Integrating Faith and Life

2012-01-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Today is Twelfth Night (or day) as tradition would have it. Being an English major in my undergraduate work, and Shakespeare being a major portion of study, The Twelfth Night was a familiar work, but Twelfth Night was never a part of my Christmas celebration or awareness as I grew up. The feasts celebrated in the Christian tradition were not celebrated in my tradition, other than Christmas and Easter, the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ. As my faith has matured and become foundational to my life, so has my desire to know and understand in more depth the history and traditions of my Christian faith.

These traditions are interesting to me as historical traditions, but they are alive with new meaning because of the underlying reality that they are conveying in and through the celebration. The Twelfth Night is observed as the feast of the epiphany, celebrated on January 6, or the evening of the 5th, depending on when you observe the beginning of the day. "Epiphany comes from the Greek word epiphaneia, which is translated both as "coming" and as "manifestation" or "appearing." While Christmas celebrates Christ's coming in the Incarnation event, Epiphany celebrates manifestation--the ways in which the Incarnation is revealed to us" (God with us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, 165).

God is very real and alive to me; Jesus comes and is with me. I know this because I experience this reality; I have conversation and communion with him. The Spirit of God is present and manifests God to me in palpable and tangible ways. I notice and attend to this spiritual reality very intentionally and have grown into recognizing God's presence all around, among and within--incarnation and manifestation. I celebrate today as a closure to the Christmas season, but also as beginning to a new year filled with awareness of manifestation--God 's revelation of God's manifest presence to each of us. I pray for God's manifest presence to be known and experienced in greater measure this year for each of us on earth.

I share Emilie Griffin's prayer today for the new year:

Dear Lord, give me a new depth of vision to understand the mysteries of your revelation. Let me grasp the full revolution brought about by your reign. Let me absorb the wisdom of your ancient story, which sets aside the domination of kings like Herod and ushers in kings who worship, who surrender, who are awed by dimensions of divine power. Give me also, Lord, a spirit of celebration, so I can revel in the magnitude of your joy and your renewal of the human heart. Amen.

2011-11-16T07:42:00.001-08:00

My soul wasdisturbed, deeply disturbed.

It took me a bit to name the anger thatmanifested as being “disturbed in my soul.” I had attended an educational forumon human trafficking and my awareness soared to a new level. It was disturbingto know that trafficking is a billion-dollar industry that sells women andchildren, boys and girls, into slavery, sex slavery as well as forced labor. Itwas disturbing to know that this kind of slavery not only exists, it iswidespread, and is in our own backyard. Ihad been aware, but now I was awakened to a new reality.

At my worst, I would like to go back to sleep, to discount, orminimize this human-perpetrated evil that is supported by buying and sellinghuman beings for profit and for the sex act that gratifies at a base,animalistic level—predator and prey. There must be seller, as well as a buyerfor this to happen. Both sides of this particulareconomic equation are a devastating evil and I would like to not know what Inow do know.

At my best, I am in prayer and compassionate action working outof God’s very intention for our world, for the ways and person of Christ to beknown. Christ who was for the outcast, the beggars, the lepers, theprostitutes, the demonized, the victimized. Christ saw, spoke, touched, healed, set free,delivered, victims and perpetrators alike. Bearing the Spirit of Christ, I cannot look the other way.

I have been pondering the words from Romans 13 (The Message)as I have thought of my own awakening:

Butmake sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of allyour day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off,oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up andawake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on thesalvation work he began when we first believed. We can't afford to waste aminute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity andindulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbingeverything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger,waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up andabout!

For me to be upand about, I had to do one thing, just one thing, to have some sense of being apart of abolishing human slavery and trafficking. I went online to the Not For Sale website at www.notforsalecampaign.org and purchased a freedom journal, made in India. ThenI re-centered myself in prayer, bringing my attention to the God who creates,loves, guides, heals and restores. This poem by Wendell Berry brought me to anotherplace of stillness.

ThePeace of Wild Things

Whendespair for the world grows in me

AndI wake in the night at the least sound

Infear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

Igo and lie down where the wood drake

restsin his beauty on the water; and the great heron feeds.

Icome into the peace of wild things

Whodo not tax their lives with forethought

Orgrief. I come into the presence of still water.

AndI feel above me the day-blind stars

Waitingwith their light. For a time

Irest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Writing this article is thenext right thing.

Sustainable Spirituality

2011-06-19T08:08:00.000-07:00

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself (Mt. 22:37-40). These words, spoken by Jesus Christ as the first and second greatest commandments, are divine words of invitation to us. They are divine words that invite a response from us. They are an invitation to become lovers of God, lovers of our true selves, and lovers of others—to become passionately engaged in God’s vision and persistent revelation to our world.

In the final book of the Bible, Revelation, we hear the words spoken to the churches. They include words of affirmation, yet words of loving challenge to remain attentive, to stay alert and aware: Remember your first love—do not lose sight of nor turn away from the passion that infuses a first-love experience. Remain alert and faith-filled, remain attentive to the One who searches and knows the depths of your hearts and minds and reaches into the hidden most parts of your being to bring light and truth. Stay alert—be aware and attentive to your words and actions being congruent. Become who you claim to be. Turn again and again, day after day, moment by moment, into God. Live with fidelity of heart. Remain attentive, passionate, filled with God’s love and passion, faithful to His wooing.

Lukewarm spirituality gets spit out! Having one's heart gripped by God, or taken hold of by God, infuses one with a first-love experience. We journey forward in becoming people who take hold of that which has taken hold of us. God launches this interior strategy of the heart. We are invited to become partners with God as we allow God to work within us and to transform us.
Robert Slocum stated in Maximize your Ministry: How You as a Lay Person Can Impact Your World for Jesus Christ, "As God reveals His thoughts, feelings, discernment of good and evil, and will, people's hearts grow and are transformed. The goal of an interior strategy of the heart is to reshape the interior of our lives according to God's plans for the heart. When this happens, God can use his people to reshape the church and world" (p. 90).

The Gift of Dissonance

2011-04-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

I don't think we even know at times that we may be acting in a way incongruous with how we would really want to be living. It seems the case, at least to me, that what we may hold in our mind as a belief or a value we have for our life may at times be inconsistent, or dissonant, with what actually manifests in our reactions and actions. Becoming someone who is responsive, or able to respond, in ways that we would want requires intentional work. I think it requires being one who is willing to become more self aware and reflective, to be willing to enter a process with another or others in which you are willing to allow your life and perhaps those with whom you work or minister to become "living documents." Living document is a descriptive term that is used in clinical pastoral education settings - the learning process that one willingly enters in order to become more effective in one's lived out practice of ministry and life. This "supervision" process is the place where I have personally found great growth in integration within myself and diminishing of my own experience of dissonance. For me, the gift of dissonance, was recognizing and processing it, not denying it or dismissing it. Out of a place of discomfort with myself came the greater gift of self awareness and integration.

It was a gift for me to be in congregational pastoral ministry for 14 years prior to establishing a center outside the walls of traditional church in order for people to come for personal and group spiritual direction and soul care ministry. We also now offer supervision for pastors and ministers, providing a safe place for processing and presenting oneself as a "living document" for the gift of greater growth and integration for one's practice of pastoral ministry. At this time when being a pastor is more and more stressful and challenging, "supervision" becomes essential. This kind of supervision offers space for theological reflection, to acknowledge dissonance and desire for growing self-awareness, for embracing a process that leads to authenticity and ethical actions, and a supportive place of prayer and ministry for the pastor's soul. This presents a model for ministry leadership that fosters leading from within, from a place of centered quiet and strength.

So what?

2011-04-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

I am in a place of wondering again. Wondering about the "so what" that seems to linger after being Scripture, in prayer, in offering myself to the ministry I find myself in each day. Someone once said to me, "You seem to have so many questions." I guess I do and it seems a good gift for me. The questions seem to bring me to greater life. The questions emerge out of the cries of my heart and my deep longing for God. They come from longing to be the same person on the outside as I am on the inside. They come from no longer wanting to live out of the bondage of fear but to live the life I long for (John O'Donohue, To Bless The Space Between Us). The questions, the longings speak to the deepest desire of my heart. I long to let this desire for God to be the primary desire of my life, to stop putting lids on such desire, but to let it out, let it flow freely from my heart, to become words and places of life, love and beauty for for those in my path. So many times the stories of Jesus are all about people he encountered "along the road" when he and his disciples were on their way somewhere. He offered a touch, healing, words of love, life and truth. These stories evoke desire and longing in me. Something to notice.

Trust Betrayed

2010-08-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

A team from Restoration Ministries traveled to Chicago a few weeks ago, invited to present a workshop at the national SNAP conference. SNAP is the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests and Clergy. Our specific workshop was entitled, “Hope for Healing.” The vastness of the numbers of those affected by this kind of abuse was overwhelming. The tragedy of any kind of abuse is heartbreaking and fractures the lives of those affected, but the spiritual injuries that result from abuse by those in roles of spiritual authority and representatives of God add a dimension and deeper layers of despair. Many have walked away from God completely and I find that very understandable as well as grievous.

I am still sifting and sorting through my own inner responses and continually needing to resist categorizing and defining others in boxes of good or bad, evil or not evil, dark or light. I think when I do that the focus is on externals and takes away the necessary inner work that all are called to do, especially those in ministry and church leadership. Camps are set up, sides are drawn, hostilities and divisions escalate; fear pervades, truth is buried in denial and cover-ups happen.

An interview with Parker Palmer published in Leader to Leader Journal (Fall 2001) included the following in the dialogue:

As the great jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker said, "If it ain’t in your heart, it ain’t in your horn." We can hear the horns everywhere, but if they’re not being played from the heart, then certain negative consequences follow.

I know from experience inside corporations and large-scale organizations that everybody is sizing up the leader and asking, "Is this a divided person or a person of integrity? Is what we see what we get? Is he or she the same on the inside as on the outside?”

Students ask this about teachers in the classroom. Employees ask it about their bosses. Citizens ask it about their politicians. When the answer is, ‘No, what we see on the outside is not the same as who they are on the inside,’ then things start to fall apart.

I have just described an unsafe situation when leaders with the power to call the tune and shape the dance are perceived as lacking congruence or integrity, they create unsafe situations.”

Trust is a tenuous thing. We know betrayal of trust when those we thought we could trust betray that trust, whether parents, spouses, co-workers, supervisors, corporate heads, pastors and priests. The road to forgiveness and healing can be long; it requires courage and truth; grace, mercy and humility.

Again quoting Parker Palmer: “The best leaders work from a place of integrity in themselves, from their hearts. If they don’t they can’t inspire trustful relationships. In the absence of trust, organizations fall apart.” I don’t think this just happens, this inner work requires intention and attention – it is a way of being, cultivated by openness, willingness and honesty. I believe that resources within the therapeutic community and those in spiritual formation and direction ministries foster these intentions. I believe that all ministry leaders, pastors and priests need relationships in which they can be honest and open with their thoughts and emotions in order to grow in integrity and congruency in their own hearts and leadership. The need for organizations such as SNAP is clear. Intervention and prevention is critical.

2010-06-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

A friend recently shared with me this prose poem by Mary Oliver. I thought I would share it here as well.

"You are young, So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart's little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks--when you hear the unmistakable pounding--when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the battlement, the long falls plunging and steaming--then row, row for your life toward it."

Someone else likened this poetic piece to what John expressed in John 3:16. "For God loved the world so much, that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."

Living for and from love probably doesn't mean taking the safest, most predictable route on the journey. Living for and from love may mean embracing that which is painful, fearful or unknown, in order to love in greater measure.

2010-06-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

When I was a college student and wanting to do some serious study, as opposed to going to the small college library which was a great social hangout, I would head to the University of Minnesota’s Wilson Library where I was an unknown and the space was quiet. On one particular evening I was in the Shakespeare shelves (I was an English Literature and Education major trying to track down some piece of research, I’m sure.). I recall standing in the aisle between the stacks of books, a book in hand, intent as I scanned the pages. Oddly, my focus was interrupted by a beckoning kind of noise, “psst.” And then again, “psst.” Finally, I looked up and around, and saw a fellow on the opposite side of the stack in the next aisle, pushing a note through the books to me. Hmmm.

I remember taking the note, opening it and seeing the words, “Look to your right.” As I turned my head to look down the long, narrow aisle of books, I saw a tall, large (really large in my memory) grizzly-bearded man standing, staring intently and menacingly at me. I was so startled and frightened that I rushed away, quickly moving back to the study desk where my belongings and friend were. My heart still beats a bit faster as I think about it. It was a frightening experience for me.

At the time, I recall trying to make sense of what had happened. I didn’t report it; didn’t tell anyone about it except my friend, and came to the conclusion that someone must have been conducting a sociology experiment to find out people’s responses to a startling and menacing experience. Weird!

Last week I was, once again, seeking quiet study and prayer time and so took a few days away. It was so great to have time to rest, pray, journal, read and do some writing. Interestingly, the above memory came back to me in a time of prayer. I became aware of this as an unhealed and unprocessed memory which was presently causing me to freeze up and put up a wall, instead of responding in the way that I would like to respond. I believe that God brought this memory to my mind for it to be brought into the light, to have it lose its power over me. I would not on my own have thought about this incident – it hasn’t been in my conscious thought for years. But God knew it was there and getting in my way. And that story is a part of my story.

Spiritual direction, and the hospitality it offers, provides a space for one to share one’s life story with another, to invite God’s presence and wisdom, to discern God’s guidance and ways. Spiritual practices, such as journaling, solitude, prayer, being in Scripture, among others, all provide context for our spiritual and emotional growth. All of life, however, is formative for our growth and healing, even our memories. All can be brought into one's prayer.

Attentiveness and Awareness in Relationship with God

2010-05-18T11:27:00.001-07:00

Do you not know? Have you not heard?

These are phrases from Scripture that are repeated over and over – invitations and reminders of a different way of seeing and hearing, a different way of understanding, of being and responding in the world. These words usually preface statements about who God is and include an invitation to turn our attentiveness to God instead of remaining focused on ourselves.

This different way requires a shift in our awareness. The shift moves us from outside of ourselves, from external circumstances, to inside: our thoughts, emotions, motives and intentions; to outside again in relationships, choices and actions. This shift happens many times throughout a day if we are paying attention. A growing awareness of oneself and one’s own reactions or responses cultivates and fosters growth in our maturity. We can begin to recognize when we react out of our fears and anxiety, and we get opportunity to choose a more thoughtful or discerned response, one that reflects who we are and who we want to become.

I recall a story from when I was facilitating a group focused on spiritual gifts and growth. I asked the group to envision their 80th birthday party: Who would be there? What kind of party would it be? What would be said about you as a tribute on this occasion of celebration? I remember a response from a young woman in the group. After a bit of thought, she said, “I want those who have come to be there because they want to be there, not because they have to be there.” That response still lingers with me. It reflects a way of being in relationship that invites, welcomes, loves and is attractive to others—it reflects being and becoming someone whom others want to be around and with. It is not so much about what we do or have, but who we are and who we are becoming in relationship with God, self and others. It means growing in love, instead of living in fear, anxiousness and controlling behaviors.

As we live in relationship with God, we may find ourselves wanting to become more intentional towards growth in self-awareness and spiritual and emotional maturity. We may have a growing desire to incorporate helpful spiritual practices that open us to God’s wisdom and ways through the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ, indwelling us. It is possible to become more aware of God’s Spirit and wisdom in the everyday of our lives. It may happen through prayer and listening, through attentiveness to the Scriptures, by being in nature, or by cultivating quiet moments of mind and heart with God to be able to hear and see in a different way. You might ask yourself how that happens for you; how are you cultivating this kind of attentiveness? Yielding ourselves to Christ and the Spirit’s work within invites our participation and awareness. We learn to pay attention and cooperate with the Spirit’s inner-life work. Take a few moments and read 1 Corinthians 2:9-16 which includes these words: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—these things God has prepared for those who love him….for God has revealed them to us by his Spirit….But we have the mind of Christ.”

My concern for our families, our communities, and our world is that we are moving so fast; we stay so busy, distracted or self-absorbed, that we miss cultivating this different way of being, seeing and hearing. Underneath the busyness is often a pervading anxiety and fear which keeps us in motion and struggling to find balance and groundedness. God invites a new way; empowers new understanding and greater wisdom. God sustains a life of love as an active antidote to our fears and fearful ways of being. For we have been given the mind of Christ.

I invite you to consider the simple practice of sitting a bit with God each day. Rest in God's presence.

Journey Inward, Journey Outward

2010-02-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

Recently I read a poetic blessing by John O'Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us) entitled, "For Longing." One line in particular has stayed in my mind and heart: "May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency." My longings can be experienced as God's urgency.

I recall the day when I said the words aloud to my spiritual director, "I just want to be the same person on the inside as I am on the outside." These words expressed my deep longing to live true, anchored and authentic, someone genuine. This desire propelled me onward and inward in my spiritual journey. Onward I moved into spiritual direction formation and training, seminary education and beyond. The inward journey, however, brought me to a more authentic way to live. All that I learned in information had to be digested, ruminated over, spit out, or taken in as a new truth to be tested, practiced and lived--the hard work of character development. I was brought face to face with myself and it wasn't very pretty. The inward journey is one of getting to know oneself, not as an island in self, but as one created in the image of God, meant to live as God designed and purposed. I had to begin to see when instead of living true, I would sell out to keeping myself safe or pleasing others instead of being steadfast in doing or voicing what I knew to be true and genuine. The false self, or inauthentic, put-on-a-show self, began to be stripped away until I arrived at the core without facade. I could not have even moved into this inner journey without the invitation, courage and strength to persevere from God, again experienced in longing and desire.

At this empty and naked core there is a new beginning, one launched in humility and spiritual brokenness with the knowledge that true and genuine life is marked with the imprint of God in my very being, created in God's image and restored into that likeness by Christ. I believe that God came in human form as Jesus Christ to demonstrate how to live out our genuine, true-self potential in this lifespan of time. Jesus is the example "the protype" for being human, for male and female. Jesus is also the way, the truth and my life. Each day I need to remember who I am and who I am becoming in and through the Spirit of Christ. My inward journey is deeply connected to my outward and onward journey and that seems right and good. It isn't always safe, but it is good.

When Disaster Strikes

2010-01-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

When disaster strikes all of life is changed in just moments. Buildings—homes and workplaces, hospitals, government buildings crumble; people are missing and lives are destroyed. That which was once known is gone. The known and familiar are now gone. Pain, confusion and shock overwhelm; response varies. Trauma sets in with effects that are long-lasting.

We are witnessing these disasters that seem to come in increased numbers, whether earthquake, tsunamis, fires, flooding, famine, or disaster through war and violence. Through technology the devastating effects on countries and people are in front of us immediately. The suffering is depicted through picture and story and speaks again its story in our own hearts and minds. Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen wrote: “Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: Who can take away suffering without entering it?” It is all too easy to turn off the TV, radio, to delete the e-mail; to turn away from the suffering because it is difficult to be overwhelmed or more deeply disturbed by what we see or hear again. To see may mean to enter at some level another’s suffering. What do we do? How do we respond?

We are invited to participate in mercy and compassion ministries that move in to provide medical relief, food and water, physical assistance. Governments, organizations, individuals move to provide monetary funding for rescue, clean-up and rebuilding. The process begins of restoring what has been damaged or destroyed; hope is brought into the lives of the people who remain.

Personal disaster can enter our lives in much the same way as a natural disaster—unexpected or sudden. Perhaps we can see it coming without a way to stop it; unemployment, loss of a business, divorce, accident, diagnosis of a life-changing illness, an act of violence of another. Life changes quickly and we are not in control.

The reality of pain and suffering in our world often raises hard questions about God and often offers one of the greatest challenges to faith in God. The “Why did this happen?” or “What kind of God allows such experiences of pain and suffering in the world?” Questions go deep into our experience of pain, suffering and loss. “Why” questions have value as they can lead to preventative measures or early warning signals being put into place. The grieving process in loss and change often includes the “why” questions and can be a symptom of the anger we feel when hard things happen. We may want to find something or someone to blame. Eventually we ask “What now?”

People don’t rush in with assistance in quite the same way in a personal disaster. We are often left to try to figure it out or make sense of it by ourselves. Some may choose to go it alone in times loss and change. Others may long to have someone to talk with or someone who will listen and understand. Someone else may not be able to solve it or fix it, but allowing another to enter the story with you can mitigate the suffering and pain and is in itself an act of faith. It is a faith that someone would care enough to be present in the suffering; would listen and understand and be with you, offering a connection, a physical touch, or a prayer. The compassionate action of another can be a bridge back to God, to belief that God sees, knows and cares; that God listens to our prayer and enters into our suffering with us. Caring for the well-being of others; compassionate, merciful, grace-filled actions and ministry--these are qualities of God and of those who live out God’s ways in the world.

In Christianity a core belief is that God demonstrated His love for people by entering the world in human form as Jesus Christ. In this strategic action, God demonstrated solidarity with the human experience by entering, bearing and overcoming human pain, suffering and death. God understands it; He has experienced it and will be with us in it to bring comfort, peace and assurance that we are not alone. With God, we also can bear and overcome the effects of pain, suffering and death. It is an act of faith to believe such a God-story. “Who can take away suffering without entering it?”

The Language of Love

2009-12-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

Wooing. Kind of a strange word. Wooing is not often used in today's language unless, perhaps, you have experienced the practice of courting. To woo means "to seek the favor, affection or love of another." Wooing is the language of love. It is an evocative way; a way that creates a hunger to know more, to draw closer, to discover, and to understand the one who woos. It is the stuff of relationships. Some of us come naturally to wooing--others have to learn the ways of wooing for relationships to develop.

When I use the word wooing to talk about relationship with God, I do so because God is love and because we can only love or respond to love because of God. We might not even know how to respond to divine love that is well beyond what we experience between each other here in the flesh. It is, perhaps, because of how we have experienced human love that is in itself limited, that we might wonder what the experience of God's love can be. We may catch glimpses of the possibilities and may even fear what that love might demand of us. Fear about God and who God is may inhibit one's ability to respond to God. We get messed up about what love looks like when we look at each other instead of looking at God for our perspective.

We have been created to live in loving relationships--love that cares about the well-being of others--love that begins between oneself and God. Receiving God's love for oneself, and experiencing oneself as God's beloved, changes us. This is who we were created to be, God's beloved. This is who we are and can be in and through Christ. Christ demonstrated what real love looks like and Christ continues to show us about divine love. We really don't love well without God's kind of love changing us.

God is persistent in wooing us to Himself because God is love and God loves first; God persists in wooing us away from all that entangles, enslaves, and misdirects us away from God. God persists in inviting us to return to Him to receive the love He desires to lavish upon us. This is an invitation to the inner journey--going inward toward the One who dwells there, always present, always calling, always loving--to be able to experience God's love within. This is God's gift, the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ, who comes to dwell within you. God will move in if you invite and allow him entry into your life. That is the beginning - God wants to take up residence within you for the sake of love. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love (Romans 5:5).

Caring for your soul, the very essence of who you are, means learning to pay attention and deepen your awareness of God's invitations. Cultivating and redirecting one’s awareness and attentiveness is necessary to the process of listening to this inner wooing--hearing and responding to the One who knows your name and who you are and who you are becoming. The drawing becomes like a magnetic love song; and as you are drawn closer and closer to the Source of all love, the magnetism becomes so great that you cannot move away—nor do you want to do so. In God, you find the ease to your soul’s longing, the living water that quenches your thirst, and the bread of life that fills your hunger. You discover the power and presence to resist that which tempts you away from this sweet space.The empty space of your soul becomes filled with the sweet presence of the Holy One.

Gratitude for Wellbeing

2009-11-25T12:56:00.000-08:00

There is a story in Matthew 28, near the end of the chapter, when the disciples "headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. The moment they saw him they worshiped him." It also says, "Some though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally."

I think this kind of worship of God, when we are willing to risk ourselves totally, begins with gratitude and praise in the seemingly small, everyday events of our lives. I don't mean in a trite way that is sometimes heard, but a genuine cultivation in our very being of being grateful people, willing to offer gratitude and praise to God. This way of being invites a movement away from self-absorbed living into a focus on becoming more God-absorbed in our views of life. Becoming grateful helps us lose being the center of our own universe and helps us better acknowledge God as the center.

C.S. Lewis's writings reveal that for him, praise became the most difficult subject to grasp. He wrote: "When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should 'praise' God." Eventually Lewis came to see praise and worship differently. He came to hold an enlarged perspective on the matter.

"But after some years of gratitude, reverence, and obedience, the truth of God even "demanding" our praise came to light. It is not that God insists or demands our praises, it is that when we begin to see Him more clearly--then who He is demands one's praise. Gaining a clearer vision of Him simply awakens one to "the real world," and "not to appreciate" is to have lost the greatest experience, and in the end to have lost all." Lewis excitedly recalled the delight of seeing "that it is in the process of being worshiped that God communicates His presence to men [mankind]."

Brain research has now proven that healing and wellbeing can be tangibly experienced through the practice of gratitude. Try it. When you are tired, anxious, or fearful, pause. Make a note of five things for which you are grateful. This simple act changes the pathway being used in your brain and brings you to a greater sense of well-being. We are wonderfully made--God's workmanship is amazing and again demonstrates that God is for us.

Questions of Faith

2009-11-24T16:33:00.000-08:00

Faith is more than a label. Faith is placing your trust in something or someone. Faith in God has to be about belief, that one would even believe that God is and that God is someone you can trust and entrust your life to. Even if you believe that God is, who you believe God is impacts how you relate to God and how close you allow yourself to get to God.

The intersect of faith and life invites more questions. My thought is that faith is more than agreeing to a set of rules or guidelines, or even propositional truths, although it is very much about truth. If one's faith is built on a false foundation it would not be faith worth having or living. Faith is living and active--not a transaction made to get something, as a contract might be. It is a trust relationship with God that transforms all of life and saves us now. It matters who we believe God to be because it impacts our ability to trust, and trust matters.