Terrapin Station

Friday Five: Vital Connections

Sally says at RevGals:  OK I'll admit it, right now I am exhausted, there is so much going on and so much to do that I fell like I am running around in small circles, add to that the fact that there is so much that I'd like to do ....

What I need to do is give myself permission (make myself) to stop and to refocus, to breath the air and smell the roses to get perspective and to rest in God's presence, and sometimes that can be hard to achieve but I know that the harder it gets, the more essential it becomes. Somewhere deep inside I hear the Spirit whispering to my soul:

Live in me, make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself, but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined to me... (John 15: 4)

So I want to ask you:

1. How do you intentionally make a vital daily connection with God? What roots you and gives you life?  I go out in the morning to pick up the newspaper, and I face the sunrise, and I say good morning to God and give thanks for yesterday, today, and tomorrow...pray for the things that are on my heart at that time.  Ask that I might be God's person in the world today. 

2.  Do you have a favourite space/ place that you go to?  outdoors and birds are the constants.  I love to go outside, usually in my yard, or often I stop at a pond in a local park on my way home from Jazzercise and listen to birds.  The Cornell Red Tail Hawk cam has been fascinating me lately.    One of my favorite birds and it's such a gift to get to see them up close this way.  I've found a whole world of bird webcams through this site, but this is still my favorite.  It's a good meditation place for me.  

Watch live streaming video from cornellhawks at livestream.com

 

3. Is there a particular passage, phrase or prayer that brings you immediately into God's presence?  When I was a little girl, this was often used as the opening sentence as  Morning Prayer  began: "The Lord is in his holy Temple; Let all the earth keep silence before him."  (from Habbakuk).  And to me, that means, settle in; it's time to pray; God is in God's house and so am I."  Conveniently, I now experience God as anywhere that I am.  

(The Lord was definitely a Him when I was a girl.)

4. Music- essential ingredient or distraction- discuss

When I'm trying to pray and listen, music doesn't work.  Often when I'm working, it doesn't either.  But sometimes when I am working, it is a blessing.  It might be sacred music; yesterday I listened to about an hour of Bach cantatas on Spotify.  I'm also very fond of Pandora's Yaz channel. 

5. Silence and solitude or engagement with like minded others?  I really prefer to be on my own when it comes to refreshing. 

Bonus, a poem, piece of inspirational prose or music that speaks to you of that vital connection...

To Live in the Mercy of God

By Denise Levertov

To lie back under the tallest

oldest trees. How far the stems

rise, rise

               before ribs of shelter

                                           open!

To live in the mercy of God. The complete

sentence too adequate, has no give.

Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of

stony wood beneath lenient

moss bed.

And awe suddenly

passing beyond itself. Becomes

a form of comfort.

                      Becomes the steady

air you glide on, arms

stretched like the wings of flying foxes.

To hear the multiple silence

of trees, the rainy

forest depths of their listening.

To float, upheld,

                as salt water

                would hold you,

                                        once you dared

To live in the mercy of God.

To feel vibrate the enraptured

waterfall flinging itself

unabating down and down

                              to clenched fists of rock.

Swiftness of plunge,

hour after year after century,

                                                   O or Ah

uninterrupted, voice

many-stranded.

                              To breathe

spray. The smoke of it.

                              Arcs

of steelwhite foam, glissades

of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—

rage or joy?

                              Thus, not mild, not temperate,

God’s love for the world. Vast

flood of mercy

                      flung on resistance.

Denise Levertov, “To Live in the Mercy of God” from Sands from the Well. Copyright © 1996 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Reproduced from poetryfoundation.org

I've posted this before

but it's rocking my world right now, so here it is again.

 

Be at Peace

Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life;

rather look to them with full hope as they arise.

God, whose very own you are,

will deliver you from out of them. 

She has kept you hitherto,

And She will lead you safely through all things;

and when you cannot stand it,

God will bury you in her arms.

 

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;

the same everlasting Mother who cares for you today

will take care of you then and every day.

She will either shield you from suffering,

or will give you unfailing strength to bear it. 

Be at peace,

and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations. 

-St. Francis de Sales 1567-1622

Alleluia in Lent

The first time I did it, I was 26. 

I was in Boston for a training session, and prior to the first event, I had some wandering time to myself.  It was Ash Wednesday, so I looked up the Episcopal cathedral and went for service. 

It was the first time I saw a female priest (!!! and that's a whole 'nother story!!!).  And it was the first time I really HEARD the Gospel from the Ash Wednesday liturgy. 

It's, like, crazy, man!  It says "do one thing," (wash your face, smile, don't complain)  and then the liturgy leads us to completely do another (get ashes on your face and walk around with them on you all day long).  WHAT!?

So I got my ashes, and I rode the train back to my hotel, thinking about that paradox, and noticing that I seemed to fit right in, in Catholic Boston; more people had ashes than didn't.  In my hotel room, I met my roommate and we watched TV news together.  The Gulf War was on and that night SCUD missiles were falling in Israel.  I learned that she was Jewish. 

Before we left for the opening reception, I washed off my forehead ashes.  My roommate hadn't remarked on them before, but she said, "I thought you were supposed to leave those on!"  I said, "I don't think there's really a rule about it." 

There's not.  And ever since then, I've washed away those ashes as soon as possible after I've received them.  It's important to me to get them, and to remember my mortality and that of those I love, and those I DON'T love, and everyone in the world.  To participate with my faith community in that liturgy.  And then, it's time to move on. 

The whole Ash Wednesday liturgy is a church history thing...not a Jesus thing.  It's a tradition, a practice.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say to do the things we do.  That doesn't mean they are bad; but it does mean we might want to look at them with new eyes to see how they really work for us.  In my tradition, we "bury the Alleluias" and do not use the word during Lent.  And mercy, does THAT sometimes get to be silly.  If it's accidentally uttered, oh no!  such comment!  We refer to it as "the a-word."  Oy. 

 

I don't "give up" things for Lent anymore, either.  It ends up not meaning much to me besides a contest of wills, which becomes an obsession.  I know that I can have the strongest will in the world; it's a way of showing off to myself.  But that doesn't get me any closer to Jesus. (My friend Songbird wrote a great homily from which I borrow the "show-off" language.) 

 Yesterday I posted a link about a positive way of looking at Lent.  And that really "hit me where I live" later,  in reading  my friend Kirstin's latest blog post.  Kirstin has metastatic melanoma.  She's been living (and I mean LIVING) with this disease for three years now and blogging her journey. She writes, for Ash Wednesday: 

I need to claim Easter now, because I have no idea if I’ll be here on the liturgical date. My hope is in the Resurrection; I’ll be damned if I’m putting that off for six weeks because the church tells me it’s time to. I’m with the Orthodox; why are we ever proscribed from praising? God’s nature does not change because of our season. 

What am I doing for Lent? Saying alleluia and living in the moment. Seizing the joys that I can find. Looking for perfect nows. Spending time with friends. Being alive and awake in love.

And I say, with Kristin and for Kristin, and for all of us in the world and our fears and pains and hopes:   Even at the grave we make our song:  Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Book Review: Writing To God

Here's a cross post of my book review, posted today at RevGalBlogPals. 

Rachel Hackenburg's Writing To God: 40 Days of Praying With My Pen (Paraclete Press, 2011) is a gift that lasts for 40 days and beyond. It is designed to be used for any 40-day period, with a special section of "Prayers and Prompts for Holy Week."

Rachel, Pastor of Grace United Church of Christ in Lancaster, PA, is a newer member of the RevGals ring. I resounded with her blog posts at Faith and Water, and was delighted to be asked to write a review of this book.

Paraclete Press sent me a review copy and I immediately began using the book in my morning prayer practice. I loved it. In the past, I have done Morning Pages (from The Artist's Way), 750Words.com, and Praying in Color. All take me outside of myself in an important way, in that they are either not prayer (the first), or a foreign-to-me way of prayer. This book specifically pairs writing prayer with daily writing activity.

As "a words person," writing my prayers is something I have done all my life, in an attenuated form. That is: If I am praying for you, your name is bound to be written somewhere on my desk, my shopping list, even on my hand. Probably, many places. I explained the practice to a college friend by saying, "by writing you down, I keep you safe." I understand prayer differently, now; there is no guarantee of safety...but writing something, making it The Word, makes it real and embodied for me in a way that other prayer methods have not revealed.

For each of forty days, Rachel pairs a poetical reflection on a daily matter with a scripture, and prompts the reader to write to God to correspond to the passage. I found it a fresh way of seeing scriptures, many of which are so familiar as to be flat.

There is also an index of Scriptural Praying Prompts, matching the days of the 40-day cycle with the scriptures from which they are drawn in the order they appear in the Bible.

Rachel says, "Praying through your pen is not about finding the right or perfect words for prayer; it's about connecting your whole self in an act of physically produced prayers. It's about practicing prayer daily in the safety of a book's pages. It's about exploring the fullness of words as you journey with Jesus through the trials and passions and joys of life. It's about enjoying your conversation with the Holy, creatively, freely, sincerely, in mind, body, and spirit" (p. x).

The book may be purchased through Paraclete, which offers a volume discount program as seen on their webpage for the book. This would be a wonderful tool to use with a church group or a group of spiritual friends. It could be used in any season, though the 40-day structure and the Holy Week feature make it ideal for Lent. I recommend it!

If you have read this book, or read it in the future, please share your thoughts in the comments.

Protect us from ourselves

Shower Thy grace upon us in the moment of our greatest need, protect us from ourselves, and allow us to be a beacon of light rather than a dark cloud for the ambience that surrounds us. Only with Thy aid can we create that peace within and harmony with the outer environment, both natural and social, for which our souls yearn.
 
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
from Talking to God: Portrait of a World at Prayer (anthology)

found at Gratefulness.org

Praying today

for the Jackson family as they lay Michael to rest.

for all the many people who will be attending the Jackson memorial at the Staples center...that a spirit of peace and calm might prevail.  That there would be no violence or outbursts. 

for the Uighur people of China

for the Rohingya people of Burma

for the brave people of Iran

for the poor, the sick, the hungry and the needy. 

and for those who are poor, sick, hungry, and needy...not of body but of heart, soul, spirit. 

for my father as he continues to recover from surgery

for my family who are returning home all over the US after a great ranch reunion this weekend

for friends who are going through painful and unfair divorces

for those who are ill, and those who minister to them

for clergy and lay workers in churches

for those who work for peace and justice, which was the work of Jesus on earth and what he left for us to do. 

for my friends

for my enemies

for YOU reading this. 

Amen.

Barack Obama's grandmother dies

I just saw the news that Barack Obama's grandmother died today. 

I am so glad that he took the time from the campaign to go visit her.  I am so sorry that she will not be here to hug and congratulate him. 

But as part of the great cloud of witnesses...I am certain she will know and be proud and glad. 

Prayers for Senator Obama and his family. 

Prayers for Madelyn Dunham.  May she rest in peace and rise in glory. 

Farewell

Colleen, one of our matriarchs, died on Monday.  She'd had a stroke a few weeks ago and was improving...then a seizure...then this. 

The Requiem will be next Tuesday evening.  Tonight the choir rehearsed Rutter's "Lux Aeterna" and an "Ave Maria" we know well for the service.

Another soprano said she had promised Colleen that she would wear red high heels at her funeral...we are all invited to join in. 

Colleen "talked my ear off" on the first day I visited the church.  I was so grateful for it! feeling very lost.  She never met a stranger.  I suppose she is telling them in Paradise just how the cow ate the cabbage. 

Rest well, friend. 

Vigils

It's been such a surreal night and day...keeping vigil with those affected by Hurricane Gustav. 

Also planning a prayer vigil for my dear friend L. who has been suffering from mysterious seizures for the last several months and will be undergoing two brain surgeries this week.  She says,

"The type of epilepsy with which I have been diagnosed is quite rare and according to some reading I've been doing on the subject, occurs once in a million patients.  So those of you who know me well, know that I have always strived toward that goal of being one in a million, just not in this way.  Surgery Surgery #1 (9/2/08) is just to put some electronic nodes and electronic mesh on the spot where it is believed the seizures are triggered.  #2 (9/5/08) is scheduled for three days later so they can dig around inside my brain guts and fix this agitated area."

Hmm.  Brain guts. 

Please pray with me and many others for peace and comfort for L and her family, and that the area will indeed be fixed. 

In the still of the night...

while trying not to obsess over the news coverage of Hurricane Gustav...

a meme from Kathryn at Good in Parts, who says:  "Steve, over at Mustard Seed Shavings, invited me to play along with this - and as I'm as busy procrastinating as ever, it seemed like a really good plan. 

Five events and a chance to record the impact they had on you:

(I'm going to replace "Mrs. Thatcher's Resignation on 22 November 1990" with Hurricane Katrina...as I do not recall having paid much attention to Mrs. Thatcher in 1990.  Sorry, but there it is...)

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997
I was in Connecticut visiting my friend Terri, with another friend, Christie.  We had known each other in College Station and had all moved on to our next lives that year...Christie was in Washington, DC.  We got together for a long weekend of catching up.  Terri's boyfriend called to say that something terrible had happened to Princess Diana.  For some reason, Terri and I were glued to the TV, deeply saddened, as if it affected us personally, and Christie thought we were nuts (which we were.)

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001
I arrived at work that morning and then-student assistant Amy told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center!  "They think it's terrorism!" she said. 

I remember clearly that nothing made any sense to me about it.  I couldn't think of any World Trade Center besides the one in Dallas...

why would anyone want to attack that? 

I went down the hall to David's office where there was a TV.  The news was on.  My visitors from London were there.  I just sat and stared.  The appointment I'd arranged for the visitors came, and they met with him.  I remember thinking, 'how can you go on with things like that?' I was in total shock.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany - 4 July 1990
I have no idea, I recall my roommate passionately watching those games but I'm not a sports fan. 

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963
I have no memory of it.  "I weren't here yet."

Hurricane Katrina, August 30, 2005

The impact this had on me?  In one way, none.  No water came into my house.  I was not in danger.  In another way, profound.  It shook my faith in my country and its ability to do the right things and care for its people.  It made the blogging community real in a way it hadn't been before, because I knew people who were there (or who had evacuated from there).  It reminded me to always be grateful for the beauty that comes after pain. 

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch,
or weep this night, and give your angels charge over
those who sleep. 

Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give
rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the
suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and
all for your love’s sake.  Amen.

-BCP