Everyday Blessing

God bless you and keep you,

Always in Light.

God guard you and guide you,

Whatever your fight.

God with you and love you,

In depth or in height.

God for you,

 Restore you,

By day and by night.

Everyday Adventure

It’s a beautiful sunny morning and I’m pondering the notion that every day can end up being a bit of an adventure.  It all depends upon the way I choose to look at the things that happen in the day.

On Saturday morning I woke up in the mood to bake oatmeal cookies. This was rather unusual as I have not baked cookies in 3 or 4 months. I was working that afternoon (at the caverns) so I went ahead and made the cookies then took some to work to share, as well as a few just for me. While at work that day I was in charge of cleaning the “museum”, which is the building directly over the entrance to the cavern where the tours end. A woman came up, obviously in some distress, and asked if I had any food. She explained that her blood sugar had dropped and she was not feeling well at all. We don’t carry snacks in the gift shop, but I did have the cookies I had just baked, so I gave her one. She soon was feeling better, and was quite grateful. When I told her the story of how I woke up with the unusual urge to bake cookies, we both realized that Someone was aware of her need. It pleased me that I had listened to the “urge to bake” and thus had been able to give the woman what she needed. That’s an adventure!

I wonder what today will bring?

Embrace the Mystery

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.
-Harry Emerson Fosdick

I think that often we, I’m speaking as humans in general, feel the need to figure things out. We want to have an explanation of why things are the way they are, and how things happened, and what will happen next and who made these things happen, and what we can do about it. If it is beyond our mental capacity to figure something out we take some “expert’s” word for it and may never give it another thought. We feel in control if we have the answers.

It’s been a risky business, but in the last couple of years I’ve dared to question the “right” answers I’ve held on to in matters of faith and discovered that I don’t know half of what I thought I knew.  I’ve had to admit that even the things of which I feel quite sure, may not in reality be quite the way I think they are. Further, I’ve concluded that for many questions there really are no definitive answers, and that it really does not matter.  I trust that God loves not only me, but all of creation, enough to lead us through life and get us where we need to be by the time we’re done.

Living a life of faith in God means trusting enough to give up control and embrace the Mystery. I find that the universe if full of possibilities now that I no longer feel the need to have all the answers.  I am not saying that there are no absolutes in faith; of course there must be. I am finding though, that there are far fewer absolutes that I once thought and that my faith becomes stronger the more I realize this. There is such freedom in embracing the mystery! Alleluia!

Prayer on Psalm 23

O Lord, you are my shepherd and my Divine King. Because YOU ARE, I will not suffer in want. Help me to trust you to meet my needs.

You, O Lord, provide for me time and space for rest.  Let me willingly and eagerly go to lie in your green pastures! Let me rest by the peaceful still waters and allow you to restore my soul.  In your presence I am made whole.

O Lord, lead me in right paths and for your name’s sake grant me grace to go only where you lead, ever forsaking my own ways.

Sometimes I walk through deep and dark valleys, yet you are with me and evil cannot touch me.  You protect me, even with your Holy rod and staff to correct and guide.  Lord, forever keep me from harm.

You feed me, My Lord, at your table until I am more than satisfied … even in the presence of those who wish me evil. You honor me, anointing my head with oil, filling me with your Spirit. I am in awe.

May your goodness and mercy follow me all of my days. Lord, let me dwell in your Kingdom, now and forever.

AMEN

Epiphany: the Light Has Come

The baby was born, the three Wise Men have arrived, and the world is filled with Light. 

Today, Jan. 6, is Epiphany, the day in the church year when we remember those three gift bearers who followed the star to find the Christ child. They followed a light to find the Light of the World! Something I read recently pointed out that the Wise Men were astrologers who looked to the heavens for signs and guidance. They were not worshipers of the One True God. Yet God, whose Wisdom is far greater than that of any wise man, chose these “pagans” to be some of the first people who worshiped the King of Kings. God even spoke to them in a dream, telling them not to return to tell King Herod where to find the baby whose star they followed. (See Matthew 2:1-12)  How can God speak to a pagan, and why would God want to anyway? What does the fact that God did choose to do this say to us today? How should this fact affect how we look at people who don’t worship or believe as we Christians do?

The Light has come and in Him there is no darkness. As followers of the Christ, we are called to be light bearers, carrying His light into the world. The wise men probably did not understand that it was the King of Kings, God’s own son, that they travelled to visit. They did not name Him as the Son of God, yet they worshiped Him, and perhaps they too became filled with Light, and took that Light with them back to the land from which they came. How could one be in the presence of God and not be changed?

The Light has come and in Him there is no darkness. As followers of the Christ, we are called to live Light filled lives. Do we even know what that means? Do we really want to know? The Wise Men travelled for a long time, through the desert, up hills and down, with no map and no previous experience in the place to which they travelled. All they had was a light to follow, and in the end they found Him whom they sought. How far are we willing to go into uncharted territory seeking God, and how long are we willing to take? We have a Light to follow, but do we allow the Light to lead us?

The baby was born, the three wise men have arrived, and now let us pray that we will have the wisdom and determination to follow the Light and to allow the Light to fill us and transform us.

New Year: New Beginnings

Can it be that from our endings, new beginnings you create?

Life from death, and from our rendings, realms of wholeness generate?

Take our fears, then, Lord, and turn them into hopes for life anew:

Fading light and dying season sing their Glorias to you.

Words by Dean W. Nelson, 1988, in Wonder, Love, and Praise

My Prayer

Lord, as this year ends I thank you for all the days and the ways that you touched my life. As the new year begins I look with anticipation to the days ahead, believing that you will continue to bring light and wholeness to all the areas of my life. I look around at the events of this earth and it would be easy to enter this new year in fear for the future, yet I choose instead to enter it in faith, praying that you will bring about the fulfillment of your plans for this planet. I pray that you will bring into reality the things you have spoken to my own heart, and that I will accept the challenges and allow you to form me into the person I really am. Jesus, dear Jesus, you came and you changed everything. It is in you that I hope. It is for you that I sing: Gloria!           Amen

Pilgrim Heroes and Other Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year at school. I have some really good books about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims that are illustrated with photos taken at Plimoth Plantation. (I really want to go there!!) The interpretive guides at Plimoth do not at all look like the image of a Pilgrim that has been promoted for at least the past 50 years; black hats with buckles, black and white clothing, buckled shoes. I think it’s safe to assume that the historians at Plimoth know what they’re doing, so I try to bust the myth of the Pilgrims manner of dress. I read that some Puritans dressed the way we envision the Pilgrims, but the people at Plimoth did not. Even so, when we made paper pilgrim hats today one of the boys insisted upon drawing a buckle on his hat.

A couple of weeks ago we read about the Mayflower voyage, then colored a drawing of the famous ship pasted to a background of sea and sky of the kids own creation. I remember a girls several years ago who had drawn a stormy sky with lightening and something else I could not identify hovering close to the ship. When asked, the girl explained that the “something else” was an angel and it was there because people were dying. Ah yes, I’m certain you are right dear girl; surely there were angels on the Mayflower! (Click for photos and information on the Mayflower II voyage in 1957.)

Today we can only imagine, and probably not well at that, the tremendous hardship the Pilgrims suffered on their voyage and during that first winter in the New World. Not all those on the Mayflower travelled for religious reasons; there were some who made the voyage for more or less economic reasons. Whatever the reason a folks found themselves on that ship though, I think they must have had a good amount of faith to have survived. By the end of the first winter about half of the men, women, and children who had made the voyage had died of sickness, starvation, and cold. As I tell my students, “try to imagine 100 people in a space not much bigger than our classroom; no electricity, no toilets, and most everyone is sick to their stomachs or throwing up! What would it smell like?” Sorry, but that alone would do me in. I am obviously not of Pilgrim stock.

I admire and have the greatest respect for those brave souls who sailed on the Mayflower. I think of those mothers who brought their children into the dangerous unknown, and of those mothers who left their children behind hoping to send for them later. As we celebrate now in 2007 at our overstuffed tables in our overly comfortable homes, let us remember the heroes of that first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Darkness Lurking

Sunday….my favorite day of the week. Church this morning was chilly as the furnace is not working properly, but it surely warmed my soul to worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ at St. Peter’s.  Sometimes I think I could go to church every day and not tire of it. 

Later I went to the library to drink coffee and read, and it was there that I realized that the darkness was lurking about. I got none of the things I needed to do today done. I huddled in my bed and read and tried not to think.

I’ve dealt with depression for as long as I can remember and I believe the darkness would have destroyed my life entirely were it not for God’s grace and mercy. True depression is a place of darkness so dark that no light can penetrate the black shroud around you.  It can’t be chased away by an act of will, or doing the “right” things, or even, perhaps more often than not, by prayer alone.  It still hurts to think about what I was like during the worst times, and it’s been close to 15 years since then.  When I sense a dark fog on the perimiters of my consciousness, it takes all the faith I’ve got to convince myself that I will not visit that hellish place again.

So why, I ask the Only One Who Knows, is the darkness lurking? It could be the upcoming holidays, for various reasons. It could be hormones. It could be that for some reason right now I need to remember the Darkness so that I can appreciate the Light. I don’t have an answer to my question as yet. I don’t want to think about it, but it’s probably important that I do. I must be on the offensive when dealing with Darkness; if I wait to defend myself it will be too late. So I will think and pray, and pray and think, and ponder just what is going on and what I am to do about it, and hope it’s nothing more than a cloud passing in front of the sun.

Longing for Jesus

I just want to sit at your feet, lean my head on your knee, and be.

Jesus, sometimes lately I wonder if I know you at all. You are so much more than I know, so much more than I have experienced, so much more than I have the capacity to understand. Advent is near; that time of year when we await your coming. That time of year when we remember the God babe that came to earth. I shall pray that you come again to my heart, and break through the crust that seems to have formed about it. You came, you’ll come again, but right now I just need you to come to me. Or maybe what I need is that I’ll be able to feel that you are here.

Jesus, I do not deserve such, but let me sit at your feet, lean my head on your knee, and be. AMEN

It Takes FAITH to Live

I have an unexpected day off tomorrow because a student in the school where I teach was diagnosed with MRSA virus (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus). This is the infection that has been making the news lately because it’s resistant to most antibiotics.  The school must be thoroughly cleaned before classes resume on Friday.

Due to HIPPA laws we were not told who the student is or what class he or she is in. That bothers me. I’m fairly certain it’s no one in my room as no students have been absent the past few days. Even still, it bothers me that if it was someone in my room, I would not have the knowledge to know whose desk interior and materials should be cleaned. (As far as I know only the hard outer surfaces around the building will be cleaned.) I understand a right to privacy, but in cases like this it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

Earlier in the week a mumps epidemic was declared in the school. Epidemic of one person. Apparantly epidemic status is given to even one outbreak of a disease that the majority of the population has been immunized against. I had the disease as a child so personally I’ve nothing to worry about, but WHY and HOW did an immunized child contract this disease?What is going on? I have a lot of questions and those “in the know” don’t really have a lot of answers.

The fact is, this kind of thing happens every day, and worse. I have of course been aware of that on one level. But now the dangers “out there” are right here, and that’s unsettling. Bad things, bizzare things even,  can and do happen. Everywhere.

The situation leaves us with choices. We can worry. We can become paranoid of every cough or scrape or bump. We can try at all costs to protect ourselves. We can have faith and trust God to take care of us. There is a balance. We should, I believe, use the wisdom and common sense God has gifted us with to take care of ourselves, but not to the point of paranoia. Fear is useless and obviously not what God wants of us. Why else would the words “do not fear” and “be not afraid” appear so many times in scripture? So the balance is to do what we are able to keep ourselves safe and healthy, and trust God to take care of the rest.