day 2 - praying for transformation.

Too often, my prayers are selfish. I pray to feel closer to God. I pray for personal transformation. About a month ago, I memorized this well-known prayer of St. Francis. Now, I try to pray it at least once a day. As I pray these well-worn words, whispered by the lips of so many others, I try to think of the real places of hatred, darkness and doubt, and ways that I, today, can be an instrument of God's love, light, and hope. These words call me to be something better than I am. Instead, of a prayer for personal transformation, it is a prayer that prays for the courage to transform the world. Each time I speak or write or think these words, no matter how I've fallen short, I am humbled and inspired.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love,

Where there is injury, pardon,

Where there is doubt, faith,

Where there is despair, hope,

Where there is darkness, light,

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled, as to console,

to be understood, as to understand,

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and in dying that we are born to eternal life.

day 1 - beginning the journey.

This year for the season of lent my goal is to reflect on my blog, and to pray with at least one person each day. On Wednesday, this first day of Lent, I had the opportunity to pray one-on-one with my Senior Pastor and later in the day I prayed with one of the amazing young adults at my church (Rachel Lambros). Both of these prayer times reminded me of the intimacy and power of sitting with another person and lifting up a few small words to God. For me it is one of the deepest forms of communion.

As I begin Lent, I feel excited for an opportunity to intentionally make space in my life for God to speak and move. I'm hoping that by carving out time and space for prayer and reflection, I will be more aware of the Divine call that is whispering beauty and hope all around us.

A few days ago, one of my professors shared a story about her daughter that I think describes the power and purpose of lent perfectly. My professor comes from a UCC background and didn't raise her daughter in a very liturgically oriented church, so as a young girl of 8 or 9, her daughter didn't have any familiarity with lent. Around that time she visited a different church with a friend where she learned for the first time about Lent. She was enthralled with this new idea. Ash Wednesday that year fell just a few days before the little girl's birthday. Early on that Wednesday morning, she jumped on her parents bed, giggling and shouting, "It's here! It's finally here!" Her mom, with eyes barely open, sleepily said, "No, honey, your birthday is still 2 days away. It's not here yet." But the little girl smiled radiantly, and answered, "No, Mom, not my birthday. Today is Ash Wednesday! Starting today we have 40 days to do good things for God."

So, starting today, we have 40 days to do good things for God. What could be more exciting than that?

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.