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