A contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taizé. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
Thank you for praying with St Andrews Episcopal Church Seattle.!
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756.
“Rabboni Beloved”
By Kester Limner and Andy Myers, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“O You Are Beyond All Things”
Words and music by Taizé Copyright and all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
“Down in the River to Pray”
Traditional American spiritual, public domain
Arrangement by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“When He Cometh”
Public domain hymn, written in 1856 by William Orcutt Cushing, who was a Methodist minister and advocate for the education of blind children. Originally, the lyrics were written as “make up His jewels”, but my mother always sang it to me as “take up”, so that’s how I sing it. I like the image of God collecting his scattered treasures, like the woman seeking the lost coin in Luke 15. –Kester
Readings quoted in this service include:
Excerpt from Transfiguration by Edwin Muir; “Weird” by Steve Garnaas-Holmes (unfoldinglight.net)
by Christine Sine – Originally posted here on May 20th, 2019.
When the Bible declares that we are made in the “image and likeness” of the Creator, it is affirming that creativity is at our core just as it lies at the core of the Creator of all things. (Creativity – Matthew Fox)
This week has overflowed with awe and wonder for me because in the appreciation of creativity, I have encountered my Creator in a very special and intimate way. Creativity is not just all around us. It is also in us. It is a gift from God, and a gift that wells up and flows out of each of us, drawing us into intimate relationship with God. It is indeed” at our core”, meant not just to be acknowledged, but to be savoured, admired and expressed, enriching us, and those around us in the process.
Creativity – and with it creation – is still very much in process. There is a river of creativity running through all things, all relationships, all beings, all corners and centers of this universe. We are here to join in, to get wet, to jump in to ride these rapids, wild and sacred as they be (Creativity: Matthew Fox 66)
This week has emphasized this for me in many ways. The creativity of God, seen in the beauty of spring blossoms, unfurling leaves, even the changing light and shade of shadows sweeps us into a breathtaking display of awe and wonder, stirring us into our own expressions of creativity. This week as enjoyed my awe and wonder walks, my gaze shifted towards other aspects of life that instilled awe in me, and now I am surrounded on all sides with a spectacular array of awe inspiring stimuli and creativity.
More than anything it has been peoples’ creativity, this gift from God that also reveals God to us, that has caught my attention.
Colorful kōlams, such as this one by Godavari Krishnamurthy, are drawn during festivals. R. KRISHNAMURTHY/COURTESY OF KAVERI PURANDHAR
My eyes were riveted by this article that talked about the incredible artistic creativity of millions of women in India who use rice flour and geometric design to create pictorial prayers.
BEFORE THE FIRST RAYS OF sunlight stream across the rice fields and mud roads in the Nilgiri Mountains, before they force their way through the high-rises in the urban jungle of Chennai and Madurai, the women of Tamil Nadu are up for the day. In the dark, they clean the threshold to their home, and, following a centuries-long tradition, painstakingly draw beautiful, ritualistic designs called kōlam, using rice flour. Read the entire article here
Closer to home, I have been admiring this beautiful piece of art painted by Lara Cooper in Australia who used a photo I posted on Facebook last year for her inspiration.
Tom with Goldie – artwork by Lara Cooper.
Then there is this hymn that Carol Dixon sent me from the UK.
Signs of God ‘s glory (Tune: Bard of Armargh/Streets of Laredo)
What signs of God’s glory are seen in the city,
hemmed in by the buildings of concrete and ore?
For we cannot tread the rich earth on hard pavements,
or hear the sheep bleating above the cars’ roar.
Yet still we can scour the sky for God’s patterns,
or notice a flower blooming on some waste ground;
and glimpse in a spider web shimmering dewdrops,
for in the unnoticed our Creator is found.
We see God behind the sad eyes of a vagrant,
hear God in the cry of a child who’s afraid;
and in work worn features of stressed city slickers,
our God reaches out to the world that he made.
So help us to notice, great God of Creation,
your handiwork traces in country and town,
in city or wilderness, may we discover
that your living presence is always around.
© Carol Dixon July 2009
What is Your Response?
Where have you expressed your creativity this week?
What creativity of others has caught your attention?
In what ways have you been drawn into a more intimate relationship with God through this creativity?
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Did you know that alongside Christine Sine’s book The Gift of Wonder, we have many resources available to you? The free downloadable bonus packet or beautiful prayer cards featuring prayers from the book, for example – something to hold and behold! Or perhaps you’d like to journey through the book alongside a retreat – we have that too! You can check it all out in our shop!
Last week on Friday, I was in beautiful Northern California having communion over looking the Pacific Ocean with the wonderful group of pilgrims who came to the Finding Your Thinplace Retreat in Wine Country. We gathered at The Bishop’s Ranch in beautiful Healdsburg, CA near the Russian River. Our goal was to rest, refresh and refill or empty cups. I know that my cup is overflowing with the beauty of the place and the people who gathered together and created a space to celebrate life with Jesus.
Finding Your Thinplace Communion
I love celebrating! I think we all need to take more opportunities to celebrate each other, and the events and ‘wins” in our lives. Too often we don’t take the time to notice small victories and wonders around us. And after all the trauma and drama of the last few years, we need to relearn celebrating while we take time to process and grieve.
When I was a director of Spiritual Formation, I used to get in trouble for talking about celebrating Lent. Lent isn’t usually seen as celebration.. I guess a better word, would be PRACTICE rather than celebration. But I’m wondering today about how I might celebrate in my Lenten Practice this year.
I put together this list a couple of years ago for our thinplace community. I invited everyone to consider the type of Lenten Practice they needed. I am asking asking each of us this year, what type of Lenten Practice do you need in 2023? What kind of Lenten Journey is God inviting you on?
Lent= The Season of the Church Year before Holy Week and Easter. 40 Days not including Sunday.
Sundays are Feast Days so whatever you might give up can be enjoyed if you wanted to do so.
Three Traditional Pillars of Lent are:
Prayer
Fasting
Alms Giving and Justice Practice
LENTEN PRACTICE IDEAS
What do you want your Lenten Journey to be like this year?
What is Jesus inviting you to focus on as you practice Lent this year?
What do you need in your spiritual life as you begin Lent?
How can you grow closer to Jesus between now and Easter Sunday?
SOME IDEAS TO CONSIDER:
AN ADVENTURE:
This practice of Lent might include physical activity to get you outside or it might include creative activity that you’ve been putting off or neglecting. Where do you experience the love and presence of Jesus? When and how do you feel closest to God? That’s your Thinplace! This could this be your area of practice and focus this Lent.
Or Do you need to experience something new with God? Trying the adventure of a silent retreat or a sabbath practice. Planning more fun and play with God. Perhaps learning something new with God, like reading a biography, learning about a new spiritual practice or even trying a new hobby that could help you connect more with Jesus. Or expanding your knowledge on issues of justice could be the adventure you and Jesus go on this Lent.
Sabbath as Resistance, New Edition with Study Guide by Walter Brueggemann
Practicing: Changing Yourself to Change the World by Kathy Escobar
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle
Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk: A Christian’s Guide to Engaging Politics by Eugene Cho
Bread for the Resistance: Forty Devotions for Justice People by Donna Barber
A PILGRIMAGE:
The Practice of Pilgrimage involves seeing the gifts of the Journey. Most of us cannot travel to amazing places like a regular pilgrimage would involve, like to Iona, Ireland, or Spain. How can you do a pilgrimage in your own town? Discover places of significance …places of prayer, places of conflict, places of beauty and go see and take time to notice what God is doing there.
Take a photo pilgrimage through your past trips and journeys and remember what you learned and discovered about yourself and God, asking Jesus to show you new things from these trips and experiences. Do a photo pilgrimage in your town/city/daily life.
Remember that on pilgrimage, everything is a gift, from the crying babies, to the lines you stand in and the interruptions and detours along the way. All are gifts!
Celtic Daily Prayer: Book One: The Journey Begins (Northumbria Community) by Northumbria Community (2015-09-24) by Northumbria Community;
Celtic Daily Prayer: Book Two: Farther Up and Farther In (Northumbria Community) by The Northumbria Community
Lost in Wonder: Rediscovering the Spiritual Art of Attentiveness by Esther de Waal
A Seven Day Journey With Thomas Merton by Esther De Waal
FASTING:
Practice fasting from politics, news, whining, technology, social media, shopping, or any thing getting in the way of your relationship with Jesus.
God’s Chosen Fast by Arthur Wallis
Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites by Lynne M. Baab
May It Be So: Forty Days with the Lord’s Prayer by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson
WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE/ CAMP OUT
Practices might include hiking, camping, taking time out in nature and places of beauty
Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking by Bonnie Smith Whitehouse
*In God’s Creation: Devotions for the Outdoors by Barbara Baranowski
The Gift of Wonder: Creative Practices for Delighting in God by Christine Aroney-Sine
HONEYMOON
How can you fall more in love with Jesus between now and Easter? Honeymoons are times for the couple to focus on one another. Sometimes honeymoons are in beautiful places. Usually Honeymoons have lots of time to be alone and be together. What would a honeymoon with Jesus look like? What would it be like to focus on Jesus as your true love? How could you receive more of the love and acceptance of Jesus? How could you truly experience and know that you are God’s Beloved?
You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living by Henri J. M. Nouwen
Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World by Herni J.M. Nouwen
Lenten Hobo Honeymoon (Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lenten) by Edward Hays
RETREAT
We are all feeling exhausted and burned out due to the pandemic and everything else in our lives. A Retreat Practice might include Sabbath, Silence, and/or Journaling. You could plan actual times of “retreat” each week. Or plan to go on a retreat during the course of Lent. Taking time for creative practices, long walks, bubble baths and times of prayer can all be a part of your Retreat Practice this Lent. You can also join Christine Sine for Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week Retreat
Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest by Lynne M. Baab
A Retreat with Thomas Merton: A Seven-Day Spiritual Journey by Esther Waal
Prayer: Forty Days of Practice by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson
The Cup of Our Life: A Guide to Spiritual Growth by Joyce Rupp
SERVING:.Showing God’s love in a practical way! Who in your life, your family, your neighborhood, or at work is in need of extra love, help, or compassion? What are some practical ways you can serve and give to them during Lent this year?
Ask Jesus to show you.
Take time to brainstorm with friends or family, make a list, pray about this.
MUSIC and ART:
Create a play list for your Lenten practice
Play music as a part of your Lenten practice
Create a collage or other art piece as a part of your practice.
LENTEN COLORING SHEETPDF
LENTEN COLORING SHEET to PRINT
If you are interested in Pilgrimage, I am curating a pilgrimage to Scotland THIS YEAR! August 28-September 4, 2023. We will be staying at the St Columba Hotel on Iona. More Information FindingYourThinplace.com contact LILLY LEWIN freerangeworship@gmail.com and we are working to get the price down, so more folks can participate this year!
IONA martyrs bay
by Corrine Lund – originally posted here on May 15, 2019.
Sometimes I think that awe and wonder are similar in the eyes and mind of a seven year old as they must have been with our Creator God when our home planet began to take shape. Awe and Wonder. For the amazing mind of my seven year old grandson, they two words occupy much of his observing and thinking time.
Early in his young life he named me “Da”, for no reason other than that was to be my name. He once told me that he will always call me by that name. So, a conversation might go something like this:
Da, if you hurry we can get to that open space where we can see the crazy colors in the sunset. It is so beautiful!
Da, look at the colors on the wings of this little bug. It’s like a rainbow!
Da, this worm is huge. Does God tell it how far down to burrow so it lives through the winter?
Da, I wonder how we could live on another planet…we need trees and water. And how long would it take to get there. If we got there, I wonder if we could ever get back to earth?
My world has become filled with the awe and wonder seen through the eyes of a young child. A child who loves the creatures and the dirt and the night sky….and is filled with the awesome world in which he lives but has so many questions about ‘I wonder” or “Why?’
“Da!” he will say as though I need to see something spectacular right now or that he has a question to share so that we can ‘wonder’ together. Both usually begin with “Da” and I know I must listen.
My favorite Psalm…139:
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
God shares some awesome stuff with us. And do you know what else God tells me? I even know you by your name. And God continues to share some awesome things with me and then…I wonder – how could that be?
And adventure will soon provide our family with an overload of Awe and Wonder as we travel to Yellowstone National Park. Again my thoughts are pulled back to Creation. Volcanoes, geysers, pools of boiling mud, mountains and wild animals How much more awe and wonder can a person manage!
But through the eyes of a little boy, earth worms, sunsets and bugs carry just as much weight in the awesomeness department. What an amazing God to provide for us such a world. “Da, come look at this bug. Right now before it gets away!”
He always calls my name.
God always calls me by my name.
Awesome
Totally filled with wonder.
We all need the Wholeness of God…this resource includes reflections and activities for coping and thriving during the COVID-19 challenges in search of shalom as well as hope for restoration during and after this period of social distancing.
I love it when the snowdrops flower. They are the first touch of spring in my garden, encouraging me to believe that change is on the way and a new season of growth and flourishing is about to emerge.
For me personally it is very much a season of change as I prepare to travel to Australia next week to see my family. It is my first visit in 4 years and I can hardly wait. I feel a little ambivalent about how to approach my spiritual life during the journey however. I leave on Ash Wednesday and will spend the first 2 weeks of Lent in Australia, focused on everything but fasting, repentance and preparation for Easter. This week I will set up my new Lenten contemplative garden and perform my finding beauty in the midst of ashes ritual a week early, but apart from that I am not sure where my Lenten journey will take me this year. That is part of the reason I shared Getting Lost as A Spiritual Practice for my Meditation Monday this week. Getting lost is a practice that encourages me to walk slowly, to look with wide open eyes and avidly listening ears, to pay attention with all my senses. It is one way of saying it is not the destination that matters but rather the journey. From that perspective it is a perfect practice for Lent, a season for slowing down and noticing the journey rather than worrying about the destination.
Once I return, my focus will be on my upcoming Lenten retreat Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week, a quiet reflective retreat the week before Palm Sunday to help prepare us for the challenging week ahead. This retreat is not just for gardeners. It is for all of us who want to follow Christ into the resurrection world of Easter. In the last few days of his life, Jesus moved from garden to garden from suffering to resurrection, a concept that has long intrigued me. This year, my reading has expanding this understanding and the incredible connections between Christ’s journey and creation. I hope you will join me for what will be an inspiring and I think revelatory retreat time.
Once again I want to highlight the resource lists for Lent, Holy Week and Easter on Godspacelight that you might like to revisit as they have now been updated for 2023. There are lots of links to prayers, posts and activities. Our prayers by well known religious figures like Henri Nouwen, Mother Theresa, and Thomas Merton are interspersed with prayers from Godspace writers and friends in the every popular Lenten prayers post. If there are other resources that you think should have been on these lists please do not hesitate to send us your suggestions. If you know a prayer that you think should be on this list please let us know.
I have not forgotten that today is Valentine’s day. In fact some are calling February the love month, and what better place to focus our reflections at this season than on the love of God as it is expressed in 1 Corinthians 13. Lilly Lewin’s Freerange Friday: To be Kept by the Father’s Love is a great place to start as you reflect on God’s incredible love. Hilary Horn’s Building Deeper Connection During the Love Month is another excellent read.
We continue to lift Turkey and Syria and Ukraine in our prayers. Our hearts ache for the many people in all our countries who face the threat of violence and oppression. As I prayed this morning another prayer surfaced in my mind:
I start the day in the dark,
Aware that alone I cannot see
A single step that lies ahead.
All is mystery, hidden, unknown
In this tainted world
Of sorrow and heartache,
God’s glory still shines.
Only God’s light illumines the path.
Only Christ’s light shines around us.
The darkness is not dark to God.
Even in the midst of tragedy,
God’s light shines.
In all things, around all things, through all things.
Illumining the darkness with God’s eternal flame.
Many blessings
Christine Sine
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.
By Lisa Scandrette — Originally posted here on June 4th, 2019.
Mother’s day weekend gave me a chance to sit in awe and wonder as we cued up old family videos. My babies were captured on the screen, frozen in the mid 1990s—bright eyes, white blond hair, tiny voices, and emerging personalities. In some ways, these tiny ones seemed removed from the young adults who were watching them with me. But I can see a familiar crinkle of the eyes or turn of the mouth that still appears across their grown faces. We comment, recognizing that this child has ALWAYS carried a bag, or has been wearing the same style of shoe since age 12, or has raised their eyebrow in a certain way since they were a preschooler, or wrote stories since the time their writing looked like scribbles on a page. Their personalities shine through. Each of my babies, in the tiny package of their human selves held the potential of who they are today, with personality, interests, and passions all their own. Some things have been nurtured, somethings have perhaps lain dormant, still waiting to be awakened. Looking into their eyes, I can see past, present and even future selves. They are grown now, forging their own pathways, finding out how to continue to nurture themselves, continue to flourish, continue to grow.
I stand in awe of the process that turned them into adults….the slow-by-days, but rapid-by-years way that a child grows. Watching the videos, I am impressed that time will continue to move at ever increasing speeds. The time passed is likely equal to or less than the time to come. So, what is this Mama to do? I want to watch their journeys with awe, curiosity and wonder. I want to continue to expand and grow myself. I want to slow down and attend to the moments I am in, not living in the past or the future so much that I miss the present. I want to live life at the pace to notice and care.
When I was young, my mom often commented that if I “moved any slower, I would be going backwards.” Though my pokiness was not advantageous to completing household tasks quickly, I’m learning to appreciate it as a tool of presence. When I move slowly, I notice. I notice tiny flowers along the path. I notice small children. I notice the people I pass. I notice beautiful words, the way the shadows fall, the way wool feels, and I relish it. I also listen—to the birds in the trees, to the experience of another, to the emotion in the voice of the person I am sitting with. When I move slowly, I hear the whisper of Creator.
Unfortunately, this sort of slowing does not come naturally. I wish it was as easy as it sounds, but I need to cultivate it. Otherwise, my mind leap frogs from the cares of the past, skips right over the present, and runs circles around the concerns of the future. It forgets what is most real and true. As I have become more attuned to the need to slow my mind to focus on life in the present—the life I can actually live right now—I have begun experimenting with practices that aid me.
As basic as it may sound, it’s been helpful for me to place limits on how I engage with technology. It’s embarrassing how easily I can be distracted by email, social media, endless scrolling and googling, scrolling away far more time than I wanted to lend the activity. The information at my finger tips is often a larger portion than my human sized brain can or should digest in such a short period of time. The last six months, I have been trying to make it harder to unintentionally distract myself. I turn my computer off when I am done with my work day. When I sit down in the evening to rest, I charge my phone in a room away from me. The added steps of going to get my phone or turning on my computer give me a moment to consider if this is how I want to spend the present moment. As a by product, I’ve ended up doing more conversing, reading, knitting, resting and thinking.
Gratitude has also helped me to settle my mind. I might express thanks for my steaming morning coffee, the percussive music of the rain, encouragement from a family member, a warm, soft blanket, a house that keeps me warm and dry, or companionship during a challenging season. This keeps me grounded in paying attention to the present, especially when I am tempted to worry about the future. Gratitude reminds me that God has cared for me in the past, cares for me in the present and will likely care for me in the future.
Sometimes slowing the pace of my day helps me slow my mind. I choose to walk, rather than drive, to a destination in my neighborhood. I settle into knitting slowly and rhythmically. Or I set a timer and commit to an activity for longer than my restlessness desires. When I relax into a slower pace, my mind often begins to follow, slowing down, remembering what is significant, responding in thanks, trust, and wonder.
Slowing down takes practice. I want results. I want to have already learned to attend to the present and not miss any of the moments God has for me in this day of life. Yet, surely the way that children grow is the way we grow—that slow-by-days, but rapid-by-years way that God is at work in us past, present, and future.
Digging Deeper: The Art of Contemplative Gardening
Are you yearning to Dig Deeper? Perhaps you are looking for refreshment in your contemplative practices or for creativity in prayer. Christine Sine’s latest book is packed full of contemplative wisdom and inspiration for creating your own meditative focus. Click for more details!
by Carol Dixon
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Valentine’s day (14 February) is a day when people celebrate love and often send cards as a token of their affection. I thought it might be good to look at the history of the tradition.
It was thought that Valentine’s day began with St. Valentine, who was martyred around 197 AD, but it is more likely to be a Christian interpretation of the Roman festival of Lupercalia, the spring fertility festival celebrated on February 13th-15th. The first recorded mention of Valentine’s day was written in 1382 when Chaucer wrote his poem Parliament of Fowls about 3 male eagles expressing their love for a female bird.
In France in the 15th century it became an annual feast day celebrating romantic love with lavish banquets. A French aristocrat imprisoned in the tower of London after the battle of Agincourt sent the first recorded valentine greeting to his wife (‘I am sick for love for you my gentle Valentine’) which can still be seen in the archives of the British library. Shakespeare also mentions Valentine’s day in Hamlet when Ophelia says ‘Tomorrow is St Valentine’s day and if in the morn be-time, I a maid at your window come to be your Valentine ‘. In 1776 the earliest version of a famous Valentine message was first printed ‘The rose is red, the violet’s blue, the honey’s sweet and so are you’ which was adapted from a quote in Spencer’s Fairie Queen.
The Georgians were the first to send homemade Valentine cards delivered by hand and by the time the Victorians came along the first commercial cards began to appear and were sent by Penny Post. The industry began to blossom – these days it is sometimes over the top with expensive gifts, cordon bleu champagne dinners, and even exotic romantic breaks for two in posh hotels.
Some people past and present sent cards to friends and family (someone is even recorded sending a card to their dog!) but the big question is ‘How do we celebrate love?’ One of the best descriptions of love was written by St. Paul, a man not known for his romantic attachments, who wrote one of the most famous passages on the theme of love in first letter to the Corinthians Ch 13. Here is part of it:
13 1-3 If I speak with the eloquence of human beings and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.
4 This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
5-6 Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad when truth prevails. 7-8a Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen. All gifts except love will be superseded one day
13 In this life we have three great lasting qualities—faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.
My friend Sheila Hamil wrote a wonderful musical version of it called ‘If I have not love’.
I also love this poem ‘What is love’ by Ruth Burgess (from Iona Books)
Love grows…
love laughs…
love sings…
love cares…
love cries…
love dances…
love does.
Love is beautiful…
love is powerful…
love is exciting…
love is hopeful…
love is warm…
love is a journey…
love is.
Love takes risks…
love makes you vulnerable…
love asks questions…
love tells stories…
love stands up for justice…
love gets you…
love does.
So be warned you lovers,
you learners,
you adventurers,
be warned!
Though you can never be ready
love beckons…
love expands…
love changes lives…
love does.
J.B. Phillips’ translation of 1 Corinthians 13 has very special connotations for Donald and I. It was the reading at our wedding chosen by Revd. Ted Mather who married us at St James’s Church Alnwick on July 4th, 1970. In his wedding address (which we still have on reel to reel tape) Ted told us that although Paul’s great description of love is a blueprint for daily Christian living, it is also an ideal to strive for in our relationships with one another. Wise words indeed. I am not sure that Donald and I have always achieved such perfection every day in our marriage but at least we are still trying to put it into practice 52 and a half years later!
Nowadays this kind of love is seen as countercultural especially in these days of selfies, self-awareness, and the importance of our own needs above everyone else’s. Advocating a life of self-sacrifice seems ridiculous to many people. In the media in particular, a person’s right to retaliate instead of forgiving and moving on is seen as normal and any other way is ridiculed. ‘Look what so and so has done to me, I am damaged for life’ is the mantra. Little wonder Paul calls living in Christian love a higher or better way.
Yet love is not all easy going, easy pleasing. It isn’t just an attitude of being nice to everyone. One of the modern misconceptions about Christianity is that love will tolerate all things and do nothing. Obviously, the people who think that have never read the gospels and seen how radical Jesus was!
St. Paul wasn’t a romantic as far as love was concerned. He was a realist and he realized that love wasn’t just a feeling. Love was a choice. Paul chose to follow the command of Jesus and he commended it to his contemporaries as the way that Jesus advocates, as recorded by John in Ch. 15 of his gospel:
Jesus said 11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. 13 The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them. 14 And you are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. 17 This, then, is what I command you: love one another. [John 15:11-17 GNB]
This Valentine’s Day it is good to send love to our special loved ones but it is also a reminder to live in love with all – to love one another as Jesus loves us, to choose to try and live by Paul’s practical advice and take Jesus at his word.
Some years ago our singing group at church used to sing a hymn called ‘Love is his Word’ which is still well worth listening to today.
So whether you are on your own, with a friend, or in a wonderful partnership like Donald and I you can still enjoy celebrating love on St Valentine’s day. May we live in love, walk in peace and share God’s blessing with all, on St Valentine’s Day and every day.
Donald & Carol
Golden Wedding
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