Thursday, March 31, 2011

"Pinch a bit of skin"


When we are kids, most of us are told that we shouldn’t point at others. It’s not polite. We may even have learned that whenever we point our finger at someone, there are three pointing right back at us.

Quite often what we don’t like in someone else is something we actually don’t like in ourselves; it’s just that we seldom realize it. Only today I listened as one person described another as not being able to see from any perspective but their own. As I heard this, I thought that the description actually fit the speaker quite well too. Then, as I smiled in a bit of smug superiority, I thought it can describe me at times.  Oooh. Caught.

I have a physiological analogy for this in my life. Several years ago, I kept smelling something that seemed a bit off. I thought it was the smell of stale smoke wherever I went, but then I discovered what it really was. It was a symptom of dehydration. I was dehydrated. So now, when I start to wrinkle my nose in distaste at a smell, I actually pinch of bit of my skin together to see if I getting dehydrated again.

In other aspects of life, I also need to “pinch a bit of my skin.” Before I jump to judgment on someone else, I need to examine myself and find where I err or fall short.


Matthew 7:3-4
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Heartbeat of God


During the days immediately after 9/11/01, one song kept resonating through my mind. It was a TaizĂ© song that repeats: “The Lord is my light, my light and salvation. In God I trust. In God I trust.” Singing that over and over calmed my spirit in those days of such fear.

When I am suffused with joy, the words and tune of “Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God’s holy name. Bless the Lord, my soul, who leads me into life” (Jacques Berthier), well up within me.

When I was in college, the young man I dated for several years seemed uncomfortable when I would break into a snatch of song. He would say, “Life is not a musical.” That’s when I realized that my life is indeed a musical. Music expresses what I feel, what I think; music teaches me; music calms me; music excites me. I learn best when words go to music.

Later when I read The Magician’s Nephew, originally the 5th book in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, I found an important image. Aslan the great Lion, Son of the Emperor over the sea, sings all of Narnia into creation. In music, I find my deepest connection with my Lord. It is as though in music I am connected with the heartbeat of the One who set all of Creation into motion, who infuses it with saving grace, who calls to it from the telos, the “end” or goal, as it were.

And so, I invite you to sing a hymn of promise of that telos with me:
In our end is our beginning, in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see. (Natalie Sleeth)


Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.


Thursday, March 17, 2011

Centering Prayer


This past Sunday evening we had the first of our Lenten Centering Prayer Series. Someone said it was like doing yoga. I was reminded of my first real experiences with centering prayer in the summer of 1980. Jeff and I were freshly graduated from seminary serving our first congregations. Our new friend Jim introduced us to a monthly ecumenical study group that met at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville.

We would begin at 2 p.m. with the monks’ regular afternoon prayer in the Chapel, and then move into the chapter room or library. Father Edward and Father Andrew would welcome us, and invite us into twenty minutes of centering prayer. Wow! Was that hard at first!  Think of it: twenty minutes of intentional silence, not speaking, not even silently; twenty minutes of silence shortly after lunch, in the summer, in a non-air-conditioned room with the windows open.

We each had our own word, usually a name for God, to help keep us centered on God. When we found our thoughts wandering, that word repeatedly silently, with our breathing would bring us back to the center of listening to God. After our time of centering prayer, we would then vigorously discuss the book we were reading for that year.

The monks of Holy Cross Abbey gave me a real gift by teaching me that prayer comes in many shapes—some very structured like the prayers of their ordered services; some free flowing as in spontaneous prayer; some silent and nourishing. All of it is a way of speaking with and, more importantly, listening to God. The more time I spend with my Maker, the more I will look and sound like my Maker.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Smudged Crosses


On Wednesday, as I traversed the halls of the massive Johns Hopkins hospital I kept seeing people with black crosses smudged on their foreheads. I wondered what others in the crowd thought as they saw them.

I thought about many things: first--that we are made from the dust and to dust we shall return. We are mortal. None of us will get out of this life alive. No matter how much we love it, no matter how much we cling, we will die. That might sound like a morbid thought, but I don’t think so. The reality is that we are mortal. Knowing that our life here on earth is not limitless makes it that much more precious.

Second—I thought about how thankful I am for the congregation with whom I serve in ministry—for all the times we have worshiped our Lord together. I am so thankful that this is a community of faith that is so faithful and loving. I am so thankful for Becky and others to willingly take up the mantle when I am not able to be present. I thought about the Young @ Heart folks with their smudged crosses at noon.

Third—as I was exiting the elevator in the lobby of the Weinberg Center, I saw the nurse practitioner from Jeff’s surgeon’s practice. We had seen her earlier in the day, but now on her forehead, she bore that black cross-shaped smudge, and I was glad for that quiet witness.

Fourth—as I sat in the congregation Wednesday night and heard the scriptures of Ash Wednesday read, I thought about how difficult it can be for us to go out into the world bearing our smudged crosses, proclaiming not only our mortality, and our repentance, but also our allegiance to the One who made us and redeems us.

I give thanks for you and for your prayers. Jeff is recovering from surgery. They were not able to remove the cancer, though they removed part of the colon, leaving him with an ileostomy. Chemo will follow. Jeff is in fairly good spirits. He is thankful for the gift of life, but even more for the gift of God’s redeeming love in Christ.

Joel 2:12-13
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Sighs Too Deep for Words


Last year, in a seminar I attended, I shared about Jeff’s then upcoming liver surgery, and said I didn’t know how to pray about it. One woman heard that as if I said I didn’t know how to pray, or that I was so emotional I couldn’t pray. She proceeded to instruct me in how to pray and how to let others pray for me. I appreciated the thought but what I meant was that in my limited perspective I truly did not know what to pray for. I cannot see all possibilities. I do not know truly what is best so that is when I especially rely on the Spirit. When my words fail, I simply pray for the best that is possible in God’s view and then let the Spirit intercede for me.

I am in that place once again. Jeff will have surgery once again, this time on his colon. My spirit is heavy; it is weak. I give thanks for the prayers of others. And I rely on the Spirit to intercede for him, for me. God sees all possibilities. God knows what is the best possibility, so all I can do is simply place it all before, within our Lord, the One who made heaven and earth--all creation, the One who shaped us out of the dust of the earth and breathed life into us, the One whose love for us is so boundless that this One came among us to live our life, share our grief, die for us and rise to new life for us. With sighs too deep for words I stand before this God who is Three-in-One and in my weakness, I find living breath.




Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.