I am sick of the rain. It didn’t take long, but what a week ago was a welcome respite from our hot, dry summer has now become a problem. Cool weather and constant rain are not good for ripening tomatoes. They split, they rot, and are more susceptible to disease. So this week I am not praying for rain, but for more hot dry days to ripen those delicious fruits that are the highlight of the Seattle garden. I think that growing tomatoes is a right of passage that says “yes I truly am a Seattleite.”
Isn’t it amazing how fickle we are and how quickly our opinions can change based on our own often selfish desires? The BLT’s and mozzarella salads tomatoes provide for immediate consumption and the sauces I make for winter soups and stews are wonderful, so I pray that God will change the weather to suit me. Now this is not really how I pray, but I do harbour these thoughts in my mind so you could probably call it a subconscious prayer. It does make me aware, however of how easily we can change our prayer life into a self-centered set of demands for God to do what we want.
Prayer can help keep our lives centered on God in a way that minimizes self-centered prayers and expectations of our Creator. That is part of what I appreciated this week as I disciplined myself to use waiting times as times of prayer. As I mentioned in my Meditation Monday – What Do We Do With Waiting? “What suddenly struck me last week is that we can transform the impatience of mundane waiting into the joy of Godly waiting. All it takes is a little preparation and spiritual discipline.” I talked about the breath prayers I found so helpful this week in the many situations that involved extended waiting. I certainly found them to be helpful. I hope you will too.
A lot of you identified with my post Spiritual Practice of Painting Rocks on Friday. I loved to see the painted rocks several of you shared and even learned a new tip to help make my painting more professional from Claudia Gregoire . She uses nail dotters, a manicurist’s tool for placing just a dot of paint on a nail.
Today we launch another Liturgical Rebels podcast episode and the beginning of a series on Celtic Spirituality. As I mentioned last week, in this first episode my husband Tom and I reflect on our own journeys into Celtic spirituality. The upcoming sessions in this series include interviews with Celtic musician Jeff Johnson, theologians Christine Valters Paintner and John Philip Newell and Celtic artist Mary Fleeson. Make sure you tell your friends about this. It will be an inspiring series. This series is to prepare us for Celtic Advent which begins November 15th. As many of you already know, I love this extended Advent season which makes it possible for me to focus on the meaning of Christmas before we launch into the holiday hype.
This series also coincides with the Introduction to Celtic Spirituality online retreat on September 14th. I hope you have this date on your calendars as it will be a fun and informative session in which we look at the legacy of this often neglected stream of Christianity which kept faith alive during the dark ages of Europe. We will interact with some of the Celtic saints like Patrick and Columba and Brigid, write prayers, and learn from one another.
I continue to make progress on my Celtic Devotional and following advice from those who are reading along on Substack have shortened the name to Celtic Advent – Following An Unfamiliar Path. This week I published another 2 reflections, creating shorter posts that I think are easier for people to digest and give me feedback on. It is a very enjoyable project to work on though I keep getting distracted by my many fascinating resource books. For those who are interested in exploring Celtic spirituality in more depth, you might like to check out this resource list which we put together a few years ago. To Bless The Space Between Us by John O’Donahue is a wonderful place to start. It is a beautiful collection of prayers in the Celtic Tradition that I heartily recommend. The prayer at the end of this email, which I have found helpful in my own season of grief is a great prayer to share with any you know who are grieving. You might also like to check out some of our other Celtic resources on our Celtic resource page or download our free resource – An Introduction to Celtic Spirituality.
On Godspacelight we expect to increase the number of posts next week but are still in summer mode until then. Lilly Lewin’s Freerange Friday – The Nest of God is excellent. First check out her stunning artwork – what Lilly calls doodles but which most of us consider works of art. Her reflection on Psalm 84 and her questions “When you imagine the dwelling place of God, what do you picture?” And “What kind of NEST do you need this week?” Are well worth reflecting on.
Let me end with this beautiful poem or you might like to listen to it here:
Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts
Where no storm on night or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives,
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of color.
The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the alter of the heart,
Your mind always sparkled
With the wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.
We look toward each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Besides us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.
(John O’Donahue To Bless The Space Between Us)
Many Blessings
Christine Sine
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