Emmaus Road – another walk in progress

Gloria and I recently found the book, Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh. Of course, we had to buy a copy for our two 6 year old grandchildren. The other day when I was reading it to Sara we came across this poem. In the reading of it I somehow found another Emmaus Road… another walk in progress.

Explained           By A. A. Milne

Elizabeth Ann
Said to her Nan:
"Please will you tell me how God began?
Somebody must have made Him. So
Who could it be, 'cos I want to know?"
And Nurse said, "Well!"
And Ann said, "Well?
I know you know, and I wish you'd tell."
And Nurse took pins from her mouth, and said,
"Now then, darling, it's time for bed."
Elizabeth Ann
Had a wonderful plan:
She would run round the world till she found a man
Who knew exactly how God began.
She got up early, she dressed, and ran
Trying to find an Important Man.
She ran to London and knocked at the door
Of the Lord High Doodleum's coach-and-four.
"Please, sir (if there's anyone in),
However-and-ever did God begin?"
But out of the window, large and red,
Came the Lord High Coachman's face instead.
And the Lord High Coachman laughed and said:
"Well, what put that in your quaint little head?"
Elizabeth Ann went home again
And took from the ottoman Jennifer Jane.
"Jenniferjane," said Elizabeth Ann,
"Tell me at once how God began."
And Jane, who didn't much care for speaking,
Replied in her usual way by squeaking.
What did it mean? Well, to be quite candid,
I don't know, but Elizabeth Ann did.
Elizabeth Ann said softly, "Oh!
Thank you Jennifer. Now I know."

Posted by Sally Harris

Stephen Mitchell translates a poem by the ancient Japanese poet Issa this way:

The man pulling radishes

pointed the way

with a radish.

I’m off on a retreat with a group of clergy and reminded once more that we can’t give what we don’t have.  We can’t be healers if we’re not open to being healed ourselves.  If we’re pulling radishes, we can’t point the way with a watermelon. 

In the sermon yesterday, the preacher said, “ We must let Christ serve us so that we can serve.”  The point of using a regular meditation and prayer practice is not to make us silent, withdrawn, or even holy.  It’s not to be good, obedient, or correct.  It’s to be alive.  It’s to be healed.  It’s to let Christ serve us, heal us.  And healed, we can be fully alive; joyfully, fully present in this life, this body, this call, this relationship, this world. 

No need to believe me, however.  Here’s Athanasius, a real authority:  The glory of God is the human being fully alive.

Therese DesCamp

The Journey Prayer

God, bless to me this day,
God bless to me this night;
Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,
Each day and hour of my life;
   Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,
   Each day and hour of my life.

God, bless the pathway on which I go;
God, bless the earth that is beneath my sole;
Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,
O God of gods, bless my rest and my repose;
   Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,
   And bless, O God of gods, my repose.

Blessings JIM

Jim Short

Being a contemplative in active life

The needs of others and our spiritual life often compete for our time and energy.

If you are like me, the thought has come that the needs pressing in on my attention are more urgent than prayer or meditation. And the next thought is that I’ll pray later. And its several days later when I remember! Does this seem familiar?

Putting the nurture of my spiritual life first, every day, is one of my significant life challenges. And for you?

I identify with being a contemplative in active life. And when I forget this, a passage like this from Thomas Merton (adjusting for his male language of the 1960s), will encourage me in the moment to stay grounded in the still center of my being, even as I’m active in conversation.

“This age which by its very nature is a time of crisis, of revolution and of struggle, calls for the special searching and questioning which is the work of the Christian in his silence, his meditation, his prayer; for he who prays searches not only his own heart but he plunges deep into the heart of the world in order to listen more intently to the deepest and most neglected voices that proceed from its inner depths.”

I’ve noticed that my capacity to hold this awareness in each moment has come from intentional and consistent (daily) meditation. One day at a time. and the inner voice that used to nag me to be busy now says “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

And I discover that I am now ‘present’, in a new way, to the person or situation because I’ve already “plunged deep into the heart of the world”.

Contemplation in action.

Don’t just do something, sit there.

Women's Creed

I believe that I am created in the divine image, that my body and spirit are holy.
The God who dwells in all creation lives in the inmost depths of my being.

I believe that I am loved by God just as I am, without conditions or demands that I be more. I am enough.
This love sustains me when I am in dought and upholds me when I fail.

I believe that God desires my freedom and wholeness, the full expression of my talents. I need not live by the values of others, nor silence my self to please them. I can let my own voice ring out, my own song be sung. I can trust what I feel and know, living out of my own deepest truth.

I believe in the power of women to heal and love, to seek truth and justice. This faith is strenghtened when I remember the women throughout time who have used their power and gifts to change the world: Sarah, who answered God's call; Esther and Deborah, who saved a nation; Mary Magdalene and the other women, who announced the resurrection in the face of skepticism.

I believe that my gifts and strengths are for cherishing myself, others, and the world. The more I care for myself, the better I will be able to care for all living beings.

~Kathleen Fischer and Thomas Hart, A Counselor's Prayer Book. (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1994) 90-91.

How Then, Shall We Live

What will you be doing on May 21?  If Harold Camping is right, of course, you’ll either be swallowed up in a massive earthquake that ushers in the rapture or you’ll be flying up to heaven behind a resurrected body that has just escaped the grave. 

Camping has used mathematical predictions applied to the Bible to predict dates for the end of the world.  Apparently that date is May 21, which will either really sweeten your Victoria Day weekend or put a slight damper on your projects.  One way or another, it’ll interrupt your plans.  Or not.  As I suppose it’s within the realm of possibility that May 21 will pass like most any other, a day filled with to-do lists, rushing from one appointment to the next, wondering how you’re going to get it all done; on second glance I suppose it’s possible that May 21 could be like most days – filled with small acts of courage and kindness, expressions of heart-wrenching beauty, a day filled with grief and grace and traces of God. 

It might be possible that the day brings an end to things as we know it and we see the world with new eyes: see the Christ in each other, the holy in the ordinary that unleashes a rapture of being given this astonishing gift we call life.  “The kingdom of God is around/within you,” Jesus said, no doubt on a rapture-filled day.  And when we enter that kingdom here on God’s green earth, when we live with an open heart, work for justice as we live in peace, perhaps, just maybe, we are indeed given a new heaven and a new earth.

I don’t know if you’re swayed by Harold Camping’s mathematical predictions that arise from his particular reading of the Bible.  But I do believe the rapture is here, that we can be enchanted with this very ordinary miracle of a day, that we can be enraptured in the grit and grace of life.

What will you be doing on May 21? 

How then, shall we live?

Dan Chambers

Searching For Shalom

This morning I was trying to figure out what I had to say in the midst of a week that included a Royal Wedding, the assassination of Osama bin Laden, and a Canadian election that has left me baffled and for the time being speechless. And then I saw a book sitting on my desktop "Searching for Shalom" by Ann Weems and it helped me rediscover the longing of my heart. To be honest it is the title itself that brings me to pause and take a deep breath but the poem may help orient our lives.

Searching For Shalom

I keep searching for shalom,

drawing my water from one well after another

-but still I thirst

for the shower of blessing that is shalom.

I yearn for life to be just and merciful adn peaceful,

but the streets are filled with daily deaths

of spirit and of flesh....

but no shalom.

I keep searching for shalom,

away from crowds and commotion,

but peace and quiet don't blot the pain

of broken hearts and broken bodies.

I keep searching for shalom,

thinking perhaps I'll find it in a quiet field of flowers

or in star or sea or snow,

but still the innocent are trampled.

I keep searching for shalom,

standing in holy places,

sitting among saints.

Surely in the sanctuary I will find shalom.

I keep searching for shalom,

but holy places are not magic.

Good works and printed prayers

don't guarantee shalom.

Beyond cathedral walls and above ethereal music,

the blaring din of death persists.

Back in the streets, the people walk in darkness.

I keep searching for shalom.

I have pursued and sought it.

Have I looked in all the wrong places?

What is this bonding,

this glue among us, this cohesiveness

that holds us in the hope of shalom?

The longing won't die.

the hope keeps emerging like a new sprout

that perseveres on the stump of a felled tree.

Even in the daily barrage of obscenities

some new star melts into my eyes

and the promise persists.

Here in the darkness some new light

stirs within me.

Here in the streets I find shalom.

Shalom lives not in the sanctuary,

but in the streets....

in chaos

on a cross.

In the face of Jesus is the peace

that passes all understanding

the everlasting Sabbath...

Shalom!

-Ann Weems

THE IMPORTANCE OF DOUBT

The following is an excerpt from my sermon based on John 20:19-31...

Some years ago, David Boud of N.S.W. University researched the effect doubt as a phenomenon had on his own experience and that of others in a wide variety of life experiences, including religion and academic life.  He found that doubt has stages and is not a dead end. The process is something like the following:

*        It begins with disorientation - one's world view is challenged. A number of different factors can do this, including internal and external influences.  Sometimes this can take the form of a traumatic crisis, or exposure to new ideas which challenge one's accepted thinking.

*        Then comes despair, emerging from the disorientation, where one's foundations have been rocked and uncertainty reigns.

*        This hopefully leads to a period of exploration of new possibilities. The degree of openness and honesty influences the likelihood of the final stage taking place satisfactorily.

*        That final stage is re-orientation, where new thinking and belief is developed and integrated into a new framework.  In faith terms, this can take the form of emergence from an adolescent faith into an adult faith.  

Not everyone goes through the entire doubting process to its conclusion.  Some people get stuck in it and never emerge from the other end. 

It is like a cycle that the open, honest person experiences throughout their life. The conclusion of Boud's study is that doubt is not in itself counterproductive to faith. On the contrary, when embraced honestly, doubt can become a constructive process in developing a mature faith.

It might also be suggested that if we avoid doubt, and treat it as wrong, our faith may never grow. Worse, we may retreat into the fanaticism that fears doubt.

South African writer Laurens van der Post said; “Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.”

Blessings, Sharon Copeman

Perspective

In light of recent events and media coverage I would like to encourage us to join this modern day prophet in our response.

‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that" MLK, J