spirituality

Quiet…

be quiet

I found this on pinterest today, and it struck me. How much hurt would be saved if we all employed this rule? But then I got thinking even further about quietness. I believe that quiet is good for the soul.

We live in a busy, noisy, crazy world. When we go just about anywhere there is a soundtrack playing – at the mall, at the gym, the TV that is on at the doctor’s office or the radio that plays in the car. I sometimes think that we are afraid of silence, we have a fear of quiet.

I think we are afraid of it, because in the silence, in the quiet, our thoughts are revealed. There is no sound to distract ourselves with, and one either finds peace or runs into insanity.

Right now, as I sit writing in my livingroom, the only sound is the whoosh of air through the ducts as my furnace works to keep the house warm and the rhythmic swish of breath from the two dogs and a cat who are napping on their beds nearby. I am very pleased to say that it is not insanity that I am finding in this still, quiet moment. Instead, it is peace, I find here. And thankfulness for all the gifts God has given me.

If your days are busy and noisy and full of distraction, I encourage you to find some time to spend in silence. Whether it is a walk in the afternoon, turning off the radio as you drive, or finding half an hour to turn off all the noise-makers and simply sitting in quiet. As we draw ever closer to Easter, spend some time in the quiet. Hear what your soul says, listen to what the Holy Spirit might whisper to you, or just breathe and put your trust in God.

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
Psalm 62:1 NRSV

Prompted…

Sometimes God comes to us in big, bold ways. But I suspect more often, God comes to us in quiet ways, ways that might be overlooked if we are not careful. Often, I think God uses a simple conversation with a friend to speak His will to us.

This morning before worship I was chatting with James, a member of the congregation where I serve. He was telling me how he was participating in Lent this year. He said instead of giving anything up, he’d heard about a challenge to do 40 acts of kindness in the days leading up to the celebration of Easter. And then he asked me if I was doing anything to observe Lent.

The truth is, I wasn’t. Not at that point. But as we talked, I thought…what about a blog project? My friend Becky does one on her blog, meant to encourage people to make God a priority during this season. I am not thinking of doing anything quite so grand as Becky’s project…but I think it is high time I got back to blogging regularly, and I think Lent could be a good catalyst for it.

So starting today, and lasting at least until Easter, I will be publishing a blog entry six days of week (I still need my sabbath!). I encourage you to try Becky’s Lent project, read along on my blog as I journey through Lent, or find some other way of preparing for the celebration of Easter.

It is good to make God a priority. After all, God made us enough of a priority that Jesus came to be with us, came to teach us, and ultimately came to die that we might be made right with God.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.
1 Peter 1:3-5 NLT

To show it what it can be…

In my last post I mentioned that I would be leading OMEGA contemporary worship at my church on Sunday. I did that. And in my sermon I used a Joss Whedon quote from an episode of the TV show, Angel.

Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be.  It’s harsh and cruel.
That’s why there’s us. Champions.
It doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done or suffered,
or even if we make a difference.
We live as though the world were as it should be,
to show it what it can be.
–Angel, “Deep Down” Season 4, Episode 1

Now I hate to quote my own sermons (feels a little too much like tooting my own horn, or patting myself on the back or something), but I have to admit, I’ve been wandering around for the past few days muttering to myself: “to show it what it can be…”

I am fascinated by the idea that, as Christians, we are called to live differently. To live as if the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be. This is, I believe, why my church’s foodbank doesn’t put any restrictions on its clients. If you show up, we will give you food. We don’t ask how many foodbanks you’ve been to in the month, when you were last here, how much of an income you have or how many mouths you have to feed. We just give away what we’ve got. Because the world SHOULD be a place where only those who are honestly in need, show up for a hand out. We live as though the world is as it should be. We do this because we believe that world CAN be a place where people are honest.

I think this idea has power. That perhaps a whole bunch of people who live as if the world were as it should be, can actually move it towards what it can be. That somehow, by the Holy Spirit at work in us and through us, just by living the way Jesus calls us to live, we can have an impact on the world we live in.

I believe that. I believe that strongly enough that I have given my life to doing all I can to live that way and to inspire others to live that way.

Give it a try this week. May you find ways to live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.

A different kind of preaching…

Tomorrow I am preaching at our monthly contemporary service. It’s a small and informal service, and I kind of love that about it. Usually preachers stand in a pulpit or on a platform and preach TO or AT an audience. There’s not a lot of give-and-take in your average sermon… Although, most preachers will tell you have the conversations they have after the service/during the week with congregants; and the best preachers will allow those conversations to come out in future sermons and to influence the direction of what they are preaching.

But in our OMEGA contemporary service, after I finish preaching, I sit down and I look at those who have gathered and I say to them: “So, what do you think?” And then we just chat, for whatever amount of time it takes.

Its’ a pretty cool and unusual experience for a preacher to get to have a conversation about what they are preaching. And I have to say that there is a richness to it. It is a beautiful thing to sit with the people of God and listen as we struggle to express our faith together. That happens sometimes in small groups, in Bible Studies and in workshops. But it doesn’t often happen in corporate worship…at least, not in the church where I serve.

I like to think of this as more akin to what Jesus did – having conversations with the 12 disciples and with individuals from the larger community who crossed his path. I love the relation-ality of what Jesus did in ministry. So often he is having a conversation at the dinner table with friends. Sometimes he’s teaching as he and his friends move (read: walk) from one ministry point to another. In the life of Jesus, conversation is a way of teaching, a way of preaching and it happens naturally.

So I am excited to get to preach the OMEGA service tomorrow. And if you have a moment and prayer to spare, pray that God uses me and my words to touch the hearts of those who have gathered.

Blessing the animals…

There is a tradition (though it is a fairly new one) at my church of doing a Blessing of the Animals service in May. The service is short, informal and held out on the lawn of the church. People bring their pets and the minister blesses them.

It’s a bit of a strange thing to do, in some peoples’ eyes, but I have to admit, I love it. For me, it is a time to preach about the idea that when we disrespect creation, we disrespect the creator. It’s a time to preach in the open air and be interrupted by sounds you don’t normally hear on a Sunday morning (chirps and barks and the like). It’s a time to gather with other animal lovers and affirm the relationship each of us have with our various pets.

Some might scoff at the idea of blessing a bunch of cats and dogs (and two very vocal birds). But I found that in doing this service, I was the one who was blessed.

This job is for the birds! (Sorry, I had to go there!) This is Dixie, who belongs to Colin and June and is one of the first birds I’ve ever held.

 

This is Milo, who belongs to Marlene and was ill recently. He’s recovered perfectly and was full of kisses and love.

 

And this is my girl, Koski. I love the look of attentiveness on her face…it was a new experience to preach with her beside me. A good one. 🙂

He lifts you up!

I have a song by Audio Adrenaline going through my head right now…the lyrics go “you get down, He lifts you up! You get down, He lifts you up! You get down, He lifts you up! Every time you’re down, the Lord lifts you up!”

I find this to be so true. Every time I find myself down – and yes, that happens even to a fairly balanced, fairly bubbly person like me – God sends something to lift me up. Today it was a gentleman who is a client at our foodbank. He stopped by my office and just ‘wanted to talk.’ I sat and listened as he told me about the terrible things he has been through (abuse, addiction, depression, his wife leaving him, disease, etc.) in the past few years. But then he would get this grin on his face and say “God’s shown me so much, though. God is with me all the time.”

He told me how he had become addicted to cocaine, but God had sent a police team into the bar where he got his drugs and all the dealers were cleared out. He said one day one dealer got angry at him and wouldn’t sell to him anymore and that meant that he couldn’t get his drugs anymore. That began the long road to recovery for him.

I loved his honesty and his ability to see God at work in the places where most of us would think God does not go. I found his faith inspiring and his smile contagious.

Things are hard at at the foodbank right now. We are surviving week-to-week. Today there is a total of $56 left in the bank. It will take at least $1800 to buy food for our clients a week from now. It seems insurmountable. And yet – God provides. Endlessly and faithfully. And I am so grateful that He does. Because in sharing a little food with those in need, there is a much deeper blessing to be found for those who serve.

Been thinkin’…

One of my regular readers mentioned to me the other day that she has been missing my posts. I really appreciated that, because it’s nice to know that this little project has an impact on others and that when I don’t get around to writing, that also has an impact.

For the last week or so I’ve been taking some time to myself. I have ideas for blogs, but many nights I have gone to bed without writing them. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I just needed a few more days to think.

Sometimes it’s good to go quiet for a bit. For the most part, I love my blogging time. I love the fact that it settles a centres me. I love the practice of writing each day and I find my brain has been working even when I wasn’t in front of my laptop writing up a blog. But sometimes, you just need a break. Sometimes silence is a good thing.

Sometimes we just need to be still. We live in a world that rushes past, and stillness can be a deep spiritual discipline. A whole new kind of worship.

Having said all that, I believe my time of stillness has come to an end and I plan on blogging regularly for the forseeable future.

Messing up…

It’s been a tough week for me Weight-Watchers-wise. On the one hand I’ve had awesome success with Weight Watchers over the past year. On the other hand it has been a frustrating game of one-step-forward-two-steps-back since about January. If I have lost anything since then (and whether or not I have is arguable, because I have been up and down a lot), it’s been a very minor amount. Recently, I’ve found that I am letting myself get away with extra tastes and “just a pinch” of this or that.

This is not good. On the one hand, I am sticking to very healthy eating most of the time. My diet has improved leaps and bounds over this time last year. On the other hand, I have been sabotaging myself with all these little extras. This week, especially has been difficult. To the point that tonite I decided to pretty much scrap this week, understand that the scale may say something very nasty to me on Sunday, and start fresh after weigh-in on Sunday morning.

Sometimes we mess up. There’s no great reason for this slip-up on my part. I have kept my exercise up this week, I have been planning healthy meals, I have been enjoying my work and loving the weather. Perhaps this is just a culmination of some stress that has been piling up over the last several weeks. Maybe it’s emotional-jet-lag from a truly terrible week I had a few weeks back. Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to show some grace to myself.

After all, that’s what Jesus would do. That is what God has always done with us, his children. The Old Testament is full of moments when Israel messed up. When they turned away from God. When they lost the plot. And though God warned that turning away from Him meant turning away from love and life and goodness and turning towards the opposite of those things, He never stopped taking them back. The people of Israel never got to the end of God’s grace. God was always ready to take them back one more time. And when they got to the point where it might look like God was finished with them, God changed the rules of the game.

He sent his Son, to live and to die, to teach and to rise again, to break the bonds of sin and death forever and for everyone. I love that about God. This is the the thing that keeps my faith going even when I’m in a dry spell or  struggle. Because I know, no matter how badly I mess up, Christ has already paid the price for my mess-ups. God’s grace is THAT big.

So I am having grace for myself. This week, I have messed up. I recognize it, I own it, and I am sorry for it. I will be careful over the next two days and I will begin fresh with Weight Watchers on Sunday. And I will remember to be thankful that in Weight Watchers, as with God, it is never too late for a new beginning.

 

Anchored…


This has been a strange week. All my routines are out of whack. I’ve been very tired and not able to do much more exercise than the morning’s hour-long walk with Koski and our walking-partner. I had an all-day conference today, which meant I took Thursday off and worked today. My folks are in town. Things are just a little left-of-centre in my house right now.

There is nothing particularly WRONG with any of that, (well, the exercise thing upsets me, though I am feeling good about getting out to Outdoor Bootcamp tonite) but as I have said before I’m a bit of a creature of habit. When you mess with my routines, you mess with me. My blogging has also suffered this week. Call it out-of-sorts-itis.

Sometimes weeks like this come. There’s no sense in getting really bent out of shape about them when they happen. But I will admit that when a week like this comes along, I feel a little anchor-less…adrift. And it is with that sense of needing something to anchor me that I found this little passage in Hebrews extremely touching today:

…we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence
as we hold to the hope that lies before us.
This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.
It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary.
Jesus has already gone in there for us.
He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:18b-20 NLT

Weeks like this come. Other weeks, ones in which the burdens of life seem almost unbearable, also come. There’s no sense worrying about them before they arrive. But when they do, it’s really good to have something to tether yourself to – something to hold to, as an anchor.
The Bible tells us that the hope we have in Christ – the hope that weeks like this will never have the final word – is a strong and trustworthy anchor.
All I can say to that is: Amen.

Beginnings…

I had the opportunity to start something new with some leaders from St. A’s tonite. I’m excited. I don’t know where God will lead us with this ministry, but I pray that God will be the ONE who does the leading.

This beginning may be small, but with God even small beginnings can lead to great things. Pray with me that this one does, if you would.

For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19 NLT