December 19

God of all joy, as I wait, sowewhat excited, somewhat fearful, the birth of your child and the life-changing consequences for my life keeps me following the star, until it stops over the place where I need to be with you. Help me to be open, ready, following.

Amen

December 16

Gracious God, you have given me wit and grace, and time. But sometimes feel dull and resentful and just so rushed by the season. Create in me a spontaneous, playful, graceful, spacious spirit.
Amen.

December 15

Loving God, the children get it. There is something magical that we are waiting for. But the busy-ness and the business of the season is so very distracting. Help me past the distractions inot the joy-filled waitng and preparing.
Amen

A scattered time of the year

We pondered the Magnificat last Sunday and there was a single phrase that I understood in a completely new way.

The biggest stumbling block to spiritual growth is egoic pride. The mindset and behaviours which emerge as self sufficiency, knowing all, knowing what is best, superiority, self centeredness, resistance to feedback ... to name a few. We all have these, and the extent to which we seek their transformation shows - in those moments - humility. The Blessed of the beatitudes.

The core of Centering Prayer is the dismantling and transformation of the egoic self, the False Self. In the practice of Centering Prayer, for 20 minutes, I enter my ‘heart’ and let go of each thought, feeling, imagination or sensation as it occurs. Thus the space is created for God’s presence and action within.

And so I heard this phrase -

“... God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.” (Lk 1:51)

and knew in my being its truth.

I can know I’m in my pridefulness when I am ‘scattered’.

Or to say it another way. In a usual 'sit' as I practice Centering Prayer I have many thoughts. That is normal, when I engage or chase of follow any thought the result is being 'scattered'. Yet each time I use my sacred word to let go of that thought, I'm 'gathered'.

Engaging the thoughts invading my heart are my undoing. They are thoughts that seek to preserve my egoic self.

The pathway of humility lies in not believing the thoughts of my heart, but - even if for a moment - letting it go and letting God be.

And I’m centered, yielded, touched with the stillness of Mary on a star filled night.

Now I’m ready, as a vessel, to be present to the mystery of the incarnation.

Church Mad

I got hit with it this last Sunday, somebody’s church mad.  One somebody did something to another somebody; the second somebody responded with the nuclear option—as in I’m gonna leave if...  The reaction was totally inappropriate, and my visceral response was rage: I hate this kind of church mad, I hate this kind of immaturity, it makes me nuts.

Thanks be to God, I was able to listen and empathize and keep my little mouth shut.  Because afterwards I realized that it wasn’t just one somebody who did it to second somebody.  It was me, too.  I’d taken second somebody for granted.  Because he is generally amiable, I’d been amiable myself, ignoring what I thought of as his inappropriate resistance to something that I thought was best for the church.  And because second somebody wants to do things right, he kept his mouth shut, avoided conflict, until he was at his wit’s end.  He doesn’t know how to say no, so he says nothing until he can’t stand it anymore.

So my disgust with church mad has fled, replaced by a deeper recognition of how deeply painful it is to be taken for granted, how often I manipulate without noticing it, and how profoundly second someone wants to do the right thing.  I aim to help him with that by respecting him more deeply.  If that means I have to disagree with him openly, so be it. 

Mary Therese DesCamp

December 14

O God there are times when, in the midst of a season of warmth and joy, there is a coldness-a hardness of heart. So much commerce and consumption while so many struggle. Help me to stay open-hearted, warm-hearted, kind-hearted. Help me to face the challenges to the joy that wants to emerge in me.
Amen.

December 13

O God of change, something is going on around me. It is something you have set in motion. There is joy in this season, even when struggles continue to cling so close. Your joy is deeper than trouble. Reveal in me a joy that is deep and lasting.
Amen

In the midst of your busyness - Peace To You!

This morning I woke up and remembered it was my turn to write something, to offer something, some words to nurture your spirits, you who are focused on nurturing the spirits of others.

But then I got out of bed,

and became busy with all the things that filled my day.

And now, when it may be too late, I’ve remembered.

And now, you have come.

We meet in this moment.

And in this moment may we both be still and listen

for the Song of Love that is always singing to us

if we have ears to hear and a heart open to believe

we are precious in the Heart of God.

Dear Ones, God loves you with a love that is beyond our wildest dreams!

Rest in that love!

Be at Peace!

December 12

O God, draw near to me as I am trying to draw near to you. Speak your invitation into my  heart. Soften my pride and call me back to the home of my heart. Free me from familiar routines that have become empty, and draw me onto the new path of your making.
Amen

December 9

O God, help me to hear your ever-old, ever-new message of hope and peace. Help me to attend to the activities of my day so that I can perceive you in it. Help me to live into my faith and act out of my convictions, that your day of peace might dawn in some small way.
Amen

This will be of special interest to those who like to walk as prayer, and to those who struggle with walking as prayer!

Graham Cotter is an Anglican priest in Ontario. He writes a weekly column, mostly on science and religion. This particular one has an obvious relevance to our work of staying healthy spiritually. And an obvious relevance to Advent as preparing for embodiment.

My thanks to Don Grayston for passing this article on to me.

Bill

_______________________

67Nov 28 .PRAYER PILGRIM

When I was teaching at University College in Toronto, every day I walked two miles west from Cabbagetown with that beautiful Norman tower as my goal. As I did so, I turned over in my mind the people and issues of the day: friends, colleagues, students, politicians, workers, the oppressed, the sick. With this I repeated either the Jesus Prayer (“have mercy”} the Lord’s Prayer, or the Glory to Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Morning was a good time for prayer.

In the years since then I have known and taught that prayer begins with adoration and thanksgiving to God, goes on to confession, prayers for others and petitions for myself. But the earlier method, just turning my mind to God with so many concerns in it, seems best. And now I am taught by one of my fellow pilgrims, that in her long or short morning walks as she brings her physical being into line and shape for the day, her prayers rise up as do her thoughts.

Where do prayers come from? Why does a pilgrimage seem so appropriate to prayer? Why do we make copies of the various labyrinths which arose in pagan worship, and use these to collect and recollect ourselves, as we move physically into our journey?

The context for prayer is God working in us, and in no less than our bodies: “human listening to God must begin where God begins in us, in the felt realities of our own bodies” (Diane Schneider,* doctoral thesis on Wellness and Holistic Theology, page 226). I wonder why I never heard much about our bodies and prayer in studying theology. Our mentors knew that our prayer life in the Church was one in which we moved, sat, knelt, stood, walked, perhaps raised our arms to model Jesus on the Cross, held our hands out for sustenance at Communion. All these actions were a kind of dance, but those actions when I studied theology were not associated with dance; dance was ballet or waltz or even the “twist”.

Theologians had little sense of our finding God through our bodies. Schneider remarks “the life experience of theologians over time has not included very much dance, yoga, listening to their own illness, or attention to the body, generally.” (230)

I now am more tolerant of those who find a place for prayer even in such fleshly pursuits as wrestling, competitive games, and of course, dancing. Even choir work requires tough physical dedication, and that is given a place of honour in our worship. I would add dance and acting dramatization of the Gospel, with loudness or whisper, and with music.

Moving our limbs in both old and new ways, alone or with others, provides new experiences of the reality we are equipped with within our bodies. According to Deane Juhan, (“Job’s Body: a Handbook for Bodywork” Station Hill Press, page xxvi) quoted by Diane Schneider: these experiences provide “new sensations, volumes of new data which the mind can scan in search for clues for new habits, new modifications, more constructive conditions” . In modes of dance, which we can compare with the interdependence on one another of jazz musicians, we can learn not only individually, but communally, of the realities which are beyond us if we remain isolated individuals.

A prayer adapted from the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church puts these corporate and communal experiences in the context of worshipping God, and of being blessed by one another in the gifts of God.

THE BLESSING

God our source and fountain head,

God who makes all our beginnings,

God, in whom we fashion our ends,

God, our Lover and Beloved:

Bless us by being ever with us in art,

music, drama and dance,

that we may perfect our praise

for you and your creation,

and that your beauty, which now we glimpse,

may we find forever unveiled in You.

*Diane Schneider may be found at <healingharpist@hotmail.com> or

www.harpofhope.com

BEING AWAKE

Set the Clock of Your Heart

Breathe in the Dawn

Life High the Chalice of your life

Taste the joy of being awake

It's the best medicine of all

Being awake, being awake.

-Velma Frye, Seven Sacred Pauses

As we travel through this Holy season of advent,

how will you set the clock of your heart?

Advent blessings,

Lori

December 8

Loving God, somtimes your voice comes to us with warnings. I am aware that the world is not at peace. The same could be said of me. Let your promised peace dawn in my heart. Let it infiltrate the world.
Amen

December 7

God of Peace, I am aware that what is in my heart effects what happens in my life and in the world. When I am unsettled and anxious, I struggle to build peace around me. Reach into my heart with your eternal and ever-present serenity.
Amen

The Color of Truth

The best and most beautiful thinigs in the world cannot be seen or touched...but are felt in the heart.

~Helen Keller

There is an ancient Chinese art of painting on porecelain. It requires, more than skill and precision, a deep trust and patience in the process. It involves painting thin layers of pigment, one at a time, on the porcelain, letting each dry and soak into the porcelain itself. But even when dry, the pigment doesn't yet reveal its colour. You never know what the colour will be unitl the porcelain is fired in the kiln-that is, until the pigment is burned into the porcelain itself.

This is remarkably like the life of questions that come from living. We use the brush of our feelings to paint our questions into our heart. But only after the fire of experience, only after our felt questions are burned by experience into our heart, only then do we see the colour of truth emerge.

So there are no answers to the deeper questions of living, only the emerging colours of truth which we must find the trust and patience to live into.

• Sit quietly and bring to mind the colour of truth you have personally lived into
• Using your breath, unravel this truth back to the questions you had before living it
• Note the difference and share the story of this truth with a friend.

(Taken from The Book of Awakening, Having the Life you Want by Being Present to the Life you Have, by Mark Nepo, December 6, pg 401)

Occupied by Hope

Adbusters "Occupy Wall Street" and "Buy Nothing Day" have recently evolved to "Occupy Christmas" I have found myself intrigued by this movement that shockingly speaks to what we religious leaders have been speaking to for years. It is suggested that we go back to the roots of the traditions of the religious festivals and focus less on the consumerism of it all. I am enjoying engaging (albeit from a distance) in these movements even with their obvious flaws. As I read the advent scriptures it seems to me the Occupy Christmas promoters and the prophetic and apocalyptic calls to attentiveness actually have a lot in common. Both are speaking to a large majority of people who are oppressed and feel cut off from cultural norms. They are voices calling out in the wilderness. Asking us to WAKE UP to the destructive ways of our cultural norms.

As we see all over the media today and hear from our colleagues that many are being cast back out to the streets this winter I wonder how God is calling us as Christian leaders to engage in a new way this season.

Debra Bowman and I have been in a lot of conversation about this in the last week and both of us are writing sermons on the subject she offers the observation that "The Occupy movement is “apocalyptic literature in-carnate, in the flesh." A voice crying out “Something is not right and we’re not getting out of our tents until you notice.” The Occupy movement joins our contemporary theology in understanding that there must be engagement between the will of God and the way of God’s people. That each step and decision we take is a step and decision towards participating in the fulfillment of God’s realm or a step away from the righteousness for all creation that is the profound yearning of God.”

This Advent I am engaging in a new way. I am following the "Occupy Movements" to hear the voices crying out in the wilderness. As I do so I am seeking ways to Occupy my heart and soul with hope, peace, joy and love so that I too may participate in the bringing of the kindom of God here on earth.

Advent Blessings,

Karen

Learning to Upgrade

It’s hard to let go of the familiar. I am facing this right now because it looks like I’m going to need a new computer soon. I was reminded this morning, however, that the most difficult things to let go aren’t actually things; they are ideas. My beliefs, so firmly held, are often just opinions that I cling to for protection from the reality of the complex and confusing world.

God is like that too. By which I mean, my notion of God. Every time I am certain of what I believe, of what God must BE—the God of justice, the God of Love—I am reminded that my ideas are always and forever inadequate. Scripture—which may not be inerrant but is certainly inspired—tells us that besides being just and loving, the Divine can merciful and furious. Or maybe I’m sure that God is energy or that God is Beingness. None of these faces, or characterizations, are necessarily wrong. They are necessarily incomplete. It’s only when I assume that I’ve got the lock on it, that I finally know, that I am completely wrong.

It’s like I got started a long time ago with God 1.0, and my job is to keep getting constant upgrades and even once in a while a whole new machine. Learning the upgrades takes a hell of a lot of work, but the alternative is that you can’t process the information that is coming in—you can’t read the files that you get sent and you can’t enjoy all there is. In computers and programs, as in our relationship to the Holy, as in our lives, to be static is to die.

So here’s to a new computer, and to God 10.3, or whatever upgrade you’re on. May we have the courage to learn it well and let it go when its time has come.

blessings--

Therese

Second day of Advent

The following is from a collection of Advent Reflections compiled by the Vancouver School of Theology community.   This exert is from Pamela Hawkins, Simply Wait: Cultivating Stillness in the Season of Advent.

With practice, I learned that if I just kept looking, patiently, I would almost always find a falling star.  Over time I learned from friends who had lived by the ocean longer than I that the likelihood of finding a falling star was greater in certain seasons of he year or in particular quadrants of the sky.  I learned that if I lay down with my head propped just right on Ray’s knee, I could wait longer and watch better.  I just had to let patience, desire, and practice teach me to be present to what was to come.

So it is with Advent and patience.  As we begin to watch impatiently for the light of Christmas, we have been given this stretch of time and space of Advent.  Here we are invited to grow in patience and to position our lives so that we do not miss what God is doing in the wide expanse of the world.

May we slow down, spread out our whole lives before God, and practice patient watching for where the light of God is falling.  May we catch a glimpse of this holy light of the lives and places in the world that need our attention and are 8illumined by God’s radiance so as to draw us near.  May we all settle into Advent with a deep desire to see and attend to what matters to God.

Benediction

May the Holy Spirit fall upon you.  Like a falling star, trailing across the dawns and dusks of your Advent living, may the Spirit mark you with light and point the way toward God-With-Us.  Be patient, draw close, for the Lord is very near.   Amen.

Posted by Dan Chambers

One Minute Wisdom

I have enjoyed the writing of Anthony de Mello for many years.

You may find the Wikipedia info interesting, especially on the Pope’s opinion!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_de_Mello

His “One Minute Wisdom” book is in the library of the monastery where I have done several retreats. I am drawn to it each time I’m there for the freshness of his thinking and his gentle humor.

In my next few blog postings I’ll share stories from his book.

Here are a few words from the introduction to set the stage.

“The Master in these tales is not a single person... His wisdom belongs to East and West alike. Do his historical antecedents really matter? History, after all, is the record of appearances, not Reality; of doctrines, not of Silence.

It will only take a minute to read each of the anecdotes that follow. You will probably find the Master’s language baffling, exasperating, even downright meaningless. This, alas, is not an easy book! It was written, not to instruct, but to Awaken. Concealed within its pages (not in the printed words, not even in the tales, but in its spirit, its mood, its atmosphere) is a Wisdom which cannot be conveyed in human speech. As you read the printed page and struggle with the Master’s cryptic language it is possible that you will unwittingly chance upon the Silent Teaching that lurks within the book, and be Awakened - and transformed. This is what Wisdom means: to be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words, that lies beyond the reach of words.”

When it comes to our own spiritual nurture, and spiritual growth, we can become discouraged. It is common for me to arrive at plateaus in my practice and in my relationship with God. I’m grateful for the reminder in the teaching of Centering Prayer that the most important part of the practice is doing it, not in any results or feelings of spiritual closeness. Here is Tony’s take on it!

“Is there such a thing as One Minute Wisdom”

“There certainly is,” said the Master.

“But surely one minute is to brief?”

“It is fifty-nine seconds too long.”

To his puzzled disciples the Master later said, “How much time does it take to catch sight of the moon?”

“Then why all these years of spiritual endeavor?”

“Opening one’s eyes may take a lifetime. Seeing is done in a flash.”

At Home in the Spirit

I’ve just returned from a month in Ethiopia.  It was an experience of poverty and beauty beyond what I could ever have imagined. 

The first two weeks I was working with a team of twelve Canadians and some thirty five Ethiopian men and women building Habitat for Humanity houses (and pit toilets) made of eucalyptus poles, bark, chika and cement, with corrugated metal roofs.  On our last day on the Build site we presented six families with house keys, and bibles, and pictures of our team to hang on the walls of their new homes - homes which they had earned through their hard work - homes which they now owned.

The last two weeks I travelled with a couple of friends and our driver, discovering the beauty and the spirit of the land and the people who walked it, literally, and often barefoot.  I have arrived home with many pictures, and stories, and a sense of being full to overflowing with something new and yet not new.  I need time to just be with it all.

In those four weeks of walking in a land of ancient culture, and people stripped of so much of the stuff that fills my world, I was almost constantly aware of the Holy Mystery that is the Source of all of creation.  I had a sense of being spiritually fed at a deep and profound level.  Maybe I was more open because my surroundings were both strange and strangely familiar - in a land two miles above sea level - where the air was thin and my lungs were at times challenged, the feeling in my fingers reached out beyond my skin at times.  But even so I felt at home. 

Holy Love wrapped round me and invited me to dance - and on the last day on the Build site I did dance, hesitantly since my shoulders were unfamiliar with the dance of these new friends - these new home-owners.  We all danced to the music of the universe sung by a man in rubber clogs, dancing on a bare dirt floor, in Ethiopia.

And in the words of another indigenous man, from my part of the world, My Heart Soars!

Sharon Copeman

THE SEED OF GOD ~ Meister Eckhart

The seed of God is in us. 

Given an intelligent

and hardworking farmer,

it will thrive and grow

up into God, whose seed

it is; and accordingly its

fruits will be God-nature.

Pear seeds grow into 

pear trees, nut seeds

into nut trees, and

God seeds into God.

May the seed of God root deeply within you and grow robustly through and about you.

--

Ivy Thomas
Conference Minister
Kamloops-Okanagan Presbytery

Head, Heart and Body

I’d like to share a passage from a new book by Richard Rohr.

It really resonated with me, and as I thought about sharing it here, I noticed that it carried on from my last posting! (Living what we preach) Having a quality of life that others will ask about! Luminous and light filled!

Answering the invitation to an authentic life of faith lies at the heart of our leadership.

I hear an important ‘self check in inventory’ that I will use: ” On a sliding scale, how are my: opinionated head, closed-down heart, and defended body?”

“To finally surrender ourselves to healing, we have to have three spaces opened up within us-and all at the same time: our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body. That is the work of spirituality-and it is work. Yes, it is finally the work of “a Power greater than ourselves,” and it will lead to great luminosity and depth of seeing. That is why true faith is one of the most holistic and free actions a human can perform. It leads to such broad and deep perception, that most traditions would call it “light”. Remember, Jesus said that we were the light of the world also (Matt 5:14) and not just himself (John 8:12). Christians often forget this. Such luminous seeing is quite the opposite of the closed-minded, dead heart, body-denying thing that much religion has allowed faith to become. As you have surely heard before, “Religion is lived by people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is lived by people who have been through hell.”

Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater, St Anthony Messenger Press, 2011. p. 8,9

His book is about the connection between spirituality and the 12 steps of AA. It is a beautiful introduction to the 12 steps in a way that will be accessible to Christians.

Step Parent Heart

I am in Washington D.C., with my new grandson, his almost 4 year old sister, and his parents, drafted for a week of washing and cooking and cleaning and babysitting.

Technically, he’s not my grandson.  I’m a stepmother, not a birth mother: I’ve had to work hard to earn a place in this little boy’s life.  A friend once told me that being a stepparent was the most thankless task in the world—you’re supposed to be as generous and understanding as a real parent but without the right to say anything.   It’s tricky, step-parenting: we have to find forgiveness and acceptance before we find love, and it’s hard to love when someone is being cautious about me.  I find myself being constrained because I never want to hear, “You’re not my mother.”  I often keep my mouth shut, not out of love, but out of fear of rejection. 

Yesterday I went to church with the kids.  I like this suburban church with children and old people and a great choir: it’s not perfect, but it’s good.  They have a new pastor, and I was eager to hear what he had to say.

But what I noticed more than what he said is that he operated with step-parent heart.  He had all the right words and all the right ideas and his theology was good, but it felt hard, sharp: more like setting a limit than extending an invitation.

I think sometimes when we love Jesus and the work of justice passionately, we experience the church as a stepchild, not quite what we want, not raised the way we would raise it.  We are careful of our hearts because we don’t want to be rejected, but we are also quick to judge first.   The problem is that if we keep our hearts, if we wait for love before we extend forgiveness and acceptance, nothing will ever grow between us.

I wanted to take this man’s hand after church and tell him to be more tender.  I didn’t.  I don’t know if he would have heard it, or appreciated it.  Probably I was afraid of offending.  But I will pray for him that his stepparent heart, and mine, continues to melt.  As the psalmist says, Take away this stony heart, and put a new heart within me…

Posted by Therese DesCamp

Just Breathe

It's my turn to struggle with what to put on the blog and today I can't even find a poem I like - that's impossible.

Perhaps it's because it's so cold out all of a sudden that I feel like I should be curled up under a blanket next to a warm fire.

Or maybe it is some of the responses I have read or heard from colleagues this week that has been disheartening.

Perhaps it's because it's election time in Squamish and some of the political arguments I read yesterday about non-profits and churches just out to money grab got me a little down.

Or what about the guy who came into the office and ranted at me about how no one comes to churches because they are full of 'crap' and are just out to get our money and not willing to help anyone in need.

Or maybe it's because this Sunday we are having a remembrance day service and so even prepping worship this week has been lament.

It makes me think of those days I'm nervous to go into a meeting and I know I should have a wise devotional but "I got nothing"

It's not that I'm down or depressed. I'm actually in a really good space in life.

So instead of writing something wise today I've decided to just write something honest and say the goal for today is to 'just breathe.' Breathe in the breath of life.... that's all... just breathe....close your eyes take a deep breath and breathe...breathe

Truck Lights

I first heard Rene Fumeleau’s poem about two years ago while driving in my car and listening to the CBC.  It made an impression so I more recently offered the poem for our Board meeting as we find our way through a time of uncertainty, calling on our faith in God and in each other.  A few weeks later I offered the poem in a sermon while visiting with the Cariboo Presbytery in Fort St. James, where it was also appreciated.  So now I offer it to you, that you may have the faith to go forward even with the little light we have in the moment.

Truck Lights
By Rene Fumeleau, an Oblate priest doing missionary work in the far North.  Beuchoko is about 80 kilometers north of Yellowknife.  This piece is from his collection of poems,  Here I Sit.

Wintertime and very cold,
early afternoon but already dark.
I'm driving from Sombak'e (Yellowknife) to Beuchoko (Rae)
in my fifteen-year-old pickup truck,
and a Dene elder askes me for a ride.
The land has taught the Dene
to live in a world of silence.
After ten kilometeres, Kolchia relects:
"Driving the truck is like having faith in God."
I'm trying to figure out what he means,
but after two kilometres I give up:
"Grandpa, you talked about driving and faith in God.
I'm not sure what you meant."
Kolchia turned slightly towards me:
"You started the engine and you put the lights on.
We could have said,
'We see only one hundred metres ahead.
Farther on, it's one hundred kilometres of darkness,
so we cannot go the Beuchoko.'
But you got the truck into gear,
we started to move,
and the lights kept showing ahead of us.


Posted by Dan Chambers

Ouch

The people who selected the texts in the Common Lectionary didn’t pull punches!

Matthew 23:3 “.... since they (religious leaders) do not practice what they preach”.

How do we, as the religious leaders, embrace this text?

Bristling at the critique, and in an instant proving our lack of humility!

Saying nothing - so as not to prove Jesus right - and by our silence demonstrate arrogance!

Many people in Canadian society distrust religious institutions, our Church included. Even if they have not been in a church or read the Bible, they do think we do not practice what we preach. So a generic ‘spirituality of my own design’ feels a lot safer to many people.

We find ourselves in the double bind, the ‘catch 22’, of ‘Servant-Leader’.

If we embrace Jesus’ call and let go of the need to respond to it as a critique, but rather as a call, then we become authentic leaders. The solution to the ‘catch 22’ is contained within it: to practice -then preach.

The moral practice of this is obvious.

The spiritual practice of this produces the ‘evidence’ or ‘fruit’ which will attract others to follow Christ.

So ... how are you today? In your meditation practice? In your personal reading of scripture? In your connection to a spiritual director? In your compassionate transparency in listening to others? In setting aside your egoic needs for true self care?

And have the grace for yourself that you will do this perfectly imperfect. Or as Golda Meir said “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great!”

“Preach the gospel always, and use words when necessary”

Shooting cows

I have a great fear of waking up on my deathbed and realizing I forgot to live my life.  So when my sister the writer says you have to keep writing “even if you can shoot a cow through the holes in the plot,” I listen.  And when a friend says that anything worth doing is worth doing badly, I listen.

These statements evince a level of commitment of which I am envious.  I may use over-commitment as my excuse, but it’s most often not time but fear that holds me back.  I can feel drawn to doing something, called, almost impelled—but as soon as I run into a roadblock—disapproval, exhaustion, judgment—I shy away.

But in the end, who cares if you can shoot cows through your plot, or that you didn’t do something well? Doesn’t it really matter that you tried to be alive?

Mary Therese DesCamp

Holy Seasons

A few weeks ago I had cause to email Rabbi Laura Kaplan from Or Shalom Symagogue in Vancouver. It was just after Rosh Hashannah and right before three upcoming Jewish  holy days including Sukot. I received an auto reply saying that because of the Holy Days the rythym of the staff would be different. They would be less present to regular office duties and hours.

Wow, wouldn't that be great, I thought. To be relieved of the regular, daily administrative duties so that one could focus fully on preparation and presiding for special holy seasons  I immediately thought how different our Decembers would be if we did something like that. Honoring our time and especially our energy so that we weren't rushed and exhausted. What a gift for us and our congregations!

I wonder what keeps us from doing this?

I wonder what would change in our congregations if we did?

I wonder what would change in our relationship with God?

Blessings on your day

Lori Megley-Best

The Season of Vulnerability

You may have begun to discover that the seasons of the year always speak to me. Autumn is one of my favourites because it speaks so clearly of the transitions of life and death and rebirth.

Autumn,

the season of vulnerability,

when the great arms of oak

stretch their summer leaves to the wild October winds.

all that has been life adn green

is stripped from strong trees,

and the tall, wide branches seem to be deathly wounded.

across the lawns in layers

lie the near-dead leaves;

onto the forest floors they fall as if to say: "all is lost."

this is the season of vulnerability

when trees open wide to wounding,

when all the summer security is given away to another season.

wiser are the trees than humans

who clutch small arms round self,

shielding their fragile hearts and stifling future springtimes.

Joyce Rupp (Fresh Bread pg. 128)

In a time where all of us are working in some sort of transitional ministry we are encouraged to look to the lessons of this season and pray that we may become wise like the trees and let go of what needs to die. Celebrating life like the trees celebrating the end of the lifespan of the leaves -bursting forth in an array of colours offering up a 'death-dance' to the ground. Rather than shielding our fragile hearts and boxing in the way our lives are to go and therefore stifling future springtimes.

Let Go of the Rice

In a world that lives like a fist

mercy is no more than waking

with you hands open.

     So much more can happen with our hands open. In fact, closing and stubbornly maintaining our grip is often what keeps us stuck, though we want to blame everything and everyone else, especially what we're holding on to.

     There is an ancient story from China that makes all this very clear. It stems from the way traps were set for monkeys. A coconut was hollowed out through an opening that was cut to the size of a monkey's open hand. Rice was then placed in the carved-out fruit which was left in the path of the monkeys. Sooner or later, a hungry monkey would smell the rice and reach its hand in. But once fisting the rice, its hand could no longer fit back out through the opening. The monkeys that were caught were those who would not let go of the rice.

     As long as the monkey maintained its grip on the rice, it was a prisoner of its own making. The trap worked because of the monkey's hunger was the master of its reach. The lesson for us is profound. We need to always ask ourselves, What is our rice and what is keeping us from opening our grip and letting it go?

     It was upon hearing this story that I finally understood the tense ritual of rejection that exists between my mother and me. Like any child, I've always wanted her love and approval, but suddenly I realized that this has been my rice--the more it has not come, the tighter my grip. My hunger for her love has been master of my reach, even in other relationships. I have been a caught monkey, unwilling to let go.

     I have since unfolded the grip in my heart, and humbly, I can see now that the real challenge of surrender, for all of us, is not just letting go--but letting go of something we yearn for.

     The truth is that food is everywhere. Though the stubborn monkey believes in its moment of hunger that there is no other food, it only has to let for its life to unfold. Our journey to love is no different. For though we stubbornly cling, belieiving in our moment of hunger that ther is no other possibility of love, we only have to let go of what we want so badly and our life will unfold. For love is everywhere.

• Sit quietly and meditate on what is the rice in your fist.
• Breathe deeply and try to see what is keeping you from letting it go.
• Practice opening the fist of your heart by actually making a fist while inhaling, and then opening it as your exhale.

This excerpt has been taken from pg 80 from the Book titled “The Book of Awakening, Having the Life you Want by Being Present to the Life you Have”. Written by Mark Nepo.



The Song in my Spirit This Week

I’ve been soaking in the comfort and assurance of Psalm 91 this week, as I listen to the news and wait and wonder what would happen to my Air Canada flight on Friday, taking me to Ethiopia to build houses with Habitat for Humanity.  These words of the Psalmist, set to music by Michael Joncas, fill my spirit.  If you know the tune, let it soak into your spirit, with words of assurance - no matter what - God is our shelter and strength - in the midst of everything!

You who dwell in the shelter of our God, who abide in this shadow for life, say to the Lord: “My refuge, my Rock in whom I trust!”

And God replies - “And I will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of my hand.”

The snare of the fowler will never capture you, and famine will bring you no fear: under God’s wings your refuge, God’s faithfulness your shield.

“And I will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of my hand.”

You need not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day; though thousands fall about you, near you it shall not come.

“And I will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of my hand.”

For to God’s angels is given a command to guard you in all of your ways; upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

This refrain sings itself in my soul - and I am made strong as I let God’s message soak in... “I will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of my hand.”

Sharon Copeman

NATURE AS MIRROR-Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

I think what modern men and women lack is a deep sense of belonging. That sense of belonging is given to you by God from your very birth, and then it is mirrored to you in the natural world—if you are looking and listening. In nature you can overcome your sense of separateness or alienation—and know you are a part of the whole. If Franciscan spirituality means anything it is founded on a very positive image of human nature and all of creation, “original blessing” instead of original sin.

There is a kind of therapy that I’d like to call “proactive” therapy, in which you don’t try to heal your wounds afterwards. Instead, you rely on your inherent connection with everything and are healed ahead of time into a kind of “hidden wholeness,” as Thomas Merton called it. I call it “the Unified Field,” or as Gerard Manley Hopkins called it “the dearest freshness deep down things.” Inside of the Unified Field you find that it is a good world and you also are inherently good, not because you are independently perfect (you never will be!), but because you belong to the Whole—that is always and deeply good and perfect in its Wholeness (the pleroma, or “fullness” of Colossians 1:19-20). To live inside of such fullness is what it means to be a Franciscan.

From In the Footsteps of Francis: Awakening to Creation webcast
(CD, DVD, MP3
Richard Rohr

Let's give thanks for belonging to the Whole, and in that gratitude, let us open ourselves to the fullness.  

May you walk in Wholeness this day,

Blessings

Lori Megley-Best

A Prayer for Autumn Days

God of the seasons, there is a time for everything;

there is a time for dying and a time for rising.

We need courage to enter into the transformation process.

God of autumn, the trees are saying goodbye to their green,

letting go of what has been.

We, too, have our moments of surrender, with all their insecurity and risk.

Help us to let go when we need to do so.

God of fallen leaves lying in colored patterns on the ground,

our lives have their own patterns.

As we see the patterns of our own growth,

may we learn from them.

God of misty days and harvest moon nights,

there is always the dimension of mystery and wonder in our lives.

We always need to recognize your power-filled presence.

May we gain strength from this.

God of harvest wagons and fields of ripened grain,

many gifts of growth lie within the season of our surrender.

We must wait for harvest in faith and hope.

Grant us patience when we do not see the blessings.

God of geese going south for another season,

your wisdom enables us to know what needs to be left behind and what needs

to be carried into the future.

We yearn for insight and vision.

God of flowers touched with frost and windows wearing,

white designs,

may your love keep our herts from growing,

cold in the empty seasons.

God of life, you believe in us,

you enrich us, you entrust us with

the freedom to choose life.

For all this, we are grateful.

Joyce Rupp (May I have this dance)

This is a prayer which captures some of the fullness and paradox of my life in God. I hope it may speak with you.

The SLG order is an Anglican order of cloistered nuns in Oxford, England. Their website is www.slg.org.uk/

I have appreciated a number of their booklets on the contemplative life.

God, let us rise to the edges of time

and open our lives to your eternity;

let us run to the edges of space

and gaze into your immensity;

let us climb through the barriers of sound

and pass into your silence;

and then in stillness and silence

let us adore You,

You who are Life, Light, Love

without beginning and without end,

the Source, the Sustainer, the Restorer,

the Purifier of all that is;

the Lover who has bound earth to heaven

by the beams of a cross;

the Healer who has renewed a dying race

by the blood of a chalice;

the God who has taken humankind into your glory

by the wounds of sacrifice;

God... God... God... blessed be God!

Let us adore you.

Sister Ruth, SLG

Today is the Autumn Equinox

Song for the Salmon (excerpt)

For too many nights now I have not imagined the salmon
threading the dark streams of reflected stars,
nor have I dreamt of his longing
nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn . . .

I am ready like the young salmon
to leave his river, blessed with hunger
for a great journey on the drawing tide. ~ David Whyte

Today is the autumn equinox—a time when the sun rests above the equator, and day and night is divided equally. Recently I discovered a wonderful reflection on the gift of autumn equinox.  I offer thanks to Christine Valters Paintner for the following. I hope you find it as meaningful as I did.

The autumn equinox heralds a season filled with change, celebrates the harvest, and ushers in the brilliant beauty of death. Autumn is a season of transition, of continual movement.

At the heart of autumn's gifts are these twin energies of relinquishing and harvesting. It is a season of paradox that invites us to consider what we are called to release and surrender, and at the same time it invites us to gather in the harvest, to name and celebrate the fruits of the seeds we planted months ago. In holding these two in tension we are reminded that in our letting go we also find abundance.

In the seas all around me here in my beloved Northwest, the salmon are responding to an ancient and ancestral call. They are returning from the oceans, and making the hard and often battering journey up the rivers, to return to their birthplaces to lay eggs offering the gift of new life. This journey always ends in their own death. It is an amazing mystery as I imagine this deep longing for home the salmon must feel and the ultimate surrender they welcome while also offering a harvest of blessing for the next generation of salmon.

The season calls me to let go of false assumptions, wrests my too-small images of God from me as I enter the Mystery of dying and rising. Autumn demands that I release what I think is important to do and returns me to the only thing which matters that I remember—to love and to allow love to sculpt me, even as it breaks my heart.

But equally, this season calls us to the harvest. Seeds planted long ago create a bounty and fullness in our lives. Autumn invites me to remember the places in my life where I had a dream that once felt tiny and has now grown and ripened into fullness. I savor these places where my life feels abundant. I relish the experience of being nourished by dreams into my own growing wholeness.

The poet Rilke writes of autumn: "Command the last fruits to be full; / give them just two more southern days, / urge them on to completion and chase / the last sweetness into the heavy wine." We move toward our own ripening and in that journey we let go of what no longer serves us. Fall urges us on to our own completion and sweetness.

We live in times when it often feels like everything is coming undone. This season reminds us that the journey of relinquishing all we hold dear is also the journey of harvesting. Somehow these two come together year after year. We are invited to rest into its mystery.

What are you releasing that no longer energizes you?

What dreams do you want to harvest this season?

Christine Valters Paintner, Ph.D., is a Benedictine Oblate and the online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery without walls offering online classes and resources in contemplative practice and creative expression. She is the author of several books including her latest "The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom" (Ave Maria Press) and "Lectio Divina -- The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images Into Heart-Centered Prayer" (SkyLight Paths).