Friday, December 24, 2010

Blessed is the season

“Blessed is the season that engages
the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”
~ Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846–1916


Perhaps Christmas is a spiritual practice for we are invited once again to find our place at the stable where love is born again.


The following story has been passed across cyberspace this season…


A Nativity Scene was created in a church yard. During the night the folks came across this scene.






An abandoned dog was looking for a comfortable, protected place to sleep. He chose the manger as his comfort. No one had the heart to send him away so he was there all night. 



This ‘shepherd’ dog found a way to rest awhile in the love. 
May it be so for us all.


Blessed is the season...

Thursday, December 16, 2010

What is Spiritual Practice Anyway?

One of the gifts of being part of the Spiritual Care Network team is that ever so often I have the opportunity to gather with a group of clergy and talk about how I am caring for myself spiritually and how we can assist others in spiritual care. These meetings and conversations are rich and nurturing and although I usually go in wondering how I am going to make up for the lost time I find myself refreshed just by being in the room.

Today was one of those days - I had the opportunity to be “Rudolf” as I drove the carpool from Horseshoe Bay to the conference office.

The reality was that most of us were a bit flippant, cheeky and a little sassy throughout the day but we forgave one another (after all it is the week before Christmas and the stress level in the room and car was at times palpable).

And yet this brassy little group found themselves in deep conversation on our way home when the questions were asked. “What is spiritual practice?” “What counts as spiritual practice?” “Am I wrong that I don’t understand shopping as spiritual practice?” “Is that my egoic-self?” “Is there a difference between being nourished and spiritual practice?” We pondered the differences between extroverted and introverted spirituality throughout the day. But we also wondered what makes it spiritual practice?

For myself I think it’s about intention. In the conversation I recognized that I consider yoga (most of the time) spiritual practice but not kick boxing. I often say skiing is one of my practices and yet I wouldn’t say that about dragon boating. I love all of these sports - each of them nurture me and yet when I breath deeply and meditate in yoga - I intentionally connect with The Holy and yet in kickboxing... well..... If I’m honest I just want to ‘kick-butt’ (please don’t judge me). When I ski I am almost always in awe and yet when I dragon boat the moments of awe are an added bonus if they occur.

For me practice involves intention. It is not that these other things don’t nourish. But if I fail to be intentional in my connecting with the holy I am sure to notice every once and a while that it has been a very long time since I talked with my God other than in a leadership role. That’s just what I have discovered within myself. I would love to hear what spiritual practice means for you. What does it look like? How do you know it’s a spiritual practice? (I encourage you to share with us your practices).

"the things Christians do"

Never try to write a blog entry on “spiritual practices” while eating homemade tiramisu liberally soaked in Kahlua. I learned that this evening. Who says you cannot learn new things as you age?

Spiritual practices, though, are not one of those new things… not for me, anyway. My family didn’t call them “spiritual practices”, of course. My mother called them “the things Christians do.”

The major one was called “Sunday worship – EVERY Sunday.” This really pissed me off when I was a teen. It saved my life after my divorce.

Another one was called “nightly prayers” when we were forced to name before God the many we loved… and some of the ones we didn’t. I suppose morning prayers would have started the day off better but not being allowed to go to sleep before prayers were said had a very salubrious effect, too.

Memorizing scripture was really big. And I didn’t do it for the coloured stickers you would get for the decorative certificate, suitable for framing (and hung on my wall for a decade or two). Really… I didn’t. The King James poetry still resonates in moments of peace or anxiety.

If you know my family, you know we sang. If it was Sunday morning it was gospel songs along with Jim Reeves. If it was on summer vacation in the station wagon between radiator meltdowns it was whatever hymns we could remember, which were many, sprinkled with ‘50s bubblegum and the chart-breaking early Beatles before they grew their hair too long and wore blue jeans.

In first year university I found a very quiet, dusty corner in the basement of Main Library, UBC, where hand-written scrolls from Augustine’s time must have been stored, and each day before class read The Gospel of John, word by torturous word, along with that faithful guide, Raymond Brown. I kept notes, basically rewriting Brown in my many notebooks.

After marriage while still a student, living in a subsidized basement suite with a one evening a week paycheck and a few odd jobs between us, my wife and I decided to start tithing. It did not amount to much in those days. The ten percent seemed like a real breeze, though, compared to our childhood practice where 15 cents of my 25 cent weekly allowance had to go into the collection plate. I guess it really was “practice” for the day when it might mean something, maybe even something spiritual. I am still practicing… at the Biblical rate, not the childhood one!

Now I live on my own and am on pretty good terms with silence. The tv is only on for the occasional Canucks game. I long ago decided not to answer the phone – Jesus didn’t need one, why should I? I have no dog and my plants just whisper politely when they need attention. I have a decent reflective, meditative interior life or I would not have a life at all. None if this feels particularly spiritual – it is just life.

What makes the difference for me are “the things that Christians do”: regular community worship, prayer, hymn singing (with a smattering of The Beatles), scripture study, tithing… eating tiramisu with a grateful heart

Shalom, Doug Goodwin
.

Joy Sings Out

This came across my desk recently... so I send it on to all you Advent adventurers....

The Advent tension is a way of learning again that God is God: that between even our deepest and holiest longing and the reality of God is a gap which only grace can cross.
~ Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness

This past week I caught a glimpse of the kind of grace that crosses the gap between our longing and the reality of God. One of our pet birds died recently and when our 5 year-old granddaughter Sara came over to visit I told her Peep had died. She immediately said I want to talk with her. So we went out into the backyard where we had buried Peep. It was dark as we held hands with only the ray of a flashlight to solemnly guide us to the place of burial. I turned off the flashlight and I hear Sara whispering and then she tugged my hand as she said one last good-bye to Peep. I turned the flashlight back on and as we turned to walk back into the house. Sara turned back and joyfully sang out: “Merry Christmas Peep!”

In the stillness of a December night, joy sprang up. In the middle of a parched land a river springs forth. In the midst of loss, joy sang out. In the midst of a dry and thirsty land a story of joy runs through it…

Saturday, December 11, 2010

To change ...

Taking up the challenge offered in this blog is about accepting the invitation to change, or perhaps, to be changed. Congratulations.!!

"To change we must:
hurt enough to need to;
learn enough to want to;
and feel safe enough to try." Maxwell
I have lived with this quote for at least 15 years and it describes quite accurately my experience of "failures" and "successes" in my prayer and meditation practices. It is a circular road map. Repeating in large and small movements in life, always building, never wasted ...

Lasting change in my life has always begun in pain.
Over four years ago I was desperate for the undergirding nurture that I knew could come from a daily Centering Prayer practice. I knew this from other people's sharing, from retreats, from reading and from my own 1 or 2 week times of success. I began, a day at a time, and now find this so precious I can't conceive of life without this prayer.

"To change we must: hurt enough to need to ..."
My "hurt" was not life shattering, just the feelings most of you already know. Chronic feelings. Tired, lonely, putting on the 'face', giving to others from the bottom of my spiritual 'gas tank', in a demanding ministry where I could not relieve the pain and tragedy of others. I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.
I was ready, again, to do it.

In future posts I'll say more.
But we need to start with how we "hurt enough to need to".
Please share in a general way in the comments what has brought you to the desire to start, begin again or change your spiritual practice.
What convinces you that you 'need' to change, in order to live?

Blessings,
Bill

Friday, December 10, 2010

today's reflection

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen - Anthem


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

One of the results of the initial Spiritual Practice Challenge was some folks from Squamish United joined in. The second result was this year we made an advent calendar of spiritual practice.
The feedback from the congregation has been encouraging. Several have reflected that they are engaging in advent in a way they never before. Suddenly when John the Baptist showed up this week people had a bit of an idea of what "Preparing the way" might look like.
In the advent calendar Some days the practice may be something as simple as take notice...
This Sunday one of the practice options was "Go for a walk to notice life in the cold winter season. Notice the salmon, the eagles, the fall leaves, the mountains, the snow(?)...."


That morning as Carol and Wilf looked out there window this is what they saw. Then they came to church and heard the a reading and message from Isaiah 11.
Wow!






Friday, December 3, 2010

Silence sought, and found!

In an article titled “These days, silence is truly golden (ie. rare and expensive)” (Globe and Mail, 27 November 2010), columnist Katrina Onstad notes:


“This Remembrance Day, the Royal British Legion released a charity single with Thom Yorke from Radiohead, though he didn’t contribute any music. The song cost $1.29 in Canada on iTunes and is called Two Minutes of Silence, which is exactly what it is. The anti-song song landed in Britain’s Top 20. ... This is what it’s come to: Silence is a novelty, and a product.”


Returning as I was from co-leading an 8 day silent retreat (see http://www.naramatacentre.net/programs-fallwinterspring.asp?wp_id=698), I was struck by both the accuracy and the irony of her observations. I guess it’s no surprise that a culture that can stick an ad on a banana can also commercialize a psychic space that is universally present but rendered scarce and precious by a world of unrelenting sound and fury.

Onstad goes on to point out that “the English word ‘noise’ comes from the Latin ‘nausea’, as in disgust” or, more accurately, sea-sickness (from the Greek root naus meaning “ship”). Indeed, noise is a sickness that penetrates into the soul. My experience has been that the cacophony of the external world is often matched by the riotousness of my inner self. By stepping across a sonic threshold into silence we may leave external noise behind only to be met by the deafening roar of our own inner voice, “chattering like a tree full of monkeys, swinging from branch to branch” as it was once described to me. Silence does not immediately quell this noise within; au contraire, the contrast makes our inner turmoil all the more apparent.

Thus is set the challenge: to invite Silence to penetrate and permeate our Being, to allow our selves to be absorbed into quiet, to abandon our personality and be moved into something much deeper than our own noisy world. It happened for me in the chapel at Naramata Centre during Vigils, shortly after 3:00 AM, on the 7th day of retreat. We were observing the old monastic Hours (as interpreted by Macrina Wiederkehr in her book Seven Sacred Pauses [Notre Dame, Ind: Sorin Books, 2008]) when, deep in contemplation, I gently became aware of a thin fissure of indigo in the floor of my consciousness, an abyss of silence which beckoned me down (or did it reach up to envelop me?), unprotesting, into a truly primordial stillness. The memory of that moment (that minute? that hour?) carries me even now and is indelibly stamped, in dark ink, upon the reaches of my soul.

Though quietness has been driven almost to extinction in the hurly burly of the post-modern world, Silence, like Grace, remains abundant and free. Though hidden and even commodified in a busy age, we have only to avail ourselves of the opportunity to engage it and Silence will come to us, full and deep, to dwell as a Presence within and among us.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Turning Point

The spiritual care network team agreed that we might post some of our posts from our original practice challenge. This posted at the beginning of the first challenge and it was a turning point for me which reminded me of what it means to take time with God.


"I am finally getting to the post I wanted to give yesterday. And that is a piece of the story. I know I won't shock most of you when I explain my day started with prep for an important meeting at 6am and ended with book study at 9pm. All day I was thinking oh no I have to do a spiritual practice. Oh no I have to blog...oh no I am going to fail at this already. And then I remembered the sermon I preached just a couple days before.


I spoke on reverence and gratitude (it was thanksgiving after all). I found a beautiful reflection by Joyce Rupp which included a quote from Merton and so I preached "We experience deep gratitude as we take notice of that which is beyond us. With Merton on this thanksgiving day “I am going to put aside my ‘when it happens’ and my ‘if only this could be’ and my ‘when things get better’ and my ‘as soon as I have this.’ I am going to harvest what I now have, gather all the many gifts that are already mine. I am going to observe what has been placed in the granary of my heart and marvel at the abundance. I will stand before this heap of blessings and take a long, grateful look. I will say farewell to my ‘when’ and be thankful for what is."


And so I discovered in the clutter of my day that I perhaps might refocus some of the activities I already had in my schedule. As I rushed into my Yoga class I discovered this was exactly the spiritual practice I needed for the day. Just like when people come to me after a sermon and say "Where you speaking to me today?" I sometimes think the same thing of my Yoga instructor. She began class with meditation (she never begins class with meditation). She asked us first to ground ourselves. Be aware of our breath and then let go of the clutter, the rush, the things we can't accomplish.... Within two minutes I felt my squeezing in of Yoga was somehow Devine intervention. I found myself in a place of releasing the dissatisfaction, and embracing the abundance I already have.

I know that this isn't what I had desired to do. I wanted to pick up something new - be a superstar spiritual practicer instead I found myself in gratitude for what I already have. Namaste." Karen

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Advent Creed

This has been my reflection for this morning. (Thank you Deb for sharing it with me). We used it in our service this morning and numerous people came to me with reflections on it's words. The line that has moved me today is "ruler alike of darkness and light.' Our presbytery was kindly reminded by Sandra recently to be aware and sensitive using the images of darkness and light. I have come to appreciate 'emmanuel' God with 'me' in the dark or shadow, or deep and difficult times of life. Happy New Year everyone. May you be awakened this season to the light of Christ.


Darkness and Light: A Creed for Advent


We believe in God, robed in splendour,

veiled in mystery,

ruler alike of darkness and light.

We encounter God in Jesus Christ,

who was tested and put to death,

but whose radiance could not be quenched;

whose touch brings a blaze of colour

to a dull, drab world:

reviving the weary, healing the wounded,

unsettling the satisfied.


We walk with God,

guided by the light of God’s loving spirit;

the light which enters the shadowed places

of our hearts and leads us into truth and life.


We wait for God,

and for the fulfillment of God’s promises;

for the time when the darkness will hold no fear

and the light will show the way,

and creation will be made whole once more

and God’s peace will reign forever.

Amen

Cally Booker, Candles and Conifers (adapted)


Saturday, November 27, 2010

Feelings, Resistance, and Drawing the Circle Wide

I'm grateful for the posts thus far. Gayle reminds me of my own truth--that I cannot, under any circumstances, do certain things BEFORE my prayer time if I actually want to get there! Since my meditation time usually occurs after I make tea and feed the dog, and since I have to wander past my computer on my way to my little corner, it is one of my biggest spiritual learnings NOT to reach out and turn the darn thing on. Or get involved in cleaning the kitchen, or doing food prep for a retreat. This is especially true on the days when the load is really heavy--when I wake up anxious. I do adjust the amount of time I spend in prayer depending on the needs of the day; I really can't get up at 5 am--or more truthfully, I'm not willing to--when my life starts early. But I try to at least put my butt on the prayer bench if only to say hello to the Christ of my life.

Long ago I had a wise friend who told me that just because I felt terrible, it didn't mean I was doing the wrong thing. It might well mean that I was doing the right thing, and just living through my resistance. I have found this to be very true for my prayer life. I don't usually find that lovely space of peace until I exercise the discipline of sitting through the resistance. It helps not to label myself as a failure, since that makes me feel awful and simultaneously lets me off the hook. It also helps to just hoist myself up and try again--sans judgment--after a couple of days when I let things slip.

Howard Thurman, the black theologian and mystic, writes about drawing all of life into our prayer practice. For me, that means that when I find myself feeling like I am "failing," I put that feeling too inside the circle and see it as part of God's life in me, my life in Christ. Something to work with as opposed to something to shove away from me.

Friday, November 26, 2010

How Then Shall We Pray? - Luke 11:1-13

When we began this spiritual practice challenge as the Spiritual Care Network planning team I immediately thought of a sermon I had preached in July on my struggle with prayer. I am going to offer more of the struggle part of my sermon because I know I am not alone.


I envy people who pray well. Or who have the kind of faith that always believes in prayer. Now that might be shocking for you to hear come out of your ministers mouth but it is one of my deep dark secrets...

I have tried to become a certain kind of prayer more than once. I have attempted to be holy like Luther and others and get up early in the morning just to pray. But in all honesty I’m not a morning person so unless I don’t have to be to work or something else early I really don’t want to get busy before I have to - so the prayer times quickly slip into something I’m not sure many would count as holy.

I have attempted to come into my office every morning and begin in silent prayer but quickly I can get interrupted or distracted or realize I forgot to start there (and then I start praying just because I feel guilty and well - then I think that’s what it is supposed to be about and...)

I have read the books, I have tried the formats. I have heard what proper prayer looks like and how to get results. I have journaled, I have done prayer walks, I have done silent retreats....and the list goes on.

There is a lot of shame in this for me because my mother and my brother are prayers. They both get up every morning and take time in prayer and reading like every good Christian should. In fact my mom used to say every time I had a struggle “Just pray about it” until one day I snapped (Like only a daughter does to her mother). “Mom if it were that easy I wouldn’t have called you to talk about it.”

And yes this happened after I received the title of Reverend...

Now that I have gotten that off my chest all you ‘prayers’ out there can say a prayer for me. Because the greatest struggle I find with prayer being an achiever like I am is that if I don’t get the result I want I am convinced I have done it all wrong. The struggle with prayer formulas is that if the prayer doesn’t work then there appears to be only two options: there is something wrong with me and/or my praying, or there is something wrong with God... If you are someone who has written off faith and religion you most likely have decided there is something wrong with God. If you are a faithful church goer or person of faith then when your prayer doesn’t work you are more likely to blame yourself.

I know that people say God gives us three answers to our prayers which are “yes” “no” or “maybe” but even that confuses me because scripture clearly says “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” So why is it then when I ask even for good things - healing for a friend, comfort for a person who is depressed, or something for myself - why would God ever say no to those things?

I have come to discover of myself that when I start thinking that way I have forgotten the purpose of prayer. And to be honest I think this struggle I have with prayer just might be God given - because I find myself praying all the more as I seek to understand prayer more and to be connected with God more. I find myself eager to try new spiritual practices all the time. Maybe that is what this parable is about - constant seeking to be in tune with The Holy...

I fully believe in prayer and it may sound confusing but praying without ceasing has freed me up to know that I actually can pray. It has freed me up to wake up in the mornings as pray in between the snooze alarm, or in the shower, or on my walk, or as I journal - but not just with a certain formula or just for me - for everything and moment I encounter. It means for me that when I feel led to pray when I get into the office in the morning I just do even though I have not done it every day routinely...

Douglas John hall wrote “The object of prayer Christianly understood, is not so much to lose oneself in the contemplation of the Divine as to find oneself. to become - so far as possible, who one is. Dependent, guilty, lost and vulnerable... Because the one to whom we pray is not ordinary...but glorious in loving, we are able sometimes through our most honest acts of prayer to find that our very weakness is the occasion for encounter with the Source of new strength.”

So weather you feel like you know how to pray or not. You are invited to pray or join us in a spiritual practice over the next weeks. Weather you think you pray or not I believe you do - in moments of beauty, awe and despair, in moments of loneliness, and joy acknowledge the spirit with you and you will know that you too are praying.

Amen.

Karen

Thursday, November 25, 2010

From Gaye Sharpe: "I had stopped paying attention..."

This past April my husband and I took a three week trip to Israel. One of the goals of the vacation was to discern the future with my current congregation. In other words I was contemplating resignation.
It had been a difficult year in ministry and I knew that I had to take some steps not to repeat it. I also wanted to own the part I played in the challenges the congregation and I faced and the conflicts in which we were embroiled. I required some distance from the pain and time to patch up the wounds.
I spent a day on the hill where it is surmised that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Perusing the library in the retreat centre I found a book on prayer which I read cover to cover in a few hours. The author now escapes me but listening emerged as the fundamental message.
In one of those epiphany moments, I realized that not only had I stopped listening or paying attention to the urgings of the Spirit, I had stopped paying attention to my own gifts and strengths in ministry. Since that day I have established a spiritual practice that has not only transformed my daily approach to my work, it has transformed my relationships with God’s people in my community.
My practices has become this:
·       I have set aside the first half hour of every work day where I book no meetings and I am not to be disturbed. If anyone asks for this time, I tell them this is my sacred time and I am not available. (Hopefully this is good modeling.)
·       I do not turn the computer on (very important I have discovered.)
·       I sit for 5 minutes looking out my window, noticing the day, and listening for where and how I am. I pay close attention to this. It’s amazing our lack of self-awareness sometimes.
·       For about ten minutes I read something – scripture, John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us, Thomas Keating’s Invitation to Love, etc. I seem to know what I need.
·       Then I write. My writings are conversations with God about how the readings speak to my life, gratitude for this day or a plea for help (this usually relates to my getting in touch with me time). The bulk of the conversation is about setting my intention for this day in which I serve God. Often the conversation will travel through my daily agenda and I ask for the gifts I will need to be faithful, to love these people, to be open to their joys or pain, to listen with care and compassion, to act justly, to be gentle with myself.
The concept of spiritual practice is not new to any of you. I share this story because of the difference it has made. I now look forward to coming to work, I laugh (a lot) and have grown to love these people. Worship has depth and authenticity and I function out of my God-given strengths. Truly the glory is God’s.
Submitted by Gaye Sharpe, presently serving at Oak Bay United Church in Victoria