through your eyes.

"You are here so that God can experience the world through your eyes. See what you see. Feel what you feel. Everyday He can't wait to see what you'll do. What makes you laugh. What moves you. He can't wait. Everyday through you, He falls in love with the world all over again."

-John Hindman

words.

I love this idea from Vintage Indie to cover a file cabinet with the pages of an old dictionary. I'm currently looking around my apartment and wondering what I should cover in words. This could be dangerous.

"It's the words that sing, they soar and descend . . . I bow to them . . . I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down . . . I love words so much . . . The unexpected ones . . . The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop . . . Vowels I love . . . They glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew . . . I run after certain words . . . They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem . . . I catch them in midflight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives . . . And I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, I let them go . . . I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves . . . Everything exists in the word." -Pablo Neruda

the face of God.

I had the opportunity to attend a half-day spiritual retreat this morning led by the amazing Joellynn Monahan. She introduced me to Soul Cards (learn more about Soul Cards and the artist who produces them here). They are small cards with images on them and serve as wonderful tool for spiritual reflection. The process is simple: gaze into an image and take time to notice what is there and how it speaks to you. It was a powerful experience of reflection and connecting with God.

Below is my reflection on the image to the right.

The eyes of this face, look intently out and upwards, though I know not at what. The face is beyond description: without gender or race. It seems to be one with the stony surface. The colors are muddied grays and browns - like clay or rock. But there seems to be color beneath, just barely breaking through the gray. This is no dull stone you know. There is light in the rock, burning through with pure joy. The smile curls into a grin, smiling through the darkened fish. The smile suggests that this face has a secret -- or a multitude of them -- which the face dares you to guess, though will never tell.

The darkened, translucent fish, swims with another. Both of them float in the waveless rock sea together in the same direction. Above them floats another fish, swimming confidently the opposite way, alone. Just above that singular fish break waves of light, which cast a glowing crown upon that knowing face. The light steadily shines, though its source is indiscernible. Does it shine down from some unimaginable heaven above? Or is the mysterious being with the unrelenting gaze radiate the light from within? Or perhaps it is the fish's light -- an outward expression of inner beauty, an outpouring of soul. Around the face is shadow, suggesting depth and darkness. But the eyes gaze on, fearlessly, peering out from the deep.

What this image means, I cannot say for certain. Except to say that I know this face. It is kind and constant, and suggests something of Divinity. I want to stay with it here, floating in the mysterious shadowy waters of rock. I want to be the fish that floats in his light. I want to dance in that glowing crown. I want to fearlessly swim in a new direction. I've been so weary of swimming, so weighted with this heavy clay, I've nearly forgotten that these waters are full of light. It has at moments seemed so dark, so rocky, that I've hardly moved forward at all -- I flail and push and paddle in vain. The waves of granite feel to heavy to bear.

But all the while, the face of God has been with me. Those kind eyes, looking into me and through me, that mouth speaking words of life, into my weary body. "Look up," the divine whispers in silent words, grinning. "Look up and see the light. These waters are not stone. Swim freely here. The dark is mystery, not doom. Just turn around, don't be afraid to swim a different direction. Swim in the light of my freedom, never forgetting, I am as present with you in the darkest deep, as I am in the flecks of golden light."

Your glowing eyes, O God, see me. In them, you behold every fear and doubt. Every stubborn habit, every weary bone. In your gaze, you hold even the moments when I've given up swimming all together, floating limp and broken in the still water. You look and look, as if you cannot get enough of me. That look of love, ever patient, urges me forward. I look up and expect to see wounded disappointment in your eyes, but there is none. You smile with love. Looking fully. This look I know can only mean acceptance. You seem to know something I can't even begin to imagine. Some great possibility and hope that I can only guess at.

Your look seems to say, "I know you. I know what you can do. I know what worlds you will create, share and live in. Swim on, lovely girl. Let go of those stones you think you carry. Swim on, in the freedom of my love."

God's glowing face brings new life to these murky waters. We swim on, and the face of the Divine looks and looks, and never tires of looking us into being.

a new map.

I just wanted to share this amazing poem by Jan Richardson from her blog Painted Prayerbook. For me, reading it was a renewed invitation to experience the mystery and adventure that is the Life of God. It pulled me back into the miracle of the journey of faith that I too often take for granted.

Where the Map Begins

This is not
any map you know.
Forget longitude.
Forget latitude.
Do not think
of distances
or of plotting
the most direct route.
Astrolabe, sextant, compass:
these will not help you here.

This is the map
that begins with a star.
This is the chart
that starts with fire,
with blazing,
with an ancient light
that has outlasted
generations, empires,
cultures, wars.

Look starward once,
then look away.
Close your eyes
and see how the map
begins to blossom
behind your lids,
how it constellates,
its lines stretching out
from where you stand.

You cannot see it all,
cannot divine the way
it will turn and spiral,
cannot perceive how
the road you walk
will lead you finally inside,
through the labyrinth
of your own heart
and belly
and lungs.

But step out,
and you will know
what the wise who traveled
this path before you
knew:
the treasure in this map
is buried not at journey’s end
but at its beginning.

cathedral of dirt.

I've been reading the treasure that is Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church. This passage reminded me of the way ordinary things become places of sanctuary, and how God often speaks loudest in the miraculous unexpected corners of every day living. I read this and wanted just to be outside with the earth, and all the amazing things living in it. It inspired a long coffee break outside watching children play, a walk to the farmers market and a trip to the zoo.

Here are her amazing words:

"When, I think of my first cathedral, I am back in a field behind my parent's house bathed in a kind of golden light with every stalk of prairie grass lit from within. I can hear an entire community of crows, grasshoppers, and tree frogs who belong in this field with me. The smell of grass is so sweet that it perfumes me from within... There is more in this field than I will ever be able to discover...

Lying there is very good. My skin is happy on the black dirt, which speaks a language my bones understand. If I roll over and think only about places on my back that are touching the ground, then pretty soon I cannot tell whether I am pressing down on the earth or the earth is pressing up on me. The feeling is the same as when my father holds me up in the swimming pool... I am floating in this field, held up toward the sun by the black dirt under under my back. I am this earth's child, and I know it."

These words were an important reminder to me of how overly serious and intellectual we can make the business of spirituality. I hope I never forget how to be a child like this. I hope I never forget to see divinity in the dirt.

this is not okay.

A friend of mine found this website and pointed me to it as "fuel for the feminist fire." The content is disturbing for many reasons to me, not only as a woman called to ordained ministry, but just as a Christian who believes in God's love and grace.

The website not only suggests that the depth of female spirituality is child-rearing and husband-obeying, but portrays the Divine in ways that I feel suggest that God is both abusive and domineering.

Here is a quick excerpt to give you an idea about the general tone of this blog. It comes from an entry about women's concern for their physical appearance: "what we all deserve is not to feel beautiful but rather to be condemned to hell for sinfully seeking to attract the worship of our fellow creatures... God did not send Jesus to this earth to die so that women could get over their self-esteem problem and feel better about themselves. No, He sent his Son to die to rescue us from our sinful, futile quest for physical beauty and to reveal to us the satisfaction that comes from knowing God."

I find this particularly horrifying when I consider the young girls in my youth group that I work with every day. They struggle with the images of beauty that are constantly upheld by popular culture. What this blog fleetingly calls "their self-esteem problem," is a problem that is perpetuated in magazines, pop-culture and even Christian resources like this blog that tell women that their primary role is to obey and please men. In my opinion, the amazing young women I know DO deserve to feel beautiful. They also deserve to know that their beauty is within them (in their soul, their mind, their passions) as well as in their bodies (whatever shape and size those bodies may be). To simply say, God thinks your insecurities are sinful is damaging to their image of themselves (the created) and their image of God (the Creator).

In short, THIS IS NOT OKAY!

I would love to hear your reactions to this blog.... I could literally rant about it for hours.

we used to wait.

If you haven't yet seen "The Wilderness Downtown" interactive music/film experience, go to this link: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

I think this is a really amazing project, and I hope you enjoyed experiencing it as much as I did... For me it was a beautiful way of experiencing the sense of anticipation that comes with youth. It reminded me so vividly of all the things I was waiting for, running toward and running away from as a teenager --as so many dreams were just coming into view.

Here are the lyrics, from the amazing and innovative Arcade Fire:

I used to write

I used to write letters, I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing light settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met, by the time we met
The times had already changed
So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart, I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was lost standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that sonething pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

It may seem strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
But what's stranger still
Is how something so small can keep you alive

We used to wait
We used to waste hours just walking around
We used to wait
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown

We used to wait

Sometimes it never came
Sometimes it never came
Still moving through the pain

I'm gonna write a letter to my true love
I'm gonna sign my name
Like a patient on a table
I wanna walk again, gonna move through the pain

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

We used to wait

Wait for it