Today, May 24, 2013, I am celebrating my completion of the spiritual direction program (two years) at the Charlotte Spirituality Center.  We marked our graduation yesterday with an inspiring and affirming retreat, sharing from the heart, receiving certificates and then a home cooked dinner (unfortunately I couldn't stay for the dinner :( )    Spiritual direction has been a quiet calling for many years as I explored it years ago with a spiritual director and in Sue Monk Kidd's book "When the Heart Waits".  My training has deepened my prayer life and enhanced my current pastoral and chaplain's ministries.  Our final assignment in our last class was to express in writing our own statement of faith and spirituality.  I included important images and metaphors in my paper.  This is where I am today...

To see myself in YOU and to find YOU in me….to see myself in you and to find you in me.

A spirituality of communion and community.

My heart and soul have been awakened by the spiritual ways/practices/wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition.  Awakened at deep levels of desire God has made Godself known to me:  from within and from without.  In my ongoing/flowing response to God I am invited to trust God in all things. In relationship with a loving, generous God of goodness, grace and truth I am moved and free to share in the relationship, as intimately as I am able and willing until I am absorbed in a mutual, life-giving relationship of love.  As the relationship grows, with a natural waxing and waning, ebb and flow, presence and absence, I wake up to the beauty of communion with God and Jesus; becoming aware, in concrete ways, that I am one with the Holy Community that is trinity and that WE are all a part of the one Life of God in the world, the body of Christ.  It is my prayer to become more and more akin to the God who loves me; growing more and more into the image of the God I love, who loves without bounds.   To live in communion with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is to live within the divine community that embraces all of life.  I embrace and understand that all people are in God, created by God, loved and cherished by God, uniquely marked and gifted by God.  God’s image is in each and every creature and creation.  We are God’s mirrors for one another and my life is incomplete (a fragment) without God…my life is incomplete without you. 

This poem that I wrote in 2011 speaks to my spirituality.  The Season of Christ:  Christ as God with us; God for us; God in us.

In the silence of the night a light shines.
Truth is born and we yearn for grace to receive it.
In the quiet after the birth
is the beating of our hearts; our breathing is our prayer.
Presence is confirmed.
We are not alone.
Fears are calmed. Hope is not an empty wish,
but a trustworthy practice of a trusting relationship.
I with You; You with me.
I with you; you with me.
The night breaks into dawn and brings the new day.
We wake up to the brighter light of Truth.
The Light of truth in you and in me.

There are spiritual practices that continue to open the doors of my heart and soul to communion with God and to community: prayer, reading scripture, silence, solitude, sharing myself with others and allowing others to share themselves with me, holy listening, spiritual companioning and direction, full presence, compassion, intentional being in community, service and fellowship, creating (poetry, writing, crafts, worship liturgy, design with symbols), laughter, daily tasks and living…..intentional living.    

My definition of prayer has expanded to a very simple concept that reflects a spirituality of communion and community:  prayer is desire; more specifically, for me it is the desire to share.  My ultimate prayer, desire, is to share in God and to share in God with others. 

In my work I am keenly aware that a loving relationship, to love and be loved, is the most precious gift of life.  God is Love and the fire of life in all.  Life itself does not surpass the beauty and power of love.  Components of love are truth and grace: truth refines us and the healing balm of grace sets us free to live into the “more” that God has for us and to desire that same “more” for all.  Communion with God sets us free to live and flow into community.

Two metaphors and a theological image for a spirituality of communion and community…

a mosaic:  many pieces…one work of art; this is a cross made by a friend and given to me as a gift.  It is a beautiful symbol of communion and community.

 

the labyrinth:  walking inward into and for communion -- outward into and for community

the Trinity: the Divine fellowship mirrors earthly fellowship

Scripture:  John 17:21b-23 As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

                Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind…

                            and love your neighbor as yourself.

           I believe that this is the summation of the divinely inspired wisdom of all spiritual paths.

                        

Prayer Series 3

Is your prayer life expanding and deepening?  I hope it is!  These notes to you about your prayer life are accompanied by my prayers that you will wholeheartedly devote time to developing a conscious relationship with God (William Barry's definition of prayer); a relationship that is real and evident every moment of your day giving you the awareness and experience of God with you always. 

          How can we pay attention and be more aware of God’s presence, his voice, his love?  So that when we see, hear, feel God’s presence we can receive openly and respond willingly, freely, and you know what I’m going to say…..joyfully with gratitude!  I am going to offer some ways in which we can more fully attune ourselves to God in our daily living.

            Take some time for quiet every day.  You can take short spells of quiet for yourself.  Be still (Psalm 46:10 …and know that I am God), breathe deeply a few times, relax your body, and be quiet.  Receive your breath as the breath of life, the very Spirit of God.  Claim this time as quiet time with God.  You only need a minute or two, but you’ll want MORE once you begin to make this a habit.  We need times in our days to turn off, cut off the noises of the world.  We need time in our days to silence all the demanding, noisy, negative voices in our minds (including our own).  How can we hear God, if all other voices and noises are drowning God’s voice out?  How can we listen for God’s presence with us if we are not quiet enough to hear the still, small voice of God?   God’s voice can be heard in the stillness.  It may not sound like someone speaking to you, but then again it might.  Rest assured that when we quiet ourselves and quiet the noises of our minds and the world God will meet you in the quiet.

          Pray without ceasing.  I have mentioned the Breath Prayer before.  This is a prayer to reconnect with God as needed throughout our day.  While inhaling, silently call upon God/Jesus/Holy Spirit; while exhaling offer your desire.  For example:  Breathe in saying, “Rock and Refuge.”  Breathe out saying, “You are my strength.”  Another example:  Breathe in saying, “Jesus, Teacher.”  Breathe out saying, “Teach me patience.”  Another:  Breathe in saying, “Spirit of Truth.”  Breathe out saying, “I need your guidance.”  The possibilities are endless and you speak the prayer according to your needs at the time. 

          When you encounter the scriptures (devotional, Sunday school lesson, Bible study, sermon passage, etc.) be alert and expect a personal word for your life.  Whenever and wherever you hear the Word, engage with it!  Open yourself to it.  Take it with you and spend time reflecting on it; meditating on it; praying with it.  God communicates God’s self to us in the scriptures, particularly, through the person and work of Jesus as we come to know Jesus in the gospels.  Scripture is the written word that comes to life by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  We can hear God’s voice through our attention to the scriptures. 

          God is love.  God is truth.  God is good.  When you feel loved by someone; God is there.  When you experience truth through someone else; God is there.  When people are good to you; this is God.  God communicates with us through people.  Do you remember the children’s story where the child, in the bed alone, who will not be comforted during the storm by the words, “Don’t worry, God is with you?”  Just as God came to us in the flesh we need to experience God’s love in the flesh.  The child cried out, “I know God is with me, but right now I need love with skin on!”  Look for God’s love coming to you through others. Ask for what you need, like the frightened child did!  Because God dwells within us we should be on the lookout for God in everyone we meet…that’s a challenging thought, isn’t it?  I have asked myself many times, “God, how are you coming to me through her/him?  And how are you inviting me to respond?” 

          All these practices will make us more attune to God’s presence, God’s voice and God’s love.  Tuning in to God, however, is not just a matter of being more aware, although it IS that.  The “more” of it is that God is an initiating God who wants a response (as expected in a conscious relationship).  There is always the question, “How am I to respond?”  We then realize that our responses to others are also responses to God. May your prayers draw you closer and closer to God, who loves you and wants you to know it!! The final in this series will be ways that we communicate with God.

 

Peace.

 

Series on Prayer

How’s your prayer life?  In last month’s post I encouraged you to be intentional about deepening your prayer life…prayer being conscious relationship with God.  This relationship is a mutually revealing relationship:  God reveals himself to us. We reveal ourselves to God.  Because God is love we do not fear God in any way…unless we have been taught to fear God or have been shamed by someone in our life:  both fear and shame are very real obstacles to a loving relationship with God.  God’s love can ease fear and heal shame.  God created us and loves us no matter what.  I used to sing to my sons, “I love you when you’re happy; I love you when you’re sad; I love when you’re angry; I love you when you’re glad.  I love you when you’re dirty; I love you when you’re clean; I love you when you’re sweet as pie; I love you when you’re mean.”  If a parent can sing such a song to a child…consider the song of love God is singing to you, his beloved sons and his beloved daughters.

          The questions I’d like to take up this month are, “What does communication with God look like?  More specifically, how does God communicate with us?”  We’ll talk another time about the ways that we can communicate with God (April).

          In the church we learn that God communicates with us in various ways:  in creation, in scripture, in dreams, through messengers and the witness of a living faith in others, in prayer (April), through prophets of old and in the person and work of Jesus.

          In Hebrews 1 it is written, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.”  God speaks to us in and through Jesus, God with us.  The more we “know” Jesus, head knowledge and heart knowledge, the more we “know” God.  This includes Jesus’ character, his mindset, his spiritual life, his ministry, his teaching and preaching, his death, his resurrection, and his post resurrection appearances. 

          God communicated with his people through the prophets of the Old Testament.  Listen to the word given to Isaiah, “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel; Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  There was a persistent and continual invitation from God through the prophets to remain faithful or to return in faith to God…the communication often took the form of a warning and always purposed restored relationship.  God gave Isaiah this word too, “…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” God communicates through people of his choosing to speak and remind us of God’s desires for us and for the world.  There is purposeful power in God’s communications with us.

          God communicates with us in dreams.  Think of Jacob, the ladder, and the angels; think of Joseph and his dream about the sheaves that would finally signify God’s redemption of Jacob’s family.  In the New Testament remember Joseph and the 5 dreams in which God instructed him through which the birth and safety of Jesus were secured.  In Bible study recently we discussed Matthew 1 and 2 (the 5 dreams) and I asked if God or a word from God had ever come to anyone in a dream.  Several stories were shared of dreams that were gifts from God about love and assurance of love; dreams that eased fears and gave peace and clarity in difficult times.  I have my own story of God communicating with me via dreams in which I was given an experience of the hope of freedom.

          The word “angel” means messenger.  Whether heavenly or earthly, of spirit or of flesh, God often communicates by putting a messenger in our way with exactly what God desires us to hear and know at exactly the time we need to hear and know it.  Angels appear in dreams and messengers sit across the aisle from us at church or across the aisle from us at work or at school or in the grocery store or at our kitchen tables communications that lead us to all that God wants us to hear and know about himself.  They communicate God to us not only by their words, but also by their loving presence:  a touch, a smile, a nod, any loving gesture.

          God communicates with us in the scriptures as the Holy Spirit brings them to life for us…opens our heart so that God’s word can be written on our hearts that we then may be transformed, that is, moved to a response.  Take for example the prayer of assurance of the psalmist in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want…surely [SURELY] goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  My most moving experience of the power of this psalm came while leading a worship service at an assisted living residence in South Charlotte years ago.  There were 30+ people gathered in the great room for a service of hymns, scriptures, and prayers.  Several men and women in attendance were afflicted with Alzheimers.  Yet when we I invited everyone to join along with me as I read Psalm 23 they knew it by heart! Every word by heart.  God communicates/speaks to the heart.  The heart is the place where God’s word takes hold of us.  The scriptures convey God’s word to us as we are willing and open to receive them and permit them to take hold in our hearts.      

          God communicates with us in creation.  The words of Psalm 19 proclaim, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.  Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.  There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”  And in the gospel of John it is written about the Word (Jesus), “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”  All of creation speaks to us of God, communicates God to us!! 

          Christian mystics, in different ways and words, describe the goal of their faith and relationship with God in this way:  God’s love invites us to find God in all things.  There is that of God in all of creation and in all of life.  Take John’s words to heart.  Would we look for God in a seed?  In a breeze?  In the beauty of a mountain sunrise or a beach sunset?  In the wonder of a starry night or in the fine, meticulous work of a spider web?  In a windswept desert?  In the crashing waves against a rocky coast?  In a turkey dinner or a cup of coffee or in a loaf of bread or in a juicy ripe peach?  In the pain of a loss or in an instance of joy?    “…and without him not one thing came into being.”

          God also communicates to us through our own life experiences.  Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually was given the authority by the Pharaoh to be “ruler over all of Egypt”.  At the time when Joseph’s dream came to its fulfillment and his brothers bowed before him asking for relief for their family from famine and for mercy Joseph was given the grace of seeing God’s hand in his life.  He said, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” Gen. 50:20  What has God communicated to you through your life experiences?

          Next month (March) I will take up the question, “How can we pay attention and be more aware of God’s presence, his voice, his love?”    So that when God does communicate with us…we can respond.                      Peace, Carol

Deepening our prayer life...

 
          At its most basic level prayer is a conscious relationship with God; a relationship that affects us.  Conscious: awake, alert, aware, knowing.  Relationship: interaction, connection, association, involvement.  Prayer moves us, stills us, comforts us, disturbs us, affirms us, convicts us, changes us; above all, prayer deepens our faith and strengthens our relationship with God and with one another.  A conscious relationship with God, prayer, sculpts us more and more into the person God created us to become.

          Why do we pray?  We pray for various reasons:  obligation, to placate/please God, to get something.  We “use” prayer for various purposes.  Another answer to the question is that we pray because we were created in the image of God (imago dei), male and female, in the image of God he made us.  The Creator imaged us, made us in love for love:  to be loved and to love.  In the depths of our hearts and at the core of our souls we long for, desire a relationship with, the One, the LOVE, who created us.  Prayer comes from our longing for God AND from God’s longing for us.  Often we feel stirrings, nudges, restlessness.  This is God calling us to prayer.  We were made for a relationship with God.  Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”  Julian of Norwich speaks similarly, “..for our natural wish is to have God, and God’s good wish is to have us, and we can never stop wanting or longing until we fully and joyfully possess him, and then we shall wish for nothing more” (from Revelations of Divine Love). 

          While we yearn for closeness, for intimacy with the One who Loves us, intimacy brings with it vulnerability, fear and resistance.  A deep prayer life eventually leads us into the vulnerable place of being fully known; of telling God all; totally and completely being ourselves with God.  No wonder the Old Testament tells us that no one ever wanted to see the face of God or stand face to face with God!  For face to face with God we cannot hide anything.  Face to face equals truth.  God’s love equals grace.  If you have obstacles or resistances to going deeper in prayer remember the most frequently occurring words of encouragement in the Bible are “do not fear”.  And another often spoken, “Trust in the Lord”.  Let go of judging yourself.  God will not judge;  God will love you with gentleness and compassion.  God wants to share himself with you and for you to share yourself with God.  There is no judgment; just sharing. 

          In William Barry’s Here’s My Heart; Here’s My Hand-Living Fully in Friendship with God he writes, “In principle, prayer is a simple thing.  I tell God what is going on in my life and in my heart and wait for God’s response.”  (Look to the psalmists’ prayers in 42, 51, 13, even the anger of 137).  God responds. 

          Prayer affects us.  True prayer, such an intimate relationship with God, changes us.  Spending time with God we come to love what God loves; to desire what God desires; we become more like God.  God was pleased to dwell in Jesus and it is through our growing knowledge and deepening love of Jesus, love for grace and truth, that we grow closer and closer to God.  God desires and is pleased to dwell in us too and God will come, if we desire it and allow it to be so.   Prayer is a conscious relationship with God that affects us. A relationship requires some form of communication.  How does God communicate with us?  We’ll take that up next month. 

 Glad to be sharing the journey.                    Peace, Carol   

 

 

A Lament

Holy God, in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut…the killing of 20 six and seven year olds, of a mother, of 6 teachers and principals and the suicide of a 20 year old…we pray for consolation and comfort; we pray for answers; we pray for healing to come.  We lift up the families of the slain children and ask that you come to them, especially, through the love of neighbors, strangers and friends who reach out with compassion and love to show them grace and to help them in their time of need.  We pray with the assurance of Jesus welcoming the children and blessing them that the children who have died are now safely and securely in the blessed arms of our savior.  We pray for our troubled nation for we have become a culture of want, yet we suffer such poverty of spirit.  Our children grow up too quickly, being exposed to far too much violence and reality before they are ready and able to process it all.  We have sacrificed our inner lives for meaningless busyness; sacrificed our spirits and souls to the numbing power of what we call entertainment; we have sacrificed the most basic need of a human, which is to be loved and connected to other humans in meaningful community, with personal ambition, success, and all of the ways in which we live for self at the expense of others, even at the expense of those we love.  Help us, O God.  In your mercy move us to a repentance for the forgiveness of self centered life, of consumer oriented living, of dehumanizing attitudes and activities, of preferring the impersonal relationship of technology to the desperately needed personal relationship of real conversation, touch, eye to eye contact, and the so very important gift of being present to one another in love. 

Gracious and merciful God, you are our refuge and strength.  Born a child, the joy of the world, you came to dwell among us in Jesus; who walked the roads of Galilee and Judea teaching love, justice, and mercy…living in community with everyone, especially the lowly and the rejected of society…rejected himself Jesus was arrested, tortured, and killed..he died a most excruciating and shameful death on a cross.  In your great love for your Son, he was raised and appeared to his disciples…his life was given by the Holy Spirit to us and we are his body in the world today.  May we love as Jesus loved; care for the downtrodden and the troubled and the hopeless and the powerless as Jesus cared for them; may we seek meaningful relationships with those we love and may we welcome community with our neighbors, even with strangers.  We pray for the residents of Newtown, Conn….for the children who are students at Sandy Hook Elementary School; we pray for their healing and for the healing of our nation’s heart and soul.  In the healing name of truth and grace, Jesus Christ, we pray.  AMEN.       

Prayer: The Way of Faith and Life

Read Isaiah 55:1-13 and follow that reading with Psalm 139.

The messages are clear and powerful.  God is near.  With you.  There is nowhere that God is not present with you. 

In my own reflection on these two passages my thoughts focused on "call upon him while he is near" from Isaiah.  Prayer is calling upon God.  Calling upon God, however, doesn't simply mean with voice, but with our whole being (this is living in faith). 

Prayer, then, includes being aware of God and aware of those things that prevent us from being in God's presence; being attentive to God with eyes, ears, hands and heart; and being available,  fully present and honest God with about everything. 

Aware:  What is God like?  How have you experienced God in your life?  How does God show up in the life of Jesus and other persons in the Bible?

Attentive:  What are some ways that you pay attention to significant relationships in your life?  How then will you pay attention to God?

Available:  How do you make yourself available to the people in your life?  How do you make yourself available for significant learning or important work?  How then can you make yourself more available to God?

These are some key postures of a rich and deep life of faith and prayer. 

"Be still and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10.....be aware, pay attention, and be available.

Peace, Carol

More Water Imagery

Streams........living water........flow..........from within.         

A continuous flow of Life streaming through us.