A contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taizé. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers. It’s good to be back posting these beautiful contemplative services again.
Thank you for praying with us!
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756.
“Aber Du Weisst” (Taizé song)
“Što Oko Ne Vidje” (What No Eye has Seen) – Taizé song
“Your Word, O Lord, is a Light” (C’est toi ma lampe)
By the Taizé community, copyright 2010, all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756
“Be Thou My Vision” — Folk arrangement
Traditional Irish hymn, public domain. Arrangement by Andrew Myers and Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
Kyrie written and performed by Kester Limner.
Service readings:
“To see ourselves as we truly are—a wisp of love itself—is perhaps our deepest fear. But it is also our greatest grace. If we are to be the new human, we must begin by embracing love, which always seeks to incarnate itself. Love is enfleshed everywhere. Everywhere the Holy One is shouting and whispering, ‘Let me love you.’ And all that is asked of us is to receive. In reality, that is our life’s work. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.” -Judy Cannato, Field of Compassion
“Help Us to See” prayer by Andrew King, copyright 2017.
Writing by Karen Wilk and visual art by Karen Tamminga-Paton
Love Covers
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of wrongs.” 1 Peter 4:8
My daughters and I had a conversation about this verse last summer. It needs some midrashing. Surely it does not mean that love just covers up wrongdoing- injustice, abuse, prejudice, discrimination, inequality! They were dissatisfied with the way it could be interpreted. So what does it mean? How does love break down walls and forgive without dismissing, denying or diminishing the magnitude of wrongs done and being done in the world, both near and far? Good questions for Lent. Good questions for pondering Karen Tamminga-Paton’s painting, titled Love Covers. Study it and ponder the poetry…
Love covers
Like a cozy sweater
Comfortably snug
Like a soft blanket
And a warm hug.
Love covers
When we need to see
When it’s time to learn
Or unlearn what used to be
Some say, “I don’t see colour”
I say I want to see more
And know more, honestly
That love might cover
With tender-heartedness
Listening ears, and open-handedness.
For there is no separation
in a hug, we embrace
On par, mutual grace,
A shared, and safe space…
So that in covering, love reveals
Our common humanity
Creator’s inclusivity
The beauty of diverse community
The wonder of colour in unity
The sweetness of multiple harmonies…
BUT how can love cover a multitude of wrongs?
Racist violent brutalities
Bombings with words and weapons,
fatalities
So many systemic biased realities
How can love cover
Our ignorance, and impudence
Such widespread avoidance and discordance?
I have no answer, yet I know:
Love endures, and love with kindness grows,
Love carries, cures, and cares
Love gives, forgives and all things bears
Love, Eternal and Divine,
And we, the heirs
Don’t we know?
Love, love
is at the end of every road
Carrying the heavy,
dirty,
load
Covering all the flaws and vice
In life restoring sacrifice
In willing, woeful suffering–
Un-cover-ing
That we might behold:
Love’s warm embrace unfold
And with gentleness take hold
And change our every day
Compassion on display
Precious poignant tug
Simple, not-so-simple hug
Come, come what may–
Love, hear us when we pray,
Love cover all
Love have Your way.
Find more of Karen Tamminga-Paton’s art on her website here.
Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week
In the last few days of his life, Jesus moved from garden to garden from suffering to resurrection.
Join Christine Sine for a Lent retreat that reflects on this journey and prepares for the challenging week that follows Palm Sunday.
Click here to register! We are once again offering several price points to aid those who are students or in economic hardship
It’s only a week away and it is time to sign up. March 25th I will conduct my annual Lenten retreat Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week. This one has a little different focus than usual and I am very excited about it.
It is another journey into changed perspectives and the breaking down of walls. This retreat is not about gardening. It is about walking with Jesus through all the seasons of creation as he walks from Palm Sunday to Easter resurrection.
To be reconciled to God we must be reconciled to the whole created world and this we catch a glimpse of in Jesus’ walk through Holy Week. Did you know that Palm Sunday resounds with echoes of Sukkot and the celebration of harvest? Shouts of “Hosanna” sound a prayer for Earth’s productivity that echoes again in the birthing of the Christian liturgy of bread and wine inaugurated on Maundy Thursday at the last supper. From there Jesus moves into the garden of Gethsemane, and onward to Golgotha where the potency of Christ’s life, now released in death, reverberates through the earth itself with shakes, the splitting of rocks and even the revival of the dead who rise in witness. Finally we move to the garden of resurrection where Mary “thinks he is the gardener”, that tiny verse of cosmic importance because Jesus is indeed the gardener of the new creation.
Jesus walk through Holy Week is a walk through creation, and the last few days is a journey from a garden of sorrow, through suffering to a garden of resurrection life. Adam and Eve move from a garden paradise to a garden of suffering. Jesus moves from a garden of suffering to the garden of new creation. Recognizing these strong connections between the life ,suffering and death of Christ, and the beautiful creation God gifted us with has become an essential part of my walk during Lent and Easter.
It is an aspect of the Gospel story at all all of us need to embrace and Lent is a perfect season in which to do so.
I hope you will join me on this journey and draw closer to Christ and creation in the process.
River Aln at dawn © George Taylor
by Carol Dixon
Opening words: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercy never comes to an end. It pours out upon us, fresh as the morning, sure as the sunrise, God’s love never fails. (Lam 3:22 GNB)
Hymn: Every new morning (Words & Music: Carol Dixon)
Every new morning God gives us freely
hearts that are thankful, strength for the task,
people who love us, joy in our service,
all we have need of if we but ask.
God will be with us in all our thinking,
in all our speaking, in all we do;
and as we praise him by all our actions,
God will be with us, seeing us through.
God in the morning, God in the noontide,
God in the evening, throughout the day;
God is within us, and all around us,
behind, before us all of the way.
© Carol Dixon 1998
Opening prayer: St Ninian’s catechism (from Cry of the Deer by David Adam)
Within each piece of creation, within each person,
our hidden God waits, to cause us to laugh, and surprise us with his glory.
Within each moment of time, within each moment and hour,
our hidden God approaches us to call our name and give us his joy.
Within each human heart, within our innermost being,
our hidden God touches us to awaken us to his love and his presence.
Everything is within him, the human being, and the heart;
God calls us to open our eyes and our hearts to him in our worship and in our lives.
Awaken us to your glory, God, we pray, today and every day
To enjoy the joys of your creation, and reflect your love. Amen.
Reflection
The month of March is full of celebrations of Saints’ days, especially the Celtic saints – beginning with St. David on March 1st through to St. Cuthbert on 20th March and on 17 March it is St Patrick’s day. Patrick was born in 414 AD and his father was a decurion believed to be serving at Banna (Birdoswald) on the Roman Wall. His grandfather was the priest of the church there and as a child he was brought up as a Christian though he ignored his faith and was a wild lad as a young teenager. In his autobiography (known as his Confessions) Patrick said he first truly discovered God was with him when he was a slave in Ireland as he tended his master’s sheep.
David Adam in his book Cry of the Deer writes:
When Patrick was only 16 he was captured by a raiding party from Ireland and sold as a slave to a petty king in Armargh. In an instant his future was gone, the securities of his position and any plans for his life had disappeared. Somehow he managed to meet up with fellow Christians, possibly slaves captured like himself. It would have been easy to despair but instead this is the time when Patrick’s faith and his personal relationship with God blossomed. As he later wrote: “I often prayed in the daytime as well as at night – in the forest, on the mountains, and before daylight I was roused to prayer – in snow, in frost and rain – and I felt no harm could come to me for the Holy Spirit seethed within me”.
After 6 years Patrick managed to escape and returned home. But Ireland had already captured him in other ways and, as St. Paul heard the call to preach the gospel in Europe, (Acts 16: 6). Patrick dreamed he heard his friends calling to him ‘We pray thee, come and walk among us’, and in spite of the danger of being put to death as a runaway slave, Patrick returned to Ireland as a missionary where he shared his love of God with friend and enemy alike.
St. Patrick
Photo by Sergio Mena Ferreira on Unsplash
The Celtic Christians, like Patrick, saw God in all of creation, and said their prayers on awakening, at noon, in the evening, and before they went to sleep. They involved God in all they did from building the fire each morning to ‘smooring’ it (dampening it down) at night. They involved God in every task – there are prayers for milking the cow, making a meal, creating a plough or even for forging a sword. They recognized God as divine creator who cared for and delighted in the universe he created.
Think about something you have made. Something that is precious to you. Something you love. Gradually over the years it has become battered and a bit broken and it has lost its original purpose. Do you cast it aside & throw it away? Or do you do something to put it right so that you can cherish it even more? I love watching the Repair Shop on TV where people bring precious objects that have seen better days for the team to restore them to their former glory. The difference between before and after is amazing as so much love and care is put into restoring each one and the joy on people’s faces as they see their cherished possession restored is very touching.
David Adam reminds us that God is the great restorer – he looked on the world he had made, the world he declared good and beautiful at its Creation and saw that over the years people had spoiled it, even broken it but instead of abandoning it or destroying it he sent his Son to repair it and bring it back to its former glory in him. As Christians we are blest to have our very own Repair Shop to come to for mending – through prayer, through worship, through fellowship together with Jesus, our redeemer who takes all the brokenness and makes all new again. Like those Repair Shop craftsmen working behind the scenes, as recipients we may not be able to see how he does it but we can see the end result and rejoice.
Prayers (You may like to light a tea light)
Photo by CHIRAG K on Unsplash
In a time of quietness now let’s allow God to repair and restore all the brokenness in our lives and in our world as we bring our prayers to him for ourselves, our world, or someone we know to be in need as we listen to a beautiful song by Pete Scott, sung by Sheila Hamil:
I offer you today, Lord
The Lord’s Prayer
Closing words:
There are so many wonderful hymns based on prayers of Celtic Christians – from Be thou my vision to Lord of all hopefulness and the magnificently powerful Kaim prayer for protection ‘I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity’ which is attributed to St Patrick. One of my favourites is a version of St Patricks Breastplate by James Quinn set to to the Scottish tune Bunessan.
Hymn: This day God gives me (Tune Morning has broken)
Blessing: from the Western Isles from David Adams Cry of the Deer. Called The eye of God.
May the Father who created you with eye benign behold you
The son who dearly purchased you with eye divine enfold you
The Spirit who lives within you with eye refining hold you
In friendliness the Holy three behold you on your bended knee
And the blessing of the Trinity be yours each day, eternally. Amen
Closing music: An Irish blessing: May the road rise to meet you. (Celtic Thunder)
Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week
In the last few days of his life, Jesus moved from garden to garden from suffering to resurrection.
Join Christine Sine for a Lent retreat that reflects on this journey and prepares for the challenging week that follows Palm Sunday.
Click here to register! We are once again offering several price points to aid those who are students or in economic hardship
By Jean Andrianoff — Originally posted March 28, 2019 here.
No doubt the most famous wall in the world is the Great Wall of China, a colossal feat of human engineering. In its 2,700-year history, only one invader successfully breached this wall: Genghis Khan of Mongolia.
This literal wall between China and Mongolia mirrors a figurative wall of antagonism between the Chinese and the Mongols, as ancient as the Great Wall itself. When we lived in Mongolia in the mid-1990’s, the hostile feelings remained. Mongolians we spoke with had little use for either of their neighbors—neither Russia on the north nor China to the south. While we found they outspokenly despised the Russians who represented 70 years of Soviet domination of their country; Mongolians’ enmity toward the Chinese was even more intense.
Christianity at the time was young in Mongolia; only a handful of believers were more than ten years old in the faith. When we arrived in Mongolia in early 1993 there were an estimated 200 followers of Christ in the country. Most of these new Christians were young in chronological age as well, young adults comprising the majority of the members of the rapidly emerging church. Eree’s family was one of the few entire families to have embraced the faith. This capable young woman, who worked in our office, invited us to dinner to meet her family. We found her parents to be warm, engaging, and enthusiastic about their new-found faith. They had been among the first believers when Mongolia had opened to Christian witness. One of the things they told us that evening gave me an entirely new perspective on Paul’s words to the Ephesian Christians:
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (Ephesians 2:14-18, NIV)
Eree’s mother told us of an encounter they had with a group of Chinese Christians, and how gratifying it felt to fellowship with these people who seemed more like brothers and sisters than ancient rivals. To her, this experience gave truth to Paul’s words and verified the power of the Gospel to break down ancient prejudices.
Never again have I read this passage without thinking of Eree and her family and how the great wall of hostility between historical enemies was shattered by the costly reconciliation of Christ. Yes, the passage was originally intended for Jews and Gentiles. Like the literal wall separating the Chinese and Mongolians, a literal wall in the temple courts separated Gentiles and Jews, so that Gentiles were excluded from the inner courts where sacrifices for sin were performed. But with the death of Christ, the figurative wall of separation this represented was abolished, with both sides now having equal access to the Father.
While I understand this concept, I have not lived in a context where I have experienced the Jewish/Gentile division. However, seeing the Chinese/Mongolian wall of prejudice swept away among new believers in Christ has given me a fresh perspective on the power of God to break down walls that separate even the most ancient enemies. No matter how great the wall we face, God’s power is more than adequate to break it down.
Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week
In the last few days of his life, Jesus moved from garden to garden from suffering to resurrection.
Join Christine Sine for a Lent retreat that reflects on this journey and prepares for the challenging week that follows Palm Sunday.
Click here to register! We are once again offering several price points to aid those who are students or in economic hardship
By Ana Lisa de Jong — Originally posted here on March 27, 2019.
I wonder is God a God of rules,
and rituals
and certain ways of doing things?
There is place for tradition,
and practices that give symbolism,
and meaning
to what is important.
But I think that God,
who is Being,
calls us to respond in the same vein.
Behold,
we come at the prompting of His Spirit
in our understanding of the Word.
And in our need,
and in our gratitude
and we lay down all semblance of
appearances
and we lay down
in the dust,
all our motivations,
our desire for attention
or affirmation for doing things
correct, or well.
And we open our hearts,
which always starts
with forgetting what
we have learned,
and learning to listen
to something new.
God is always in the creation
business,
always about surprising
and arriving in some
new and different
way.
That might mean throwing
off tradition
and appearances
to the winds
and following his
sandaled feet
and the footprints
left in his wake
where-ever they lead.
Living Tree Poetry
March 2019
Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week
In the last few days of his life, Jesus moved from garden to garden from suffering to resurrection.
Join Christine Sine for a Lent retreat that reflects on this journey and prepares for the challenging week that follows Palm Sunday.
Click here to register! We are once again offering several price points to aid those who are students or in economic hardship
by Christine Sine
This morning I sat in my sacred corner looking out at a drab and chilly Seattle morning. My husband tells me that spring arrived while I was away in Australia, but my body is still tuned to the late Australian summer days I left behind. The delightful dawn chorus of kookaburras and lorikeets still reverberates in my mind.
Jet lag is a strange phenomenon that insists our bodies are out of synch with the world around us. According to Google, it is a temporary sleep problem caused by a mismatch between a person’s normal daily rhythms and a new time zone. For me it is far more than that as it doesn’t just impact my sleep but also my eating, my emotions and my ability to work. I cling to the memories of my trip and the warm, fuzzy feelings of laughter and delight with family and friends. I cling to the sounds of kookaburras and lorikeets, the flash of colour in the morning sun and the fragrance of eucalyptus trees all around. I cling more than anything to the love that binds me to my brothers, stronger now than ever. How precious to be a part of a family that loves and cares for each other even when we are a long way apart.
Unfortunately this trip also left me with an ache in my heart. My eldest brother has malignant melanoma and though he currently appears healthy, the disease is insidiously spreading in his body and the treatments do not seem to be effective. It is probable that I will not see him alive and healthy again so I cling to the delight of his presence and the special place he always held in my life. My gentle giant brother, a very positive male role model for me.
My trip to Australia, my chance to revisit my family and drink in the beauty of the love and affection that radiates from them is an important part of my Lenten journey this year. The walls of separation were broken down for the first time for 4 years and the bonds that bind us were strengthened.
Walls, I realize are not always made from bricks and mortar. They are not always made of physical materials at all. Sometimes they exist only in our minds. Wherever the walls in our lives are, we need the long journey of Lent and maybe even the experience of jet lag to help break them down. Many of us live our whole lives feeling out of synch with the world around us. So what do we do:
Dawn flying into San Francisco
Light exposure is a prime influence on our body’s circadian rhythms and our ability to adapt to the new rhythms of the place to which we have travelled. After travelling west, we expose ourselves to light in the evening to adjust to a later than usual time zone. After traveling east as I did last week, we expose ourselves to morning light to adapt to an earlier time zone. My first early morning dawn light on this trip occurred as we flew into San Francisco, but sitting here each morning looking out at the Seattle landscape, hard though it might be, is probably the most important part of my re-orientation. I even developed a morning prayer to help me refocus.
I welcome the early morning light,
And embrace the brightness,
Of Christ’s presence within the day.
I welcome its beauty and the unfurling of it’s joy.
Unique and special to this place and time.
I welcome its grief and the weight of its sorrow,
Unwanted but ever present in my mind.
Here at the beginning of the day,
The light of Christ surrounds me,
And I welcome it into my life.
Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week
In the last few days of his life, Jesus moved from garden to garden from suffering to resurrection.
Join Christine Sine for a Lent retreat that reflects on this journey and prepares for the challenging week that follows Palm Sunday.
Click here to register! We are once again offering several price points to aid those who are students or in economic hardship
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