence of God. Every part of it revealed God’s loving care for humankind. I have no doubt that as Adam and Eve looked around them everything they saw, touched, smelled and tasted reminded them of their creator who loved not just them but the very earth from which they were formed.
Early monastic communities created walled gardens as an attempt to re-create this Edenic paradise.These enclosed spaces often centered around an apple tree, representing both the tree of life in Genesis and the Cross of Christ.
God was very reluctant to allow the Israelites to build a temple as a place of worship. I often wonder if a temple made from bricks and mortar was ever God’s intention at all. I think God knew that temples and churches would limit our understanding of sacred space and confine even further our expectations of places in which we meet and commune with God. Perhaps God was even more grieved that these people, touched in a special way by the divine presence, felt they needed a structure built with their own hands and not God’s hands in which to worship. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that we do away with our churches. All I want to suggest here is that we learn to take our experiences of God’s abiding presence, and the awe inspiring revelations of church meetings out into the world.
In the New Testament it is not the stone temple that is seen as the place where God dwells, it is the body of Christ. Together we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Jesus Christ himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:20-22).
In the revelation of the new heaven and the new earth we are returned to a temple free culture. God’s light revealed in Jesus Christ, illumines everything. We are no longer blind and deaf and dumb. We see God’s living, vibrant, loving presence everywhere. We hear God’s voice in every moment and we shout God’s praise in every action. Finally in this new heaven and new earth we walk and talk and communion with YWHW, the breath of life, the lover of our souls, no matter where we are and what we are doing. (Revelation 21: 22-24)
If we expect to meet with the One we love wherever we walk, listen, look and learn, all of God’s creation becomes a sacred space where we can interact with God, experience the love of God and see the story of God unfold. As C.S. Lewis expresses it in Letters to Malcolm: “Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”
This post is excepted from my new book Return to Our Senses which is now available through Mustard Seed Associates at a pre-publication discounted price of $15.
Elijah fed by raven
The following post is the second in a series that is excerpted from my upcoming book Return to Our Senses, which will be available in mid November.
The Jesus Prayer
It was the Desert Fathers and Mothers who withdrew into the Egyptian desert about three centuries after Christ to pray and meditate on God’s word, who really developed breath prayers as a spiritual discipline. Evidently they would often sit outside their cells weaving baskets and contemplating Christ’s presence in quiet solitude meditating on short, one breath prayers. They breathed in God’s word slowly and deeply, reverently repeating the prayer over and over, letting it permeate their minds and descend into their hearts. Sometimes they would breathe their prayer before going to sleep at night, repeating it until it lodged deep in their souls. When they woke in the morning the prayer was still on their lips.
Many scholars believe that the Desert Fathers and Mothers picked up one of the most common prayers of the Psalmist: “Lord, have mercy” and developed it into a breath prayer that later became known as the Jesus Prayer. Sometimes it is expanded as “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. For more information visit Soul Shepherding
Not surprisingly, many of us continue to find breathing prayers provide wonderfully enriching ways to deepen our intimacy with God. Some breathing prayers, like the name YHWH and the Jesus prayer, are simple exercises in breathing in and out that calm our spirits and center our attention on the God who is life and love. They usually involve the use of a simple word or phrase from scripture. Here is one example of a well used breath prayer that draws from Psalm 23. Breathe in slowly and deeply as you whisper or think: “The Lord is my Shepherd…” Hold your breath and your consciousness of God’s presence… And then exhale as you whisper or think: “…I shall not want.”
Other breathing prayers are more complex. They can be used to remind us of the incredible transformation that God has initiated and will one day bring to completion in all of us. Other breathing prayers remind us of our commitment to see God’s world transformed into a place peace and abundance for all. Still other breathing prayers can draw us into that intimate place of communion with a God who loves us more deeply than we can ever imagine.
Expand Your Breathing Practices
Over the last few years I have composed a number of breathing prayers that move beyond the simple calming and centering of the Jesus prayer. Some, like this next prayer are wonderful reminders for me of the characteristics of the God’s whose breath I inhale. At the same time they encourage me, as I exhale, to expel from myself all that is not of God.
Breathing prayers are not about emptying ourselves so that we feel a void inside. They are about renewing our minds by saturating ourselves with the presence of God. I like to imagine that the outward breath creates a new space for God to fill. The inward breath draws something new of God’s character into me. As I breathe this prayer I visualize myself breathing in a little more of God and who God intends me to be and letting go of some of what is not of God.
Breathe out empty yourself: of hate, of fear, of anxiety,
Breathe in fill yourself with love, with life, with mercy.
Breathe out empty yourself of busyness, of selfishness of greed,
Breathe in fill yourself with peace, with joy, with hope.
Breathe out empty yourself of idolatry, of self worship, of false gods,
Breathe in fill yourself with God, with Christ, with the Holy Spirit.
Breathing prayers can also form an important foundation for our engagement in the pain and suffering of God’s world. I wrote the following prayer to remind myself that breath cannot be held to oneself. We must breathe it back out into the world. I am called to be both a contemplative and an activist and I as I take notice of my breathing I am reminded constantly of that.
Obviously this is a very different understanding of the outward breath than I described above. This double meaning is very much in keeping with the physical act of breathing out however. We breathe out to expel toxic substances from your body, cleansing and renewing our blood. That outgoing breath can also be a source of life to others however. Mouth to mouth resuscitation depends on this. That breath which cleanses and renews our bodies, holds something of the life giving presence of God which goes back out into the world to renew the life of others.
This post is excepted from my new book Return to Our Senses which is now available through Mustard Seed Associates at a pre-publication discounted price of $15.
Return to Our Senses – front cover
I have jut ordered the first copies of Return to Our Sensesand should have them in hand by the middle of November. So I have decided that it is time to give you all a sneak preview. In fact a lot of sneak previews. In the next couple of weeks I will post excerpts from each of the chapters to give you a sense of what the book is about.
As many of you know this book was the culmination of a journey that began several years ago when I started asking people What makes you feel close to God? Over the last few years I have asked this question of hundreds of people from diverse backgrounds and faith traditions. They tell me about playing with kids, turning the compost pile, washing the dishes and walking in the local park. Even taking a shower gets a mention.Two things have surprised me. First, people rarely mention church or Bible study. Second, most people come closest to God in tangible everyday activities yet rarely identify these as spiritual practices or forms of prayer.
These observations started me on a journey to rediscover the nature and purpose of prayer. Starting with Madame Guyon’s assertion that prayer is an exercise in love, I started to discover prayer not as an activity I engage in but a relationship I enter into. My journey has opened windows into the loving nature of God far beyond my imaginings. It has exposed me to prayer traditions I never knew existed. It has encouraged me to create my own new and fresh expressions of prayer. It has invited me to reimagine the very concept of prayer. And it has also brought me together with a growing number of people who like me search for a more vital prayer life.
Return to Our Senses: Reimagining How We Pray.was written for those who hunger, like I did, for a deeper, more life encompassing relationship with God, a relationship that really does invite us to pray without ceasing. Some of the practices I share have existed for centuries and only require us to tap into the rich knowledge and practices of ancient followers of Christ to access them. Others will be newly created, springing fresh from our imaginations and creativity, specially designed for intimacy with God in our present culture.
For example, I have long been a collector of rocks. As a child I loved to gather specimens when my family went on long road treks over the summer holidays. And in Australia there are some wonderful rocks to collect – sapphire chips, small pieces of opal, agates, and even flecks of gold. But in the last few years it is not these semi precious stones that have caught my attention. Now like the Israelites of old, who often built cairns of rocks into memorials, I gather rocks that mark significant events or remind me of significant characteristics of God. I give them names as memorials to remind me of these special moments with God.
I have a beautiful green serpentine marble like rock I picked up on the island Iona off the west coast of Scotland. I found it on the beach where the Celtic saint Columba is supposed to have come ashore after being expelled from Ireland. I call it my rock of faithfulness. When I hold it in my hand I am reminded of all the faithful people, like Columba who have gone before me, embraced by God’s love, sharing the faith and building the kingdom of God.
My friend Kim uses rocks as a totally different form of spiritual practice. She calls it skipping stones into a new creation. When her husband lost his job recently, she walked down to the local beach with a handful of stones from their driveway. She tossed them into the ocean, “letting go” of the possibilities and hopes that the job had offered. As she prayerfully threw each stone, she released her sadness, disappointments and hurts reminding herself that as the stones will be polished by the movement of the waves and tides, so is her life being polished by the all encompassing love of God. As she did this she felt liberated, and walked away singing.
It is my growing conviction that it is not in church or in our “prayer closets” that most of our praying is done. Church is more a place that is meant to help us interpret and act on the presence of God in our lives and in our world. Breathing, drinking a glass of water, picking up a stone, taking a photo can all become acts of prayer, thin spaces that awaken us to the loving presence of God. Our God is a God of endless creativity and imagination, a creativity that has been passed on to all of us who are made in God’s image. This creativity is meant to be poured out in the ways we pray, worship and practice our faith. Each moment is, I believe, pregnant with new possibilities, new concrete expressions of prayer waiting to be born.
So where do you feel closest to God? What are the creative ways that God might stir your imagination through this experience of closeness, into new expressions of prayer?
Return to Our Senses is available through Mustard Seed Associates at a pre-publication discounted price of $15.
Table of Contents:
Waking Up To the Love of God – the Beginning of Prayer
Learning to Breathe
Blessing the water
Creating a Sacred Space
Practicing the Presence of Love
Contemplating Love – The Foundations of Prayer
Learning to Listen
Seeing with New Eyes
Stepping Out in Fresh Ways
Walking with Our Fingers
Facebook, Blogging and Go Anywhere Prayers
The Gathering of Memories
Love Overflowing – Prayer without Ceasing
Living into the Lord’s Prayer
Living Into the Life of Jesus
Living Into the Banquet Feast of God
Living into the New World of God
Speak to me – Bonnie Harr
The beauty of the prayers that continue to be posted on the Light for the Journey site enrich and stir my faith. I hope that they will yours as well.
Let us walk into this day,
God’s love to give us hope,
Christ’s life to give us guidance,
The Spirit’s power to transform us.
Let us walk with joy,
Let us walk with purpose,
Let us walk each step towards God’s new world.
———————————-
May we put our hope in God’s unfailing love,
And trust in God’s eternal faithfulness.
May it lead us into paths of justice,
And guide us towards God’s righteousness,
Where we give ourselves to feed the hungry,
And commit ourselves to share God’s healing.
May we always live towards God’s new reality,
A new community with wholeness, peace and abundance for all.
———————————–
Let us pray for justice faithandworship.com
God give us this day your hearts desire,
May we love as you love with justice and mercy,
May we live as Christ lived with compassion and generosity,
May we become what the spirit intends filled with peace and joy,
May we this take new steps to be transformed into the image of God.
————————————
Pray for justice – Christine Sine
Lord, we bring to you those ‘almost’ moments.
When the opportunity arose to bring your name
into a conversation and we almost did.
When we were challenged to give to those
who are in need, and we almost did.
When we heard of an injustice and, tempted
to reach for our pen, we almost did.
When challenged by the whisper of your voice
to go where you would send, we almost did.
Forgive our timidity, our reluctance
to live the life that we proclaim.
Fill us with your Spirit of love and power
that by our words and actions
your name might be glorified,
and our ‘almost’ become ‘always’!
—————————
May our ears be attuned – faithandworship.com
In you, O Lord, do we trust,
in your love we delight,
for there is no other
to whom we can turn
who knows our needs
before we ask,
reads our hearts
and answers our requests.
In you, O Lord, do we trust,
in your peace we depend,
for there is no other
to whom we can turn
who calms our souls,
brings release,
and in whose
arms we would rest.
————————–
God let us not hold onto what we should release,
Let us not embrace what does not satisfy,
Let us not commit to what is not your will.
May we give up all to follow,
Twighlight burning – Bonnie Harr
Death is good – leaves must die
I am sitting in my office looking out at a slowly dying world. The maple leaves whose bright red colour I have been admiring for the last week are now buffeted by the winds and falling to the ground. The squash plants are dead, the tomatoes are dying and everything is getting ready for winter. Last year I wrote this reflection on Weathering the Winter Storms. It is as necessary to be ready for the death of winter as it is for the new life of spring.
Death is a necessary part of life and that is not only in the garden. Yesterday I chatted to MSA team member Cindy Todd about the transitions we are going through and the things that have had to die in order for us to re-emerge with a newness that comes from God. “Death is good” she commented, reflecting on the fact that her business Snohomish Soap Company would never have been birthed if she and her husband had not lost jobs in Florida and decided to move to Seattle. Watching Cindy give birth, grow and bear fruit out of the seeds that were planted through the death of her old life has been inspiring. I love this video that she put together for her recent involvement in Fast Pitch.
So often death in the form of a lost job or failed expectations is necessary for God’s newness to emerge. Sometimes when we look back we are aware that God has been prompting us in new directions for a while but the security and comfort of the old holds us bound. God in love and compassion forces us to die and let go.
Jesus says: If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. (Matt 10:39) The journey of faith is a cycle of birth, growth, fruit and death. And in the place of death we often find the seeds of new life – the longings and desires of our hearts that we have suppressed because change and radical newness threaten our comfortable status quo.
Two questions emerge for me from this reflection. First: What does God want to put to death in your life that you are still clinging onto?
For those who feel they are in a season of death: What are the seeds of newness God is planting within you during this season? What are your dreams and hopes from the past that might be birthed into something totally new at this time?
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!