we have each been wonderfully specifically made by god’s hand, stitch by stitch, exactly the way we are. now let's take seriously our birthright and live lives of radical joy and praise and thanks.
If I cannot forgive myself for all the blunders that I have made over the years, Then how can I proceed? How can I ever dream perfection-dreams? Move, I must, forward. Fly, I must, upward. Dive, I must, inward, To be once more What I truly am And shall forever remain.-Sri Chinmoy
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus told them to pray they be forgiven AS they forgive. (Mt 6:12) This is the only point in the Lord's prayer on which Jesus commented. He reiterated: "If you forgive the faults of others, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours.”
Jesus gives us another conditional statement:
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another,
and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment
is the first of all?’
Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour AS yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ --Mark 12:28-30
A lot of our problems come from unforgiveness. It blocks us, it keeps us from going forward as, you see, it keeps us living in the past and there is NOTHING we can do to affect the past. Some call unforgiveness a “cancer” because it feels like it's all balled up inside you and if you meditate on it it feels like it grows and spreads like something evil or malignant that starts small and spreads destructively, something passionately and relentlessly malevolent, aggressively malicious with a life of its own. Resting in unforgiveness blocks us from being a continuous flowing source of God’s love to others because basically all we're doing is sitting in judgment.
Many times it's easier to sit in judgment of others because it means we don't have to spend any time examining our own short-comings. Yet mama always used to say, "When you're pointing a finger, remember, three are pointing back at you..."
We can understand, in this light, why Jesus emphasizes forgiveness to an extreme degree. Peter suggested to Jesus that we should forgive seven times. (Mt 18:21) Seven in the Bible stands for an indefinite number of times (and also a number of perfection), so Peter was saying we should forgive indefinitely. This is the correct answer but not the correct emphasis. Jesus proclaims we should forgive "seventy times seven," indefinitely times time times indefinitely. (Mt 18:22) In a parable Jesus further emphasizes forgiveness by saying God's kingdom is a matter of forgiveness and those who do not forgive are handed over to jailers, kind of making us prisoners of our own stingy nature and, thereby, prisoners of our own judgment. (Mt 18:23-34)
Jesus again with yet another conditional statement: "If you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you." (Mt 6:14-15) Jesus insists on forgiveness and tells us WE will not be forgiven if we cannot give the same courtesy to others. We must pass on the forgiveness He has given us by the shedding of His blood on Calvary.
What Would Jesus Do? As Jesus is being crucified, he asks his Father to forgive his killers. These are his words: "Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing!"
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Almighty Father I praise you for your gift of forgiveness. If I am harboring unforgiveness in my heart please burn it out with the power of your love and the blood of Jesus Christ. Bless those people who have harmed me, those people from whom I am withholding love, and forgive me as well, if I have caused anyone to feel this way about me. I pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
John 4:23-24
A time will come ... guess what! that time is already here ! when the true and genuine worshipers of God will worship God in their spirit and in truth; for they are the kind of worshippers God is seeking. God is a Spirit...a spiritual Being...and those who worship God must worship God in spirit and in truth.
We are invited in the Book of Common Prayer's Preface of Lent to observe Lent by "self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word". It's always curious to me that prayer is separated in this list. You think it would be implied in self-examination, in repentance, in meditating; yet it has it's own little space there between the commas. Prayer is also a line item here:
Philippians 4:4-8
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever
is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is
commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy
of praise, think about these things.
Prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, requests ... what then is prayer?
Prayer is simply a conversation with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to God ... a running inner dialogue, if you will. Sister Francis Gabriel told us in first grade that we were never alone, that Jesus is in our heart, and that instead of letting ourselves be plagued by thoughts rolling around in our lonely heads for us to figure out, we should really be engaged in talking directly to Jesus, and The Holy Spirit, who lived inside our chest, would help us to hear God's answers in our heads and would witness that answer with the Holy Spirit's warmth in our hearts.
She loved to talk about the "breath of the Spirit" and how wind was made: she told us that air was all around us and that air was God's Holy Spirit, the breath of God. The Sun was just like God, bright and brilliant, but so powerful and mighty that we couldn't look at it with our naked eye; we could only experience its true power by seeing what is born from it, which is the light, which is just like Jesus. So Jesus is like the rays of light from the Sun. The warmth we feel from the power of the Sun is just like God's Holy Spirit and the warmth stirs up the air around us and the breezes are just like kisses from God's Holy Spirit. (To round out the astronomic theology lesson, WE are like the Moon, a void mass which can only be seen when it reflects the Sun's brilliance, empty at times, and, at others, filled to overflowing with the reflection of God's light. Thus, we glow as a result of basking in the power of God.) This is first grade, mind you, and she just explained The Trinity to a bunch of seven year olds!
So many people think that prayers need to be formal and written down and pronounced and enunciated, that there is some sort of formula for perfect prayer. Know what? Jesus came to tell us that God just wants us to spend time sharing our day. A very simple Lord's Prayer translation could go something like: "Praise your name, God. The way you want it up there? May it be the way it happens down here. Please sustain me. Please help me forgive others so you can forgive me. Let my eyes stay on the path you would like me to follow and protect me on my way."
We were created by God for liberty, not legalism, for joy, not for penitence, for a life and that we might have that life in abundance. If we stay in this constant communion of a running inner dialogue with God, prayer, we will be directed at every step, we will find miracles around every corner, and we will be continuously replenishing our joy.
Observant Jewish people have different required prayers for countless things during their day: when they smell a wonderful fragrance they say, "God, PRAISE you for creating this wonderful fragrance and praise you for my ability to smell it". When they see beautiful colours in the sky they say, "PRAISE you God for painting the sky such beautiful colours that they might brighten my spirit and fill me with joy". They even say prayers after they go to the bathroom: "PRAISE you God that I can go to the bathroom when so many are on dialysis and have had colostomies, that I am able to go to the bathroom".
When I was first learning different disciplines of prayer my parents were still alive. We weren't what you'd call "close", yet I'd try to call them every week, although, truth be told, it was about once a month. I would try to store up exciting moments to tell them about or a list of landmarks which occurred in my life. I found out later that what they REALLY wanted to hear was, "Hi, What's for dinner, how did your day go, what's Daddy doin'" and I had a revelation that likened that stinkin' thinkin' of building up for one big call to my prayer life: Why should we wait for the "perfect" time to put a call in to God. Some people haven't talked to God in so long that they're actually embarrassed to start now. But we're missing out on so many moments in our lives that God is really interested in at so many times of the day! Of COURSE God knows what's happening, but know what? When you give a present to someone and they don't thank you for it, are you really that willing to give them any more presents? or when you do, are you going to resent every second that they don't thank you for it? God is not as petty as I am in that regard, but think about it: God paints the sky for us at dawn and sunset. Right now, Saturn and Mars are THIS CLOSE to each other right under the moon for the first time in decades and it's a glorious treat God has provided for us in the night sky. Sister Francis Gabriel again: "The stars are really God's Christmas lights and God put them up in the sky to entertain us, to light our way in the dark, and to remind us of Jesus' Birthday!" (I never realised until just now how much she loved Astronomy.)
“I think it piss God off you walk by the color
purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.” ― Alice Walker, The
Color Purple
Don't save up for one big weekly call ... keep the chat window open and talk to God throughout the day, praising God for small miracles and consulting God on big decisions. If you miss a train or a light, don't curse God that you're stuck, praise God that you are where you are. Realise that God needs you right where you are, perhaps to pray for someone God is bringing to your heart, or perhaps to keep you from some horrible accident up ahead. Let prayer make every place you find yourself a happy one.
God -- help me to realise you live inside of me and are a part of my thoughts and a part of my daily walk. Help me to realise that you desire an intimate relationship with me and help me open up to you during little joys and little trials throughout the day. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
thanks for sharing, i'm sure. your auntie dasch xoxoxo
UPDATE 1 of 2, 09-05-15: you know you LOVE this recipe and i had a SCATHINGLY BRILLIANT idear this afternoon because there was a huge sale on strawburies, i macerated them, and i subbed them for the peaches in this recipe. i almost slapped MYSELF - boy HOWDY it is GOOD ! ! give it a try. i can't wait to do this later this year with some rhubarb all up in there too ... yum
UPDATE 2 of 2, 09-05-15: We haven't used cow's milk for ever. I use soy milk in this recipe and it doesn't hurt it a bit. I also didn't have any self-rising flour on hand so I used Christy Jordan @ SouthernPlate.com 's handy-dandy save: for every 1 cup of flour, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking POWDER and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Now here we go with the original post:
It's hard to believe in all these years I've never published this recipe before. It's THE EASIEST recipe in my repertoire and it's GORgeous. It takes about three seconds and it's fool-proof. It's TOTES adaptable for any sized pan, if you have surprise compny you can make it while you eat dinner, and it's especially wonderful to make and take to large gatherings. You just keep the ingredients stocked in your larder and whip it up as the need arises.
It's based on the 'ole Cuppa-Cuppa-Cuppa recipe and its intent is for a 9x11 and at least 3 inch high pan. If the pan is bigger, you can just FEEL how you need to increase it by the way the dry ingredients cover the bottom.
And please? for pity sake? don't come complaining to me if you make this with margarine or use peaches in pear or "natural" juices and it doesn't taste good. This isn't supposed to be good for you, this is just supposed to be good.
Deep Dish Peach Cobbler
Pre-heat oven to 350.
You'll need a fork or a small spatula.
In the pan, sift together one cup of SELF-RISING flour and one cup of sugar. Shake that around so it's level.
Pour in one cup of milk and take the fork and slowly swirl it around until you have a nice paste. This is a good time to breathe and pray for people. It takes about five minutes. Make sure the paste evenly covers the bottom of the pan.
PUT THE FORK AWAY AND DON'T TOUCH IT AGAIN.
Melt a stick of butter. Pour that down the very dead center of the pan lengthwise.
Open a 16.5 ounce can of sliced peaches IN HEAVY SYRUP. Take the slices and GENTLY place them about the surface of this paste. Make sure they're in the corners and in all the perfect spots. Pour the heavy syrup all over the top.
Place in the oven and cook i don't know how long. Look at it after about a half an hour. If it's not golden brown then give it another ten minutes. Sometimes it takes 45 minutes, sometimes it takes 30. It all depends on the humdidity and the flour gods and i don't know what-all.
This is best served with french vanilla ice cream ... to cut the sweetness ... ENJOY !
John 8 "Teacher", they said, "This woman has been caught in the very act of adultery. Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such offenders shall be stoned to death. But what do You say to do with her--what is Your sentence?" This they said to try to test Him, hoping they might find a charge on which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger. However, when they persisted with their question, He raised Himself up and said, "Go ahead! Stone her! But let the person who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." Then He bent down and went on writing on the ground with His finger. They listened to Him, and then they began slipping out, conscience-stricken, one by one, from the oldest down to the last one of them, till Jesus was left alone, with the woman standing there before Him in the center of the court. When Jesus raised Himself up, He said to her, "Woman, where are your accusers? Has no man condemned you?" She answered, "No one, Lord!" And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you either. Go, pursue the journey on which you had started and do not miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour again."
=-=-=
An oldie, but a goodie. I once heard a teacher of Biblical studies with a very interesting take on this story:
What was Jesus writing in the sand? This Bible teacher believes that perhaps Jesus was making lists of all the secret sins of all of the "righteous" people standing around and accusing this woman of adultery. Some were "small sins", misrepresenting neighbors with gossip, anger, unkindness, some were biggies, lying, stealing, cheating, murder, perhaps in the heart, perhaps by the hand. Notice: at first, when Jesus bends down, everyone is still brave in their accusations; perhaps after Jesus mentioned the Spirit of the Law ("let the person who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her") versus the Letter of the Law ("WE have caught her, WE have judged her, WE condemn her") one or two of them bent over what Jesus was writing and saw what the implications of the Letter of the Law held for judgments on their heads.
Think about that the next time you rush to judgment about someone and examine your own conscious. Sometimes the things which most irritate us about others are the very things we are, or have been, guilty of in our lives and are disgusted by ... take that moment of breath, before judgment, to make a mental calculation of all your shortcomings ... ask God for forgiveness and strength for your "wandering from the path of uprightness and honour", your deviation from the path of love and service, and, at the same time, ask God to shower that person you are judging with blessings. You'll find that the blessings will come back to you a hundredfold.
=-=-=
Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.
Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. Amen.
This is one of the best and one of the most reliable recipes in my repertoire. I've been making it for absolutely ever and the tweaks I do are for variety and it's so easy because the recipe is so versatile. Over the years, I've substituted soy or almond milk for the milk required and I've switched up the applesauce and switched up the cereal. Instead of applesauce I've used pumpkin pulp (which is EXTRA yummy) and I've also used kinda dead pears or bananas and mashed them up (and I once tried avacado, but it was just not my thing). In lieu of Fiber One cereal I've used any kind of hearty whole-grain cereal and yesterday I actually used frosted shredded wheat cause I thought we had bran cereal but we didn't and it was the only cereal we had in the house ;-) My husband doesn't really like raisins, so I haven't used them in the recipe for a decade and he doesn't like nuts but I gotta tell you, there is nothing more delicious than some coarsely chopped walnuts up in this baby.
Spiced Applesauce Bread
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
¾ cup Fiber One cereal
1¾ cups Gold Medal all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup granulated sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup applesauce
½ cup milk
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 egg or 2 egg whites (or ¼ cup cholesterol-free egg product)
½ cup raisins
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a 9 by 5 by 3 inch loaf pan.
Crush cereal and place it, with the brown sugar, at the bottom of a mixing bowl.
Sift all dry ingredients together at one time in to the mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients and stir. Crack and egg in to the batter and stir until fully incorporated. Pour batter in to the greased loaf pan and spread the top so it's pretty and even.
The original instructions say to "bake 55 to 65 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean". I always check at 60 minutes but it normally takes about another 20 minutes to cook.
The instructions say to "cool completely before slicing". I've never been able to wait that long.
When I don't care about calories and want to make this extra special, I take a tablespoon of butter and rub it over the top of the loaf to make it extra moist and then take a spoon of regular sugar and sprinkle that over the top for a glistening presentation.
I've never stored the rest of the loaf in an air-tight container and I've never gone out of my way to wrap it up overnight. I generally just throw a tea-towel over the top of the loaf pan and keep the remainder in a cool space.
This post originally appeared on my church's blogspot on March 10th, 2011: http://bit.ly/zkSV95
The station for my reflection is the first in The Way of The Cross: Jesus is condemned to death. Jesus actually gives us instructions on condemning our old selves to death in the Gospel of Matthew:
If you’re new to theEpiscopal Churchyou’ll find that we LOVE to talk about our Baptismal Covenant because it frames our common life together in service to God’s mission for our individual lives. That’s a pretty powerful thing we’re promising. The vows and blessings in that Covenant call us to live a life supporting and sustaining one another, not only socially but spiritually, not only within the walls of our sanctuary but the sanctuary which is God’s entire creation “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ“, and it calls us to the service of GOD’S mission for our lives … not our own desires for our lives, but the perfection our lives can attain through the recognition of God’s perfect will for us, if only we will ask, if only we will lay down our lives, if only we will listen, if only we will hear and obey.
There’s an interesting arc in the “reality” showBethenny Ever After(stop judging me) where Bethenny is overwhelmed with her new station in life. We met her many years ago on two other reality shows (I don’t get out much) as a single lady with estranged parents and few friends, an entrepreneur who was living the Big City Life and working the dating scene and surviving. Now she has the package of a new husband and a new a baby at once. Her husband is an only child, having lost his brother years ago, and his parents are very present, very dear, very involved, very first-time grandparents and this guy also has a slew of bestest friends he grew up with who are all still actively involved in one another’s lives. Oh, bombshell? Those people all live three hours away in the suburbs. Bethenny is being forced to absorb all these people and all their needs and all their schedules in her new existence as wife and mother and now daughter. To me, it speaks of one of the reasons I believe many of the friends I’ve had in my life don’t want to be partnered and don’t want to get married: they don’t mind the company of a relationship and may even want a long-term coupling but they certainly don’t want the reality of being burdened with all the inconveniences of combing two lives in to one existence. In my experience and the experience of many of my married friends, we didn’t marry just one person, we both joined to form one entity which comprises an intricate web of friends and family members and all their baggage and all our baggage and the responsibility of juggling it all, especially at those times when we don’t want to. Many people don’t find the rich blessings I do in that sort of accountability.
Perhaps, too, many people see a relationship with God like that: “God, really great job, I’m a big fan, love your work, but I don’t want all that family stuff you’ve got clinging to you.” Our Baptismal Covenant charges us to be actively involved in one another’s lives and to look after one another as we promise to live lives of worship, forgiveness, proclamation, service, and justice-making. I know a lot of people in my life, myself included for a time, who only want to go to a huge church where they can get lost in the crowd or be a church hopper so they can remain somewhat anonymous or sneak in and out of regular services like they’re stealing something (which they actually may very well be doing). I think it’s because people don’t want to get involved … it’s just too expensive. Getting involved would encroach upon their privacy, their personal time, in essence, their selfishness. Belonging to a Church is also very hard work … it’s actually a Lifestyle.Howard Gallyreminds us how much work it is when he says that the Church, referring to the Christian community, is <not an assembly of likeminded persons. There are members who quarrel (Phil. 4:2), who promote factions (1 Cor. 11:18-22), and who hold different opinions (Rom. 14:2-6). It is, moreover, a body that does not exist for its own sake, but is a people called by God to “make disciples of all nations” ( Matt. 28:19), and to live in love and unity so “that the world may believe” (John 17:21)>.
Let’s take this Lent to shake off a very subtle disease, the one which The Church of Ephesus was accused of in The Book of Revelation of Jesus Christ: that oflosing its First Love. Let’s condemn our selfishness to death and rejuvenate our spirits with the innocent, fresh and giddy love we once had for the joy of being loved by God, the beauty of all God’s creation and the love we feel for God in return and combine it with the excitement of belonging to such a rich community of God-loving people and a willingness to serve them. I know it will, in turn, replenish us to besent out into the world in witness to God’s love.
This post originally appeared on my church's blogspot on March 16th, 2010: http://bit.ly/wyLA0k
I have a particular fascination with the study ofChristologyand what Jesus knew about his divine nature and when he discovered it. Annually I pour through books like Anne Rice’sChrist the LordSeries and Nikos Kazantzakis’ novelThe Last Temptation of Christto supplement my reflections on the Gospel readings to try and further understand the humanity of my Christ.
It would be silly (bordering on profane) to compare Jesus’ journey to the cross with anything I’ve even remotely experienced in the way of anticipating some dreaded appointment, like going to the dentist or having to watch each of my parents pass through this vale of tears. How long has Jesus known every single thing which is about to happen to him and what about the agony he must be suffering anticipating these eventualities every single step of the way! Then, to make matters worse, here comes the beginning of the end which starts with an absolute humiliation: he is to be stripped bare, not only in front of a crowd of people watching, but in front of his friends and his own mother. He will hang for the next three hours completely naked in front of each of them and not only have to allow himself to die but also keep in check the power he has to call down angels to aid him or ask the earth to open and swallow those who have harmed him. Instead he thinks of them gently and kindly, instead he forgives them and he asks forgiveness for them, not God’s wrath. (I know how upset I get when someone cuts in front of me in a line somewhere so I know what I would have done.)
Jesus is about to offer himself completely to God. Jesus is about to become the literal sacrificial animal in propitiation for our sins so that you, so that I, can live a life free from the bondage of The Law, free to experience God’s boundless love and free to be reconciled back to our filial relationship with the creator and sustainer of the universe. I believe one of the things this station in The Way of the Cross teaches us is that we must make ourselves bare, even unto humiliation, in order to offer the perfect sacrifice of ourselves to God. Not just a cutesy head bob hello in the aisle but a profound genuflection before seating ourselves in the comfort of God’s presence. We must be willing to lay aside every vanity, every self-deceit and say, “moles and all, in the high noon, the brightest illumination of the day, here I am God, and I know you love me now more than ever for making myself available to you. ‘Not my will, God, but yours be done.’” I’ll tell you … I’m so often afraid to do this myself for fear of what God’s going to ask of me in return and I sometimes just don’t know if I have it in me to say “you can count on me”. But I hope to always say, “Just like moons and like suns / With the certainty of tides / Just like hopes springing high / Still I’ll rise” because “God has told [us] what is good, and this is what God requires of [us]: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with [our] God.”
This entry first appeared on February 26th, 2010 on my church's blogspot: http://bit.ly/y3ni1J
We step from the street into the narthex with an opportunity to stamp off the cares and soils of the outside world, we take a cooling, cleansing dip in the pool of holy water, walk down one of the aisles and seat ourselves in one of the pews to still our minds and kindle our affections. After our worship is complete, we’re called back to the aisles and out on to the street as we go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
On my first visit to St. Luke’s seven years ago, my girlfriends and I seated ourselves in the last pew just off the right of the main aisle. We hoped, that far in the back, we wouldn’t be sitting in anyone’s seat and, as one of us had never experienced a “rich Anglo-Catholic liturgical tradition” being raised Methodist, there was a small escape plan in the arrangement in case it was all too-too. Well we found a home but after two years God took my girlfriends to other parts of the globe for their ministries and I remain in the last pew just off the right of the main aisle. I love that spot for so many reasons. I feel I can be of help to the ushers should any emergency arise or should they need a hearty congregant to bring up a generously filled basket of gifts to the altar. I also love having a ring-side seat for all the seasonal stations in the rear, especially Baptisms and especially when there’s a sprinkling scheduled. I always get a good dousing as theaspergillumcomes out of the aspersorium AND on its way down for the blessing … it’s quite a vivid reminder of my Baptismal covenants (“I saw water proceeding out of the temple” indeed!). I especially love the vista of each season’s sunshine streaming through the windows during the daytime services and the precious illumination of the entire church during nighttime services. Sounds like I’m a little angel having quite a little party back there in the last row, right? Guess what … sometimes I don’t feel like being in church because I’m tired and I’d rather be in bed. Sometimes I’m so mad at someone at church I can’t even stand to look at them and have to keep myself from throwinga BCPat the back of their head. Sometimes I have so much to do at work that it’s all I can do to keep myself from pulling out a notepad and working while church is going on.
The second station of The Way of the Cross is “Jesus takes up his Cross” and the collect begs God to give us the courage to “take up our cross and follow him”. The Synoptic Gospels have Jesus demanding that we deny ourselves before taking up our cross and following him. When I was younger I imagined all kinds of very pious ways to deny myself all kinds of deep and important things so that I could pass through the eye of the needle. As I get older, I realize it just may be my big fat head which is going to keep me from getting through that slim gateway.
Pride, I think, is the root of so many of my problems. Perhaps the true cross I am to pick up, perhaps the only Way of the Cross, is to lay down the importance of self so that my hands are empty which will enable me to pick up the cross of selflessness and service. Perhaps we are to concentrate on resisting giving in to one’s self, one’s pity parties, one’s self-aggrandizing, one’s need to be right, one’s thoughts that without me nothing could get done. I find that by emptying myself, stilling my mind and plugging into the liturgies of the Episcopal tradition, I am guided and transitioned beautifully and gracefully from a weary, burdened person into a rejuvenated spirit ready to go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.
I had a revelation a few years back. If you're not an animal person, I need you to go with me on this one. We did not grow up with animals in the house and I could never think of anything more filthy or disgusting than having some creature roaming around wiping itself on my possessions. Couple that with the fact that not only am I allergic to everything that grows or flies through the air (aloe? the healing plant? allergic. thanks.), I am DREADfully allergic to animal dander, especially cats.
Cut to: my husband who grew up with always having a dog and sometimes having a dog and a cat around the house and then his best friend dying and bequeathing his cat to us in his will.
Wuhl, the circumstances of that poor kitty's life up to the point we brought him home were tragi-que. His father got him when he was a baby and then two years later his his daddy was in the hospital for the last few months of his life and the poor kitty was all alone in a one bedroom apartment being cared for by a rota of caring friends, but no one was spending nights with him and this cat was sad and lonely. We baby-sat him a couple of times and I have to tell you, even though I didn't like animals, this cat is a GENTLEman ... he truly is one of the sweetest creatures I've ever met in my life. SO loving, SO attentive, SO caring about you and your needs and emotions. So, God Rest His Soul, my husband's friend passes and my maternal instincts kick in and we rush over to the apartment, pick the kitty up, and bring him to our home.
Dissolve to: a couple of weeks later, he had a hair ball. They get hair balls. They "leave" the hair balls in convenient and obvious places so you can find them. I woke up before dawn one day, stumbled out to the dining room table to get my glasses and clothes sos I could make coffee and I STEP on the hair ball. It's sort of like stepping on a piece of rotting fruit. I sorta freaked, he came up to my leg to console me with a caress and I had that FLASH where you can either COMMIT to being angry, or you can let God's compassion flow through you and disengage. Praise God compassion came quickly to my mind that this poor creature did not ASK to come and live in our home, I made the choice to BRING the cat in to our home. And then I got it:
God created us specifically. God fashioned us with great care inside our mother's womb, knit us, stitch by stitch, to bring us in to this world for God's own pleasure. If I love that cat for being that cat, how much more does God love us just for being us. The things we do don't surprise God ... God knew before the beginning of the world what we'd be up to. If we're petulant or cranky or deliberate idiots God doesn't smite us, God probly goes, "oh, brother, would you snap OUT of this?"
Each of us is our own greatest champion. Conversely, each of us can be our own worst enemy. It is said that true self-love, true forgiveness, true trust in God, is realising there is NOTHING we can do to affect the past.
Do you get that? Nothing.
But many of us are so bloody comfortable with the past that we wear it like an old sweater, wrapped up in its dis-ease, pointing out the holes and the flaws to anyone who will listen. WE can't let the past go because WE'RE not through forgiving ourselves ... and sometimes we blame everyone else for our past, sometimes we blame ourselves for our past but the ridiculous thing is we blame the unforgiveness on God. There is nothing God HAS NOT ALREADY forgiven.
Micah 7:18-19
Who is a God like you?
You forgive sin and overlook the rebellion of your faithful people.
You will not be angry forever, because you would rather show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us.
You will overcome our forgetfulness of your love.
You will throw all our transgressions into the deep sea of forgetfulness.
The deep sea of forgetfulness. Wrap your brain around that one. This would infer that every time we re-visit our sins, every time we accuse ourselves of the past, God says, "I have no idea what are you TALKING about" because all of those things are not only in the PAST, God doesn't even remember them.
1 John 2:1-2
I write this, dear children, to guide you out of your self-accusation. If anyone does sin or transgress, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good—not only ours, but the whole world's.
I'm not an huge fan of ye 'ole KJV, but they use a word there I love:
And Jesus is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Propitiate: to conciliate, to reconcile with, to overcome the distrust or animosity of an offended power; to appease.
Romans 10:8-25
Christ said, "You did not want sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, and sacrifices for sin. You did not approve of them.” (These are the sacrifices that Moses’ Teachings require people to offer.) Then Christ says, “I have come to do what you want.” Christ did away with sacrifices in order to establish the obedience that God wants. We have been set apart as holy because Jesus Christ did what God wanted him to do by sacrificing his body once and for all. Once. And For All.
Every day each priest performed his religious duty. He offered the same type of sacrifice again and again. Yet, these sacrifices could never take away sins. However, Jesus, this chief priest, made one sacrifice for sins, and this sacrifice lasts forever. ... With one sacrifice he accomplished the work of setting us apart for God forever.
The Holy Spirit tells us the same thing: “This is the promise that I will make to them after those days, says the Lord: ‘I will put my teachings in their hearts and write them in their minds.’ ” Then he adds, “I will no longer hold their sins and their disobedience against them.”
As sins are forgiven, and forgotten, there is no longer any need to sacrifice for sins.
Brothers and sisters, because of the blood of Jesus we can now confidently go into the holy place, the Holy of Holies, beyond the veil, into the very presence of God. Jesus has opened a new and living way for us to go through the curtain. (The curtain is his own body.) ... We have been sprinkled with his blood to free us from a guilty conscience, and our bodies have been washed with clean water. So we must continue to come to him with a sincere heart and strong faith. We must continue to hold firmly to our declaration of faith. The one who made the promise is faithful.
We must also consider how to encourage each other to show love and to do good things. We should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing. Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming.
That's a lot all at once. However, two things are evident: (1) Jesus did all the work in propitiation of our sins, ONCE and for every person who ever lives, and (2) we shouldn't keep to our own company because we can be our own worst enemy ... we should gather together to encourage one another speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to God (Ephesians 5:19).
Finally:
Psalm 103:12
As far as the east is from the west, and as far as sunrise is from sunset, so far has God removed our sins from us.
My Rector said something BEAUtiful the other day. She wasn't talking about our topic here, but she WAS talking about change. I hope it resonates with you:
Stay tuned. [Change] is exciting. God is doing a new thing.
God is always doing new things but sometimes we’re so busy loving and
clinging to the old things we can’t see the new things because our eyes
are full of tears that the old is passing away. Change is hard but that
is the way we embrace marvelous new possibilities and become ready for
the future God invites us into. God is in the process of our becoming
and our struggle to get there. God is in the frustration and work
required on the journey. I would say that the most significant learnings
and discoveries are in the journey, in the messy process. [We must]
refuse to quit hoping so that we can see our hopes fulfilled.
thanks for sharing, i'm sure, your auntie dasch
xoxoxo
"Give us the discipline that springs from abstinence in outward things with inward fasting, so that we in heart and soul may dwell with thee." --Hymn 152 (1982) "Kind Maker of the world"
I don't know why, but when we sang this last night at the Ash Wednesday service all I could think of was equating "inward fasting" with "interior silence". One of my heroes is the Bible teacher Joyce Meyer. One of her earliest teachings, and one of her best-sellers of all time, is The Battlefield of the Mind. You can watch some of her teaching on it here:
How many times are you walking down the street humming some insidious earworm of a song you hated in 7th grade and now you can't get it out of your head only to later remember it was playing in the drugstore when you were buying aspirin to get rid of the headache you no doubt got from all of the stimuli bombarding you in your daily walking modern life. We are BOMBARded with stimuli at every turn through each of our senses!
While I don't require total sensory deprivation to concentrate, I can't read or write if there is any music going on anywhere near me. Not even classical music. Not even classical music I don't know. My brain is wired so it picks up every single nuance of the notes and the performance, the words, how it's being sung, the way the composition is put together, and it's all directly attached to my spirit and my emotions. Talking I can ignore but music I can't.
If we were truly living in Olden Times we could clear our heads walking about in the fields or on the road taking the mile walk to the corner store, but in these modren times we have to find a way to get a bit of calm, a bit of silence, a bit of inward peace ... but even if we ARE blessed with a second behind a closed door, our mind is screaming at us, not listening to the glorious rhapsody of nature, tweeting birds, the sweet rustle of the breeze in the trees, but an entire running inner dialogue of judgments imposed upon us, judgments we heap on ourselves, honey-do lists, needs of our loved ones, dreams for ourselves, accusations of wasting time because we're taking a second to find some peace (, children banging on the other side of the door and screaming, "what are you DOING in there!") ...
There is a meditation practice that I know is older than dirt but the Christian Monastic tradition calls it "interior silence". When I was at the monastery it was the hardest thing for me to learn. I was guided by a monk to use the rosary as a prayer tool. The prayers on the rosary are all known by heart (the "Our Father", the "Glory Be", the "Hair Mary" mereh), and instead of using any of the traditional meditation tools (contemplating the sorrowful or glorious Mysteries, for example), he encouraged me to let my mind wander, to let God place images of my troubles or my friends or enemies in my head and to keep them in mind as I was "making a run around the rosary". I still use this technique when my mind is in turmoil and it always calms all my racing thoughts. I don't know why people are afraid that the rosary is some HUGE task or some dire commitment ... it only takes about 20 minutes.
When I left the Romans and went all Pentecostal I didn't think it appropriate to ask Mary to pray for me, so I said the first bit, because it's a Bible quote, and changed the last bit to read, "Hail Mary, full of Grace the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Jesus, son of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen." Silly, I know, but at least it got me back to the meditative process which I had given up when I left Rome.
It's always kinda killed me that certain Christianists think that "meditation" or reciting a "mantra", because it's considered to be of Eastern Philosophy, is intrinsically "evil", and that meditation concentrates and builds on the unhealthy idea of "self" which ?necessarily? pushes out the "idea" of God so that we replace God in our hearts with our own self or selfishness. The verse is actually, "Love your neighbor AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF," and, as Ru Paul sez, "If you can't love yourself then how the HELL you gonna love somebody else!" Another reason often given is that evil spirits will talk to us if we empty our minds and sway us against the Gospel of Christ. Srsly? Is their faith and their walk with God really that tenuous that if they calm their mind to "nothingness" that Satan is going to start talking to them? Then again, some of these people are the same ones who think my same-sex marriage is threatening their own marriage, so they must always be walking on broken glass.
Go with me on this bit but trust me: my Old Testament Hebrew is questionable at best and is only "book learnin'". I took classes with a rabbi scholar teaching the Torah to people with no Hebrew once upon a time and he told us MANY interesting things ... one was a radical translation of the beginning of Genesis and it goes a little something like this:
Hindus believe that during these moments, as creation began, this hovering and fluttering over the emptiness by God's Holy Spirit records the sound of "AUM" and this hum is a record of the eternal sound of God, the form of this first and original vibration manifesting as sound. "AUM" (or "OM") is the reflection of the absolute reality, God's first moments of manifestation, God presenting God's self to us in this creative process. They believe that getting ourselves back to God, getting our being back in alignment with God, is as easy as exhaling this word "AUM" and, with the exhalation, we release all of our cares and troubles with that breath in this sound, thereby connecting us back to God's very vibration, which then allows us to inhale a clean gulp of God's Spirit to rejuvenate each cell of our body. It also gives us the opportunity to give thanks, not to take for granted something SO vital to our lives, breathing, hello, which brings an added layer of blessing to the practice. That's why it kills me when people say yoga is not about God. Yoga isn't just striking poses and postures. Yoga is a "practice". It's ALL about God and all "yoga" means, from the Sanskrit, is "joining" or "making a union" and the word is sometimes interpreted as a Hindu discipline aimed at training the consciousness for a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquillity. We must TRAIN our thoughts and train our minds to be at peace.
The Desert Fathers and Mothers, third century Egyptian monks, cultivated the notion of Hesychasm, a word from the Greek for "stillness, rest, quiet, silence". In the 14th century, a meditation, or mantra, was devised to help maintain interior silence, called The Jesus Prayer, or The Prayer of The Heart: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." When I learned the meaning of the Sanskrit word, Mantra, it helped my understanding of interior silence a great deal ... it simply means "an instrument of thought" and, because I'm so meeYOOsical, I thought, "Well, if my thoughts are playing ME, then I'm going to use my OWN instrument to play my THOUGHTS" and I started using pieces of scripture and positive affirmations as a Mantra, to bring the torrent of my thoughts in to submission.
Whichever tools you can use, taking a Bible verse and reciting it over and over, concentrating on your breathing, in and out slowly, taking three minutes to thank God for silly things like waking up this morning, having a job, having some food in your house, having friends, being able to go to the bathroom, being able to go to the bathroom by yourself ... silly little things ... then perhaps we can be on our way to achieving that "discipline that springs from abstinence ... with inward fasting, so that we in heart and soul may dwell with [God]."
thanks for sharing, i'm sure, your auntie dasch xoxo
Fasting days are so illuminative. One has to watch thoughts and utterances of "I'm hungry" and "I'm starving" when in fact, bless God, there is food in our home pantry, I have friends with food in their pantries and I could probly live of my body fat for three years. As we turn in tonight we should probly be thankful that we have the surety of our next meal, of our next SNACK, even, that we have beds to go to, a roof over our heads but especially that we know God's love. Let's pray for those without and with out. Sweet sleep, loves.
We had a celebration last night, Shrove Tuesday, where we burned palms from last year's Palm Sunday service which will become ashes used during today's Ash Wednesday service. Our Senior Associate, who is brilliant at finding lovely words, offered the following prayers for us to recite as we piled our cares and burdens, hopes and dreams, petitions and thanksgivings, on the pile of burning palms. They are adapted from Edward Hays, Prayer for a Planetary Pilgrim (A Personal Manual for Prayer and Ritual), 1989 (I do not have the rights to this text and mean no copyright infringement):
Listen, all dry branches, as these flames transform your earthly form to be a sign to us of our own mortality, teach us the lessons of change. Even though our own bodies will die, help us to know that we will not enter an endless winter, but simply a stage in the unfolding mystery whose name is Life. On this night of feasting, may we taste with delight the promise of pleasure that grows in the womb of winter, fully alive, fully hopeful, anticipating the birth of a new joy in the empty tomb.
Come, O Life-giving Creator, and rattle the door-latch of our slumbering hearts. Awaken us as you breathe upon a winter-wrapped city, gently calling to life virgin Spring.
Awaken in the fortified days of Lenten prayer and discipline our dreams of holiness. Call us forth from the prisons of numerous past defeats and narrow patterns of being, and make our ordinary lives extra-ordinarily alive, through the passion of love.
Show to me during these Lenten days how to take the daily things of life and by submerging them in the sacred, infuse them with a great love for you, O God, and for others. Guide us to perform simple acts of love and prayer, the real works of reform and renewal of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.
Of Father of Jesus, Mother of Christ, help us not to waste our precious Lenten days of our souls' spiritual springtime.
40 Days: The Daily Office for Lent, Ed. Frank L. Tedeschi: <Many people want to "take on" a discipline for Lent rather than "give up" something. One of the disciplines that many Episcopalians--and other Christians--wistfully think about taking on is the regimen of structured daily prayer that includes the course-reading of Scripture. Forty Days: The Daily Office for Lent offers an accessible, doable, toe-in-the-water introduction to the private recitation of Morning and/or Evening Prayer . CONTENTS Rite two morning and evening prayer the Book of Common Prayer The collects, and all Bible readings for both lectionary years (we're in "B", I believe), from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday.>
There is an easily navigable on-line resource of the same material here:
Finally, if you'd like a longer and more comprehensive (read: Roman Rite), more traditional offering for the Liturgy of the Hours, this link has:
Office of Readings, which has many psalms, old and new testament reading, a short spiritual selection and petitions for us and the world which combines with
Morning Prayer (which is the only thing you'll see on the mission clare link above)
and there are also options for prayers at noon (Terce), 3pm (Sext), 6pm (None), Evening Prayer (after dinner) and Night prayer (compline, just before bed)
<I don't know if you're a Sondheim queen like me, but I think you know enough about his creations to know that his music is NOT easy to sing. I've performed a couple of his shows and the most hilarious thing is you have in your mind what it's all going to sound like at the first rehearsal and then the pianist starts playing and the conductor looks at you and says, "You know you were supposed to come in four measures ago". Wuhl, scuse me! I'm waiting for the percussion and the OBOE to give me my note and then you realise it's a very different world between rehearsal and a full orchestra. Whenever my friends and I reach opening night, we shake hands at places and say, "Downbeat's in a minute. Good luck. See ya at curtain call." I don't know why, but I'm sorta feeling that way about this Lent.>
