Inspiration Tonight my spouse recklessly left me in charge of weekly announcements at church. I meant to take the pink sparkly Santa hat to punch things up a bit. ย Lucky for everyone I overlooked it as I went out the…
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Advent VI : Blessed Is She
Blessed Is She “And blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” – Luke 1:45 (NRSV) Elizabeth said this to Mary, in the visit when both women were carrying…
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Advent IV : Rethinking the Posture of Waiting
Rethinking the Posture of Waiting (2011) Here we are on the third Sunday in Advent, a celebration of Joy. We are thinking and waiting in expectation. And although my daughter awoke sick long before dawn, she is on the mend,…
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Change “We can shape but can’t control these possibilities to grow.” -Seryn The one constant of the universe? Change. Well, it depends on which cosmology you are embracing today . . . My own is under construction (as usual). My…
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Advent II : Learning Stories of Advent
Learning Stories of Advent (2011) One of the many gifts of following the church year and circling through the life of Jesus and the life of the church every twelve months, is its orientation of newcomers into the practice of…
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“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.” (Anne Sexton) This is the work of Advent. If I can listen to my own soul* and give you even an inkling of what I hear, I have given a gift far greater than all the stuff or the fluff that fills most of the sound and fury of our waking hours. But giving this sort of authentic self revelation to those with whom we are already most familiar. . . now that is a challenge.
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About sixteen and a half years ago, my Grandma Campbell died. I was in the midst of a long and difficult search for my “first call.” I had been interviewed by nearly a dozen churches and religious agencies. Some went well. Others were dismal. None of them was working out. Altogether they had worn my soul thin.
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But finding a book in the mail stack or on the front porch is nothing unusual. The surprise in this book today was the author. And the topic. The real surprise is that I had overlooked this book for so long.
It has been 11 years since I first sat down in silence and began the practice of centering prayer. It has been 20 years since I first sat down in a classroom with Dr. Wayne Oates to learn the tasks and the art of pastoral care. It has been more than 30 years since he wrote Nurturing Silence in a Noisy Heart. I was still in middle school.
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Tomorrow is the Sunday of Advent in which we invite and celebrate joy and a good Sunday for a baptism. I will attend a baptism for a baby I know tomorrow. He and eight other little ones will be blessed and welcomed into the church. I assisted at the wedding of his parents a couple of years ago. It will be a joyful time for many reasons. Yet, it is not a joyful time for all children.
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It actually started almost a week ago. Sitting at my desk in St. Paul, I realized I had extra time. The snow was pouring. My flight had already been delayed by an hour. That’s an email, by the way, that you really don’t want to see when the snow is pouring. Even in Minnesota where they have the world’s best snow removal equipment and more plows and de-icers than Garrison Keilor has jokes. An extra half hour. I tell myself: Surely that’s enough to put together all the receipts for my credit card bill and turn it in before leaving campus! I start printing and gathering, sorting and checking. Then I see I’m missing one hotel receipt.
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St. John’s Abbey church is an amazing cavern with a multi-story wall of honeycomb shaped windows. Each pane is filled with abstract shapes and color. They grow more beautiful as morning light rises. However, this morning the beauty cannot outweigh the exclusivity and harm of the words and deeds of the tradition itself.
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Advent I : I am Wide Awake
Wide Awake
I am wide awake.
Standing at the top of a six-foot step ladder.
About to fall off.
Backwards.
On purpose.
Advent VIII
Unhinged and upended . . .
In my first Advent post I wrote about opening the little doors on an Advent calendar [link]. Today I’ve been thinking about a different set of doors.
It was 1993. (Don’t tell me, please, if you were in kindergarten that year.) I was just graduating from seminary. And I attended a worship service in Birmingham at the annual Baptist Women in Ministry (BWIM) meeting. Nancy Hastings Sehested was the preacher that day. The occasion was a ten-year anniversary of BWIM.
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Ten weather balloons.
One contact lens.
One very young, very pregnant girl.
Needles in a haystack, all.
Advent VI
Reshaping the body with prayer
As I lay face up on the table a few weeks ago, my massage therapist interrupted my reverie.
She said, โDo you know that your right leg is listing outward.โ
โNope, I had no idea really.โ She was standing at my feet and gently adjusted my wayward right leg. โNow that you mention it . . . I notice what you are saying.โ My left knee cap pointed straight toward the ceiling, but my right one was tilted outward.
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On Thursday of this week I found myself stunned by beauty twice in an hour. Let me tell you about the first of those two moments. The evening before Iโd been in something of a foul mood, feeling anger and disappointment, which can take their toll on a body. But the drive and conversation between St. Paul and Collegeville, Minnesota had tempered and mellowed me. I was open in mind and heart, relaxed in body, but I was unprepared for what lay ahead.
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I’ve fallen for a rock band. Shocking, I know. Well, when you hear this song, I think you’ll understand my attraction. The group, Switchfoot released their latest album in November. “Hello Hurricane” has some fabulous tracks, and I’ve been filling myself up with them this Advent season.
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It is late in the season of Ordinary Time. I am sitting in worship. Not in my usual home congregation but another setting. I find myself sinking deeper and deeper into despair.
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Falling . . .
The thing about falling is not the falling. That can be lovely in itself. Remember the “Nestea Plunge” into a pool on a hot summer day? Or falling into a really big pile of autumn leaves? Ever tried skydiving or hang gliding? Even running is actually falling and constantly catching yourself with each step. And of course there is falling in love . . .
No, the thing about falling is not the falling. It’s the hitting bottom. The landing. The thing about falling is the end of the fall.
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