...the liberation of limitations

February 17, 2013

I drove home from Houston on Monday after dropping my sister Janet off there for the last leg of her home-leave before she heads back to Budapest.  It was a wonderful trip! I love driving cross country and I find it a wonderful place of Sabbath for me and even as I drove into my garage after 12 hours on the road I was so invigorated and was so looking forward to the week. So, when I woke up the next morning with the beginnings of a rip-roaring cold I was so bummed!  I’ve already had one of these this winter!  I was not at all happy and I knew that I have a choice when it comes to colds…I can soldier through and I end up with something that stretches out three or four weeks or I can relent and do those things that I know to do for a cold and I get through the worst of it in about a week. 

So, it meant going back to bed, lots of rest, lots of fluids…you know the recipe.  I did not want to!  I wanted to get up and get going and can I just tell you honestly that I am not a good sick person.  I get cranky and crabby and I don’t like the way I am around people when I’m sick especially with a cold. You know how it is. You don’t quite feel sick enough to stay home but you don’t feel well enough to function the way you want.   In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I did get up and out to work some but even when I did I knew I wasn’t at the level that I wanted to be and it feels so frustrating.  I so wanted to step into the week and here I was…sounding like a frog and feeling fairly crummy.  I was decidedly ticked off! I didn’t have time for this.

So, as I was reading yesterday’s (Feb 16^th) entry in Jesus Calling I found myself so touched.

“Thank me for the conditions that are requiring you to be still. Do not spoil these quiet hours by wishing them away, waiting impatiently to be active again. Some of the greatest works of My kingdom have been done from sickbeds and prison cells. Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search for My way in the midst of these very circumstances. Limitations can be liberating when your strongest desire is living close to me.”

How often do I want to live close to Christ but on my terms?  How often do I think I know just exactly how that should look like or what I should be doing in order to bring God the most glory?  How often do I think that my strength or ability is the best reflection of God’s work and presence in my life?  Could it possibly be true that abiding in Christ can happen under the covers when I’m coughing and sneezing?  What about when I’m in that place where my resources seem less than I hope and expect financially?  What about when my sense of vision seems less than clear? What about when the circumstances of life just seem to be out of sync, up-ended and ineffective? And what about serving God?

“Quietness and trust enhance your awareness of My Presence with you.  Do not despise these simple ways of serving Me. (my emphasis) Although you feel cut off for the activity of the world, your quiet trust makes a powerful statement in the spiritual realms.   My Strength and Power show themselves most effective in weakness.” (Jesus Calling, February 16^th)

I must admit that I can sometimes see such times as “abiding” in Christ especially when I don’t feel like I can do anything else but I had not thought of them as a way of “serving”.  Doesn’t serving mean doing? Hmmm…   In Isaiah we find one of these most familiar comments of God’s perspective.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved.  In quietness and confidence is your strength.  But you would have none of it.  You said, ‘No, we will get our help from Egypt. They will give us swift horses for riding into battle.  But the only swiftness you are going to see is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you.” (Is 30: 15-16)

I would imagine that the people of Judah were quite sure they knew how best to serve God but in fact what they were “doing” was seen as rebellion.  I find that most humbling but also hopeful.  God’s plan for what serves God is up to the Lord.  My role is to lean in and listen and discover more of what God says will serve even from my weakest places.

I was listening to a song entitled “You Alone are God” and there’s a line in it, “You are God not in need of anything we can give.  By Your plan that’s just the way it is.”

As I enter Lent, I want to be in that place where I can hear more from God and in so doing serve better.  It may mean I’m weak as I understand weakness but it may well be the best place for me to be from God’s perspective.  I pray for the willingness to release my perspective to God’s perspective of the liberation of limitations.

God’s Peace,

Mary

 

...the tempo of a God-breathed life

Life on the Potter’s Wheel

And yet, O Lord, you are our Father.

We are the clay, and you are the potter.

We are all formed by you hand.

Isaiah 64:8

 

January 27, 2013

 

This week I’ve been reminded of the precious fragility of life.  As a part of my role as a hospice chaplain I got to spend a couple of evenings with a family whose mom was getting ready to see the end of her earthly life. What a privileged place to be at such a tender time.  One evening as I was heading home from their house I got a call from one of my cousins that our cousin Judy had been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of lung cancer and was not going to survive it.  She and her husband had just gone down to Arizona where they have spent the winter for years and when she got there she just thought she had a bit of a cold. Saturday morning they had to make the heartrending decision to remove a ventilator and let her go.
 

The next day I got a call about a man I know who had been struck by a car.  I had the opportunity to spend a week with him and his family out in Colorado a couple of summers ago as part of a group who were attending the Covenant Church’s “Feast” celebration prior to our annual meeting.  He has suffered extensive head injuries and the road before them is long and at this point still quite uncertain.
 

Interestingly the last couple of days of the “Jesus Calling” devotional has really resonated in a way much differently than I might have expected in another week.  Yesterday’s entry included, “Through the intimacy of our relationship, you are being transformed from the inside out. As you keep your focus on Me, I form you into the one I desire you to be.  Your part is to yield to My creative work in you, neither resisting it nor trying to speed it up.  Enjoy the tempo of a God-breathed life by letting Me set the pace.  Hold My hand in childlike trust and the way before you will open up step by step. (January 25^th)
 

How often do I try to control the way my life unfolds, far too often without going to God first? And how often is that predicated on the idea that my days are unending here on earth?  This time last year the patient I sat with had no idea that she was sick.  This time last month, my cousin had no idea that she had cancer. This time last week, my friend had no idea that his life would be so dramatically changed just by walking back to his office from lunch.
 

God alone is the one who knows and the wondrous thing is we have a God who loves us profoundly, intimately, perfectly.  Why do I not cling to him daily with great joy and profound confidence just like a child who is completely certain of their relationship with a loving parent?  Certainly there are tears; certainly there are times of frustration, disappointment, heartbreak and uncertainty but a relationship of intimacy with Jesus means that when we suddenly find ourselves in these times which turn our lives upside down we lean into a God who we have experienced personally before.  We have seen God’s hand in small and large events of life and that familiarity fosters trust. So, I am choosing again to lean into Jesus.  I know that there are hard times still ahead, there always are but the truth is that Jesus is always present.  
 

This morning I was reminded of a quote by Theologian Frederick Buechner, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid”

God’s Peace,

Mary

 

...And to all a wobbly New Year

Life on the Potter’s Wheel

And yet, O Lord, you are our Father.

We are the clay, and you are the potter.

We are all formed by you hand.

Isaiah 64:8

January 5, 2013

 

So, it's the first Sunday of the new year.  Entering into a new year is something that’s always been a little, um…awkward…for me. There have been so many years where I’ve found myself almost grieving on January 1^st as the warmth and fun of the Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas season gets tucked away for another year.  There have been years when I couldn’t seem to slam the door on the old year fast enough although those have been rare.  There have even been a few years where the excitement of new possibilities has seemed as explosive as the New Year’s fireworks that we watch in my sister’s part of the world.  Those are very rare too.

Most years I find myself wobbling into the new year on what feels like very young and discovering feet. Now don’t read this as any kind of a negative.  In actuality I find it hopeful, tentative, a little scary and calling for me to choose upon whom I will depend.  Will I depend on myself or my circumstances that may seem certain and clear or foggy and perhaps a little ominous? That’s kind of the choice I’ve tended to give myself over the years.  This last year has been teaching me not to get too far ahead of myself in making that choice.   In my rush to make that determination I often miss the necessity of the mystery of waiting on God.

As I’ve share with many over these last months, the words that seemed to hover over the journey that God has given me have been lean, trust, wait.  As I’ve shared, this is not my customary tendency and in all honesty I’m not sure it’s always been the message I think I’ve let myself even receive in church. How does lean, trust, wait stand alongside stepping out in faith?  Doesn’t that require confidence and determination?  Doesn’t it require boldness? 

There’s a scene in the movie “A League of Their Own” where one of the players is on base and is trying to receive instructions from the team’s manager played by Tom Hanks and she’s also receiving instructions from the team’s captain and catcher played by Geena Davis.  The instructions seem to be in conflict if not completely in contradiction to each other.  The player ultimately has to make choice of whom she will listen to and in the middle of it all she looks comically awkward and completely uncertain.  Oh how I feel like that sometimes!

One of the interesting things I’ve been learning this year is that sometimes looking comically awkward and completely uncertain requires a decided amount of confidence and determination and boldness.  I have been learning that choosing to take practical steps in the midst of a time of unknown and waiting is a balance that calls me to a radical trust and determined willingness to hold the reins of my life loosely in favor of a loving, mysterious God who is not required to tell me all of the details to come down the road. I may think I want the Lord to tell because as my mom used to say, “If I knew what was going to happen then I’d know what to do.”

 One of the things I’ve learned this year is that God isn’t really interested in me sensing a clear and precise call from him but what God is interested in is my willingness to seek, listen, trust and step even if things don’t seem to make as much sense as I might like.  The interesting thing I’ve discovered this year is that the more I do this and the more I’m willing to adjust my plans as I go, the more I’ve found peace.  One of the primary things that God has put before me to consider is what do I really believe about God’s good intent towards me.  Do I really believe this?  Do I really trust this?  Am I really willing to live this? As I have considered these things and grown in my choosing the truth and reality of God’s good intent towards me, I have found it remarkably possible to lean, trust and wait even in the midst of things that aren’t quite moving forward the way that I expected and even when I look comically awkward in the middle of it all. I make life decisions and take steps based on what I understand, as best I am able at the moment but I’ve learned more about holding these decisions loosely with the confidence and certainty of God’s good intent towards me even when that takes those plans seems to leave them kind of hanging.

As I reflect on what has and hasn’t happened that I had expected this past year I find that many of the things that I’d been looking toward…the beginning of Potter’s Wheel, completing my training as a Spiritual Director, and finding a job as a hospice chaplain have all happened.  Almost none of it has happened in quite the way, order or timing that I had thought I expected at the beginning of 2012.  God has been so gracious in helping me in learning more and more about holding the reins loosely and falling deeper into the great truth of God’s love and good intent towards me.  So, as I begin this new year I’m still as wobbly as I often am but the young, discovering steps into this new year finds me much more peaceful and confident in my wobbling.

I am so grateful that you have been willing to join me in this journey.  Your prayers have meant more to me than I’ll ever be able to tell you.  Your encouragement has served so often to be the cup of cold water that I’ve needed in some of the moments that have felt most difficult. So, I’m looking forward to journeying with you as we move into this new year and as God continues to mold us as we’re…

Living on the Potter’s Wheel!

God’s Peace,

Mary

...Emmanuel, God with us

Life on the Potter’s Wheel

And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter.

We are all formed by you hand.

Isaiah 64:8

 

December 15, 2012

 

One of my favorite authors is Lauren Winner.  Her first book that I read was “Mudhouse Sabbath”.  It speaks about how many of Sabbath rhythms of her Jewish upbringing inform her understanding of Sabbath as Christian. Winner was one of those kids who were hard after God from a remarkably young age. In my own journey, I was blessed to come from a sweet heritage of faith but I wasn’t nearly as sophisticated in my spiritual thoughts as she was.  It wasn’t until just recently I picked up her first book, “Girl Meets God” which tells of her young life and her journey toward Jesus.  Here’s a passage from the chapter entitled “Advent”…

“The very first thing I liked about Christianity, long before it ever occurred to me to go to church or say the creed or call myself a Christian, was the Incarnation, the idea that God lowered himself and became a man so that we could relate to Him better. In Christianity, God got to be both a distant and transcendent Father god, and a present and immanent Son god who walked among us.  Christians, unlike Jews, spent their time talking to a God who knew from experience what it was like to go hungry, to go swimming, to miss a best friend.” (pg. 51)

Now, this wasn’t the end of her consideration of Jesus, this was very early in it.  She still has a long way to go and to be honest I haven’t gotten that far in the book yet.   I have found myself today thinking about the Incarnation that we will be celebrating in just a little over a week.   Especially today in light of the heartbreaking devastation that visited a little elementary school in Connecticut yesterday.  The Incarnation is truly the only source of hope that I have found.  The wonder of the Triune God who came to earth as the full reflection of the Lord’s love and the Spirit that was commended to us by Jesus….

“But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative – that is the Holy Spirit – he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. I am leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart.  And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.  Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again.

(John 14:26-28a NLT)

As hard as these days are right now and as little sense as we can make of what happened yesterday at Sandy Hook Elementary we can focus on the hope of the Incarnation.  We still live in Advent, a season of expectation and preparation of the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, the Living Word, the Prince of Peace, Emmanuel – God with us.

O’ Come O’ Come Emmanuel!!!

Potter’s Wheel gathers again Sunday evening. Laura Stack has invited us to come to her home!  Laura’s address is 7135 Cherokee.  You take 71^st off of Mission and follow the fork in the road to Cherokee.  We’ll gather at 5:00. We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOIN US! If you need more information, please feel free to contact me.

God’s Peace!!!

Mary

 

Abiding in the real...

October 28, 2012

 

One of my favorite (if that’s the appropriate word for this) passages of Scripture is found in the first chapter of Colossians.  It became more significant in my life of worship several years ago when we were having an extended time of fasting at our church.  We had noon worship during that season and one day as I sat in the sanctuary my eyes came upon this passage and it was so fresh and new and it almost seemed like it was highlighted.  It’s Colossian 1: 15-22.

 

“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can’t see – such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.

Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body.

He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead.

So he is first in everything.

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him

 God reconciled everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth

by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

This includes you

who were once far away from God. You were once his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 

Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.” (NLT)

 

Last week at the soul healing prayer conference as several of us sat in the prayer room, this passage again came to my mind.  We had taken turns reading passage aloud.  There is something so powerful about hearing the Word together.  The truth of this passage seemed to just hover in the air and we could breathe it in and out together.  The healing and restoration so clearly presented in this passage speaks with such clarity of the wholeness of God and the reconciliation that offers wholeness to us and it’s totally, completely REAL!  I find so much hope and joy in this!!!  It’s sooooo incredible to just sit and consider this!  As we sat together last week, all of us were deeply touched and a little overwhelmed by God’s goodness and loving intent toward us.  The sufficiency of Christ feels so safe and complete.

Potter’s Wheel gathers Sunday evenings at 5:00. We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOIN US! For more information, please feel free to contact me.

 

God’s Peace,

Mary

 

Wondering about worship...

I was sitting and thinking back on my week and I came to a place of real gratitude and as I was letting that roll over in my mind, I found myself in a place of worship. I’ve been thinking about worship recently and as I consider what that might really look like in my life as Christ-follower. It’s easy to let my heart, mind and spirit slide into worship when I’m feeling grateful but what about when I’m not?

 

So often, I let my emotions dictate my heart of worship. When I find myself light and joyful worship can seem as spontaneous and effortless as feather flying on the breeze. When life feels so hard and overwhelming it feels like a drowning person in desperate need for air. What about those other times? What about those times when the mundane dailyness of life just feels relentless. What about those times when there is an oppressive quality to what’s going on and I just don’t know what I think about God and I don’t understand what is wanted from me and my mind and my being are just confounded by it all and there is a sense that since I can’t get myself around it all that I’m just going put it off until I can. The next thing I know I’m going through the motions and my heart is nowhere near it. Sometimes when we find ourselves in this place it’s easy to slide into the oughts and shoulds of faith and the next thing, we know we’re smack dab in the middle of legalism. It seems like it ought to draw us nearer to God. We want to draw nearer but as I’ve experienced it, in reality, it does just the opposite.

 

It’s been interesting in this season, there have been so many times when I get to the point where I just find myself at a place where I’m just flummoxed and I’m not at all sure what the next thing is and worship seems to be a distant thing because I can’t seem to get a grip on things. What I’m learning is that this is actually a great place for worship. When I’m in that place where I sense the Lord nudging the question, “What’s going on Mary?” It’s just fine for me to say…. “I don’t know.” There’s usually an underlying reality that is embedded in that statement. Where am I looking? That’s where the worship happens. Right there in the middle of ordinary life. In the midst of the mundane and the mayhem. That’s where worship happens. I may be in a place where I’m absolutely confounded and I really don’t have a clue about what I think about anything…how do I respond to that question… “What’s going on?” Where will I look? Whom do I choose to trust? As I answer those questions…that’s where worship happens.

 

In the Old Testament there are two books, 1^st and 2^nd Chronicles, that essentially look at the history of the people of Israel over lives and generations of 16 different kings of Israel and Judah. There are all kinds of ups and downs of daily life with all the drama and boredom that go along with it. Kings and common people get confounded over and over again; sometimes in the incredibly ordinary and sometimes in huge struggles and battles.

 

In 2 Chronicles 20, the people are just about to be attacked by a huge army of two nations and on the face of it; they are going to get completely creamed. In that kind of moment there’s that question again, “What’s going on?” and the underlying one, “Where am I looking?” The people in that moment are just so incredibly human and respond, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chron 20:12) I love that declaration of worship but even more is the very next sentence. “All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the Lord.” (2 Chron 20:13) They didn’t know what the answer would be. What they did have was the opportunity to decide where they were going to look. That’s worship. Every time we make the choice of where we’re going to look, we decide whom we will worship. In the huge and the small, the horrible and humble but also in just the incredibly ordinary, worship happens, every time I make that choice.

 

What I’m continuing to find is that God is very willing to take me right where I am. When I’m blissfully peaceful, when I’m totally panicked and when I’m just in the middle of life and don’t feel like I have a clue. I’m learning that that is exactly what a life of worship looks like. I don’t have any idea what to do Lord, but I’m going to look to you and I’m just going to wait and move, slowly and intentionally, into the next thing you put before me no matter. It’s there, in those moments and in the next that we see God and as I look back, I see the Lord’s fingerprints all over my life.

 

Potter’s Wheel will gather again this Sunday at 5:00pm on the courtyard at Second Church at 55^th and Brookside. We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOIN US! If you need more information, please feel free to contact me.

 

God’s Peace,

 

Mary

 

Lessons from the community of the cloister...

 

September 15, 2012

 

This week I started reading a book by a man, Jon Sweeney, who for years had been trying to discover the place and way to ­­­­live out a more faithful, real relationship with God.  His life, like most of ours, seemed to be pulled in lots of directions and all the while he deeply wanted his life of faith to be pleasing to God, to be profoundly intimate with God and to find this in middle of an extremely busy, very ordinary life. Over the years he had been going to church, involved in mission, listening to tapes, reading books, going to monasteries all looking for those “ah-ha moments” that would give him sense that his life was where it ought to be.

If I may, there is a section early in this book that gives an image of this in a conversation he had with Father Ambrose at a monastery in Kentucky. It’s a little longer than the passages I usually share with you but I thought it was such a good reflection of the wrestlings that so many of us go through as we seek to connect more deeply with God and live in that place consistently.  One morning in December, Jon and Father Ambrose go for a walk and Jon shares his dilemma.

“I never want to leave when I’m in a place like this, with people like you, and yet, I love my wife and family and even my work very much.  What do you think this means?’ I asked.  He shrugged and he smiled. We walk a little further… ‘Busy people like you come here all the time.  I see them in church, the retreat house, and walking around the grounds.  You come here to slow down, we know that.’… ‘If I had to give you one piece of advice it would be this: don’t look for sudden enlightenment.  People call them ah-ha moments; don’t worry about those. I know that you may feel your time is wasted here if you haven’t had enough ah-has, but I assure you it won’t be.’

‘So what should I be doing?’ I asked him, feeling confused and more than a little bit foolish.

‘When you finally quiet down enough you’ll begin to hear a splinter of the divine voice.’ … ‘When you visit here, don’t walk around looking for moments of enlightened insight,’ Ambrose advised me, ‘For one thing, we’re not that smart!’ He laughed. ‘Instead, you should walk around praying. Sit in the church before dawn, praying. Or just shut your mouth for a few days. Listen to the talks given by the retreat master, if you like. Just sit. Try your best to stop thinking.’

    It sounded too easy to me.  I told him that.  ‘What I’m suggesting is much harder than you might think. You’ll see.’

    At that point, I felt the need to lighten things up. ‘What about a little old-fashioned scourging? Wouldn’t that be easier?’

    “Yes, well,’ he said, smiling, ‘we Trappists aren’t much into asceticism anymore. Beating yourself up doesn’t do for you what the monks of earlier centuries thought it would do: purify you. In fact, it only confuses things further.’…
 
    ‘So, here’s your ascetical work for this week: Try your best not to be clever or insightful. Try your best not to look in the mirror…Think of this time as a stripping away of paint to reveal what’s underneath.

    ‘If you’re lucky, you’ll discover some of your truer self before you leave – and it will change you, or stick with you much better than an ah-ha ever could.’ Ambrose concluded.

    He was right.” **

 

One of the things I’ve noticed in my own life and in conversations that I’ve had with others is how often we get stuck because of how fearful we are about what God might think about us if he really knew. So we go through all kinds of gyrations trying to get ourselves in that place where God would be pleased. This summer I was listening to a CD of a teaching about how God uses our time “in the wilderness”.  The speaker reflected on how often we are fearful that God might be disillusioned of us if our real weaknesses were revealed.  But the speaker laughingly reminded us that God can’t become disillusioned because the Lord has no illusions about us! 

 
God knows all our weakness and weirdness.  God knows the fears that we might have that we’re terrified to admit even to ourselves.  God knows all the brokenness, all the places where we trip up and the Lord still calls us to come closer!
 
Another place we are fearful is that we tend to think we’re the only ones who wrestle with our particular kind of weakness and weirdness. We aren’t. They may be variations on a theme but we all have them. 

I think about this a lot when I think about the call in Hebrews that we “…think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good deeds. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another…”  Heb. 10:24

 
Just as Jon and Father Ambrose did, we are called to share ourselves as we share our journey.  It does help us to lean into that wondrous sweet relationship with our Lord that molds us and shapes us into the vessel God has in mind for us. Sharing the realities of our journey, to live out our faith is so central to whom we are as followers of Jesus Christ.  This final thought is not original but I love it. Instead of living our lives and sharing our faith what if we live our faith and share our lives.  We have many places we can do that, worship, retreats, community, service, work, school, in our families and most essentially with our Lord.

Potter’s Wheel will gather again this Sunday at 5:00pm on the courtyard at Second Church at 55th and Brookside.  We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOIN US!  If you need more information, please feel free to contact me.

 

God’s Peace,

 

Mary

 

** Sweeney, Jon, Cloister Talks: Learning from my Friends the Monks, (Brazos Press, 2009) pgs.18&19,