I am writing posts for the devotional blog, www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com, whenever they come to me, and they are being used on other days than just Saturdays, sometimes. So this one was posted today:
Joy in the Morning, Whatever the Day
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 91:14
The anthem at church this Sunday was "Joy in the Morning". It spoke of the joy there would be "on that day", presumably the day when God would make everything right, and good and beautiful. I thought that what I really care about is the joy that I need, and try to find, and that indeed is available to all of us, every morning. I thought of my waking thoughts earlier that morning, and my ongoing reflections on joy versus happiness. It seems time to share them.
My struggles often seem the worst in the middle of the night, and the very earliest waking hours of the morning. Sometimes I come to a place of peace before I rise; other times it comes when I am upright and moving forward, accomplishing some simple tasks, and settling down to speak and listen to the Lord, through prayer and His word. This morning he reminded me through this scripture verse of His power to give me the kind of joy that lasts, that sustains and satisfies, whatever else is going on in my life. It is His love that gives us the power to "sing for joy and be glad all our days."
I remember the joy of singing His praises on Sunday evenings in the worship team I love so much. There I always truly know that God is present in His praises, that singing the words of His faithfulness indeed has power to change our minds and emotions. And that is one time where an external experience, of worship, can change what is going on in the inside.
But in general what I believe we learn in the Christian life is that it is joy, not happiness, that sustains us. In the poem called "The Gift", that I quoted last week, there is the line "You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness." (William Stafford) And happiness is like that. It is not something lasting; it depends on circumstances.
The insight for the day on January 29th in the Bible League's 2009 Devotional Planner highlighted this counterpoint:
Joy is not the same thing as happiness. The word 'happy' comes from the word 'happenstance', which means "a chance happening." Happiness depends on happenings. Joy is a state of being. It flows from the inside out. Let God be the well from which your joy springs - no matter what the circumstances. Have you ever felt joy even when you weren't happy?
This reminds me again of a principle that has become ingrained into my thinking through the words of a mentor. I was taught to recognize when I was looking to "happenings", events, improvements, relationships, changes in others and situations, to make me feel better about my life. The saying " If....were better I would be okay" has come to sum up a dependence on "happenstance" to bring me or others a sense of well being, okay-ness, safety or joy. Learning to let go of that dependence has opened me up more to the capacity to find true joy in living, even if I am not happy.
I believe that is what God is calling us to when He says, through Paul, to "Be joyful always." (I Thessalonians 5:16), or through the psalmist reminding us of His capacity to empower us to do that through His unfailing love.
February 04, 2009
January 31, 2009
joy in connecting time with the timeless
Here is my post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I'm off to see some ice fishing and do some cross country skiing...that's my use of time today!
Time, the Timeless, and the Timely.
My times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15
Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12
It seems my life is ever an inner dialogue about the interface between the timeless and the timely. Whether I reminisce about long dead family members and their impact on my thinking, the legacy of my mother's furniture and life, the complexities of missionary life or parenting, or simply trying to decide how to organize my basement and how that fits with the existential issues of life, a constant theme in my thinking and writing is expressed in this timeless phrase.
I search for it on Google to see how much it is used by others and discover over 700 references spanning make-up, architecture, decorating,cooking,clothing, poetry, religion, philosophy, music, and so on. I recall the seminar at a Christian writers' conference that impacted me the most. The author teaching the seminar is an editor of several top thoughtful Christian magazines. He urged that every article and piece of writing, especially Christian writing, needs to use the timely to hook in the reader in order to share timeless truths. In a sense that is what we do on this blog. We take the daily doings of ordinary life and weave in universal themes, eternal truths, and epic issues of concern.
I particularly enjoy finding Christian and human truth expressed in words that are not typical Christian jargon. There were many years of not doing that for me, but they left me feeling that much was left out of the expression of my experience and my observation of the experience of others. While being a regular worship leader who enjoys much of the modern music written for our contemporary services, I gravitate toward much of the secular music around to articulate the agonies of human existence and relationships. My faith has to be expressed in very honest ways.
Now that I am in the second half century of my own life, my concern for such honesty has only increased, even as my faith and assurance have deepened. And with them both has grown the passion to make the utmost use of every moment I have, while at the same time 'taking my time' to do things well, to only do what really needs to be done, and what I am truly equipped and called to do. Eliminating the superfluous needs to be a daily quest, whether it be in my basement, my thinking, or my dreams, while appreciating the opportunity to see a snowflake fall or watch a squirrel jump from tree to tree. Today is all I have. This moment is all I have. And I need to live each day and moment in that awareness, but with joy.
I have just discovered a writer who in this past century sought to live each day fully by writing poetry every morning. More than that, he was a Christian, a serious one. William Stafford wrote in a "deceptively simple" way, they say, but actually wove in complex themes as he mastered in his writing a blend of the timeless and the timely. He didn't need to say the name of Christ to teach a timeless truth. His life and his poetry said it for him. I offer one of his poems for us here today to remind us of the choice we are offered, each day and moment.
The Gift
Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.
It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about).
You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.
It's a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and weather treated you. It's a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours."
William Stafford
Time, the Timeless, and the Timely.
My times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15
Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12
It seems my life is ever an inner dialogue about the interface between the timeless and the timely. Whether I reminisce about long dead family members and their impact on my thinking, the legacy of my mother's furniture and life, the complexities of missionary life or parenting, or simply trying to decide how to organize my basement and how that fits with the existential issues of life, a constant theme in my thinking and writing is expressed in this timeless phrase.
I search for it on Google to see how much it is used by others and discover over 700 references spanning make-up, architecture, decorating,cooking,clothing, poetry, religion, philosophy, music, and so on. I recall the seminar at a Christian writers' conference that impacted me the most. The author teaching the seminar is an editor of several top thoughtful Christian magazines. He urged that every article and piece of writing, especially Christian writing, needs to use the timely to hook in the reader in order to share timeless truths. In a sense that is what we do on this blog. We take the daily doings of ordinary life and weave in universal themes, eternal truths, and epic issues of concern.
I particularly enjoy finding Christian and human truth expressed in words that are not typical Christian jargon. There were many years of not doing that for me, but they left me feeling that much was left out of the expression of my experience and my observation of the experience of others. While being a regular worship leader who enjoys much of the modern music written for our contemporary services, I gravitate toward much of the secular music around to articulate the agonies of human existence and relationships. My faith has to be expressed in very honest ways.
Now that I am in the second half century of my own life, my concern for such honesty has only increased, even as my faith and assurance have deepened. And with them both has grown the passion to make the utmost use of every moment I have, while at the same time 'taking my time' to do things well, to only do what really needs to be done, and what I am truly equipped and called to do. Eliminating the superfluous needs to be a daily quest, whether it be in my basement, my thinking, or my dreams, while appreciating the opportunity to see a snowflake fall or watch a squirrel jump from tree to tree. Today is all I have. This moment is all I have. And I need to live each day and moment in that awareness, but with joy.
I have just discovered a writer who in this past century sought to live each day fully by writing poetry every morning. More than that, he was a Christian, a serious one. William Stafford wrote in a "deceptively simple" way, they say, but actually wove in complex themes as he mastered in his writing a blend of the timeless and the timely. He didn't need to say the name of Christ to teach a timeless truth. His life and his poetry said it for him. I offer one of his poems for us here today to remind us of the choice we are offered, each day and moment.
The Gift
Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.
It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about).
You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.
It's a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and weather treated you. It's a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours."
William Stafford
January 24, 2009
joy in weaving together the past, the present, and the presence of memories
I've had special joy again creating this post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I am amazed how timing works. I had it in mind to use this poem, to share about my mother's death, and didn't know when I work it in. I never dreamed I would connect it with the buying of a new sofa! But somehow my furniture tales seem to offer me lots of fodder for this sort of thing. So here is another furniture tale..another treasure...perhaps a tear jerker for you as well as me...for this week.
More About Treasures - from a Heavenly Perspective
Our new couch arrived yesterday. You can see it as the featured bargain on www.thebrick.com. The Grace sofa. I loved the name, but didn't buy it for that. It is our very first new sofa, replacing the second Salvation Army thrift store one which did us well after the first SA one, both of which now live in the basement. The room really needed this new sofa, to match the quality,at least in looks, of the ancestral furniture that came after Mum's move from Windsor, and her final move to Heaven. I think she would approve of my choice. I did the best I could with the upper edge of the lower line of sofas. For many, this would not be a big deal. For me it was. Like when I moved that amazing antique family dresser into our bedroom, and mused about that two weeks ago. An astute observer of my life commented on how I had brought something of value into my heart, connecting the intimate bedroom with my heart. That really struck me, along with the whole experience of valuing things, and myself, and our home, and the connections between.
For years I prided myself on not having valuable stuff, yet somehow found it fitting that after years of getting by with second best I inherited so much beauty through my family line. As you have read, I have been learning to connect it with my spirituality, and my innermost being, for I never want to live out of harmony with the core of my being. So now it seems that these new treasures are some of the "treasures of darkness" the Lord promised me from Isaiah 45. From the darkness of much unhappiness in my family of origin I have been graced with what was beautiful. And I am finally taking that beauty deeply into my heart, allowing it to heal memories of much that was not beautiful in attitudes of those who, like these pieces of furniture, were giants in my life.
I have learned to understand that they did the best they could with what they had at the time. Their harshness and criticism came out of concern and the patterns of parenting they had received. But they were also reliable, solid, and sensible, like the furniture, and graceful in very practical ways. I had always appreciated that and relied upon it. Now I live with the daily memory of that in the midst of these reminders.
I've written before about knowing Mum went to join Dad in Heaven, about how it was hard to believe that sometimes because their faith was not very up front most of the time, and of the assurance I had in my heart of the final destination of all the family members known to me. That has been a constant relief and blessing to my heart, and will always be, until I go to join them one amazing day. And sometimes all of that brings tears to my eyes which I welcome in the midst of my otherwise rather stoic approach to life, another treasure (or curse) from my family line.
Such tears sprang hot to my cheeks as I read this lovely poem given to me after Christmas by a friend at church. Somehow a fuller meaning of my mother's presence in Heaven had not really registered. Yes, I knew intellectually that she would be healed and whole and happy, as I had never seen her before. It took this poem to break open that reality in a fresh way to me:
Merry Christmas from Heaven
Copyright 1990 by John Wm Mooney Jr.
I still hear the songs
I still see the lights
I still feel your love
on cold wintery nights
I still share your hopes
and all of your cares
I'll even remind you
to please say your prayers
I just want to tell you
you still make me proud
You stand head and shoulders
above all the crowd
Keep trying each moment
to stay in His grace
I came here before you
to help set your place
You don't have to be
perfect all of the time
He forgives you the slip
If you continue the climb
To my family and friends
please be thankful today
I'm still close beside you
In a new special way
I love you all dearly
now don't shed a tear
Cause I'm spending my
Christmas with Jesus this year.
The poem said what Mum probably always wanted to say, but the words hardly ever came. She thought she had to be perfect, so she put that on to me. She didn't really know what God's grace could do for her, and therefore for me, so I had to fight to find that for myself. Now I can relax and know that Grace has healed Mum. And yes, she is close beside me "in a new special way." Those words echo what she said before she went into surgery about fifteen months before her death, the surgery from which she never really recovered. As she said goodbye before they wheeled her away, she said "Wherever I am, I won't be far away." Those treasured words kept me going through all the hard moments that followed, through her anger and defiance, her confusion and distrust, until she finally surrendered her life into God's hands, as I held her in my arms, saying through my tears, "Good Mummy, good Mummy."
Now, as I rearrange the old furniture, or use the 150 year old teapots, or sit in Mum's favourite wing chair by our new Grace sofa, I can hear Mum speaking to me from Heaven, and say back to her again, "Good Mummy, good Mummy."
More About Treasures - from a Heavenly Perspective
Our new couch arrived yesterday. You can see it as the featured bargain on www.thebrick.com. The Grace sofa. I loved the name, but didn't buy it for that. It is our very first new sofa, replacing the second Salvation Army thrift store one which did us well after the first SA one, both of which now live in the basement. The room really needed this new sofa, to match the quality,at least in looks, of the ancestral furniture that came after Mum's move from Windsor, and her final move to Heaven. I think she would approve of my choice. I did the best I could with the upper edge of the lower line of sofas. For many, this would not be a big deal. For me it was. Like when I moved that amazing antique family dresser into our bedroom, and mused about that two weeks ago. An astute observer of my life commented on how I had brought something of value into my heart, connecting the intimate bedroom with my heart. That really struck me, along with the whole experience of valuing things, and myself, and our home, and the connections between.
For years I prided myself on not having valuable stuff, yet somehow found it fitting that after years of getting by with second best I inherited so much beauty through my family line. As you have read, I have been learning to connect it with my spirituality, and my innermost being, for I never want to live out of harmony with the core of my being. So now it seems that these new treasures are some of the "treasures of darkness" the Lord promised me from Isaiah 45. From the darkness of much unhappiness in my family of origin I have been graced with what was beautiful. And I am finally taking that beauty deeply into my heart, allowing it to heal memories of much that was not beautiful in attitudes of those who, like these pieces of furniture, were giants in my life.
I have learned to understand that they did the best they could with what they had at the time. Their harshness and criticism came out of concern and the patterns of parenting they had received. But they were also reliable, solid, and sensible, like the furniture, and graceful in very practical ways. I had always appreciated that and relied upon it. Now I live with the daily memory of that in the midst of these reminders.
I've written before about knowing Mum went to join Dad in Heaven, about how it was hard to believe that sometimes because their faith was not very up front most of the time, and of the assurance I had in my heart of the final destination of all the family members known to me. That has been a constant relief and blessing to my heart, and will always be, until I go to join them one amazing day. And sometimes all of that brings tears to my eyes which I welcome in the midst of my otherwise rather stoic approach to life, another treasure (or curse) from my family line.
Such tears sprang hot to my cheeks as I read this lovely poem given to me after Christmas by a friend at church. Somehow a fuller meaning of my mother's presence in Heaven had not really registered. Yes, I knew intellectually that she would be healed and whole and happy, as I had never seen her before. It took this poem to break open that reality in a fresh way to me:
Merry Christmas from Heaven
Copyright 1990 by John Wm Mooney Jr.
I still hear the songs
I still see the lights
I still feel your love
on cold wintery nights
I still share your hopes
and all of your cares
I'll even remind you
to please say your prayers
I just want to tell you
you still make me proud
You stand head and shoulders
above all the crowd
Keep trying each moment
to stay in His grace
I came here before you
to help set your place
You don't have to be
perfect all of the time
He forgives you the slip
If you continue the climb
To my family and friends
please be thankful today
I'm still close beside you
In a new special way
I love you all dearly
now don't shed a tear
Cause I'm spending my
Christmas with Jesus this year.
The poem said what Mum probably always wanted to say, but the words hardly ever came. She thought she had to be perfect, so she put that on to me. She didn't really know what God's grace could do for her, and therefore for me, so I had to fight to find that for myself. Now I can relax and know that Grace has healed Mum. And yes, she is close beside me "in a new special way." Those words echo what she said before she went into surgery about fifteen months before her death, the surgery from which she never really recovered. As she said goodbye before they wheeled her away, she said "Wherever I am, I won't be far away." Those treasured words kept me going through all the hard moments that followed, through her anger and defiance, her confusion and distrust, until she finally surrendered her life into God's hands, as I held her in my arms, saying through my tears, "Good Mummy, good Mummy."
Now, as I rearrange the old furniture, or use the 150 year old teapots, or sit in Mum's favourite wing chair by our new Grace sofa, I can hear Mum speaking to me from Heaven, and say back to her again, "Good Mummy, good Mummy."
January 17, 2009
joy in sharing intuitive and spiritual truth through more metaphors
So....lots is happening....lots of truth and growth, ups and downs...I don't try to express it all publicly anymore...that is good. But when I do, it brings even more joy than before. I try harder to craft my words, and examine the words and concepts. And so there is greater fruit. Such is the case with my latest post for www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I waited, because of life's happenings, to post it until now, although it was ready there yesterday to appear at 5 a.m. on the blog. Now that I post it here, it has already had some very positive feedback, something that often happens, but somehow today's meant even more. You can read it on the comments on that blog. But I worked hard on this post, even though it came easily. And it was full of intuitive truth about my own life. Not that my others haven't been, but this one was especially meaningful, because it comes out of a longtime metaphor for me. Even then, it is only a snippet of the truth we can get from tree metaphors. I will explore that more I am sure. A whole blog could be dedicated to the truth from trees!!!! Here it is:
The Tree God Knows
Here in Muskoka winter I muse about trees outside our window.I can look at them many ways: they can be beautiful and artistic as they glitter in the sunlight. Deciduous trees can look lonely and stark without their leaves in barren brown-ness. Evergreens stand out so much more in the winter, their plenteous boughs preserving the essence of Christmas trees throughout the bleakness of winter months. As I drive up the highway I notice trees in winter in ways I often don't in summer. The cold and starkness of life highlight the strength and individual outlines of trees. Summer shows their composite foliage; autumn overwhelms with brilliant contrasts of colours, but the story then is more of the leaves than the trees. So winter is a time to see the true outline of trees, their basic shape and the beauty or not thereof.
Such is true of all of us. It takes the hard seasons to show what we are made of, whether our lives are truly in balance and we have what it takes to withstand the tests and trials of time. That balance comes from strong and deep roots, well proportioned trunks and gracefully arranged branches.
Trees abound as metaphors for personhood throughout literature and scripture. Psalm 1 reminds us that the righteous person is "like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither." (v. 2b.) Trees appear in our dreams and we instinctively know what they mean. We can see a painting of a tree and identify with it. A friend once wrote a poem about me as a bonsai, an intricately formed miniature tree, recognizing how life had stunted my growth in certain ways, yet kept the form and grace. That was how she saw me. God spoke to me in a different way using the tree image just a year ago.
Of course He knew that I love to think of myself as a tree, that I long to be an oak of righteousness. He has called me one for many years. But one day He wanted to show me something more specific. I was sitting prayerfully with my trained spiritual "friend" and she asked me to ask God to give me a picture in my mind of how He saw me at that time. Instantly I saw a childish drawing of a tree. The trunk was thick and strong, but not well proportioned. It was far too wide for the height of the tree. The leaves were bright green, obviously on bushy branches, but no fruit or lovely graceful branches were visible. It was like a green lollipop atop a huge brown stick. Alive, strong, very strong, but not beautiful, graceful, appropriate or able to grow up well. It was a picture of me: strong but defensive, out of proportion, needing pruning, deeper roots, and greater upward and outward growth in the branches, not the trunk.
Then she asked me to ask God to show me what He wanted to do with me. Again I instantly saw the tree in the picture moving. The roots began stretching deeper and wider, the branches extended gracefully out in many directions, and the trunk grew taller, lost many layers of defensive bark. The whole tree became well proportioned.
In this past year that kind of growth has been taking place. I have often thought of those pictures, and been grateful for their dynamic and multi-faceted, intuitive truth. The growth continues, and always will. And many times, like today, I am reminded of the need for the storms and stress in my life to foster that growth. Just on a day when I was so frustrated with the continuing storms I read this poem:
The wind that blows can never kill
The tree God plants;
It bloweth east, it bloweth west,
the tender leaves have little rest,
But any wind that blows is best.
The tree that God plants
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still,
Spreads greater boughs, for God's good will
Meets all its wants.
There is no storm hath power to blast
The tree God knows;
No thunderbolt, nor hurricane;
When they are spent, it doth remain,
The tree God knows,
Through every tempest standeth fast,
And from its first day to its last
Still fairer grows.
quoted in Streams in the Desert
The Tree God Knows
Here in Muskoka winter I muse about trees outside our window.I can look at them many ways: they can be beautiful and artistic as they glitter in the sunlight. Deciduous trees can look lonely and stark without their leaves in barren brown-ness. Evergreens stand out so much more in the winter, their plenteous boughs preserving the essence of Christmas trees throughout the bleakness of winter months. As I drive up the highway I notice trees in winter in ways I often don't in summer. The cold and starkness of life highlight the strength and individual outlines of trees. Summer shows their composite foliage; autumn overwhelms with brilliant contrasts of colours, but the story then is more of the leaves than the trees. So winter is a time to see the true outline of trees, their basic shape and the beauty or not thereof.
Such is true of all of us. It takes the hard seasons to show what we are made of, whether our lives are truly in balance and we have what it takes to withstand the tests and trials of time. That balance comes from strong and deep roots, well proportioned trunks and gracefully arranged branches.
Trees abound as metaphors for personhood throughout literature and scripture. Psalm 1 reminds us that the righteous person is "like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither." (v. 2b.) Trees appear in our dreams and we instinctively know what they mean. We can see a painting of a tree and identify with it. A friend once wrote a poem about me as a bonsai, an intricately formed miniature tree, recognizing how life had stunted my growth in certain ways, yet kept the form and grace. That was how she saw me. God spoke to me in a different way using the tree image just a year ago.
Of course He knew that I love to think of myself as a tree, that I long to be an oak of righteousness. He has called me one for many years. But one day He wanted to show me something more specific. I was sitting prayerfully with my trained spiritual "friend" and she asked me to ask God to give me a picture in my mind of how He saw me at that time. Instantly I saw a childish drawing of a tree. The trunk was thick and strong, but not well proportioned. It was far too wide for the height of the tree. The leaves were bright green, obviously on bushy branches, but no fruit or lovely graceful branches were visible. It was like a green lollipop atop a huge brown stick. Alive, strong, very strong, but not beautiful, graceful, appropriate or able to grow up well. It was a picture of me: strong but defensive, out of proportion, needing pruning, deeper roots, and greater upward and outward growth in the branches, not the trunk.
Then she asked me to ask God to show me what He wanted to do with me. Again I instantly saw the tree in the picture moving. The roots began stretching deeper and wider, the branches extended gracefully out in many directions, and the trunk grew taller, lost many layers of defensive bark. The whole tree became well proportioned.
In this past year that kind of growth has been taking place. I have often thought of those pictures, and been grateful for their dynamic and multi-faceted, intuitive truth. The growth continues, and always will. And many times, like today, I am reminded of the need for the storms and stress in my life to foster that growth. Just on a day when I was so frustrated with the continuing storms I read this poem:
The wind that blows can never kill
The tree God plants;
It bloweth east, it bloweth west,
the tender leaves have little rest,
But any wind that blows is best.
The tree that God plants
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still,
Spreads greater boughs, for God's good will
Meets all its wants.
There is no storm hath power to blast
The tree God knows;
No thunderbolt, nor hurricane;
When they are spent, it doth remain,
The tree God knows,
Through every tempest standeth fast,
And from its first day to its last
Still fairer grows.
quoted in Streams in the Desert
January 10, 2009
joy in making space for tomorrow
Hello again...here is my weekly contribution to www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com....I'm so spellbound by life these days that I don't have much to say or rather I am too busy to say it..
,,,,,,,
Making Space for Tomorrow: Rearranging the Furniture in Our Lives
All of my life I have enjoyed moving furniture around, creating spaces in rooms, making "little houses" my sister and mother said. Whenever we were travelling when I was younger, and stayed in motel rooms or on board the Empress of France crossing to live in Scotland for a year, I would take a corner of the room and set up boundaries with whatever and make my little house, set up my dollies, and play. Somehow I learned to make myself at home wherever I was.
In other ways it was hard for me to settle, and has been in my life. Many times I have had too much stuff, and had to take time out of my life to sort and get rid of things, like I am doing a lot in the basement these days. Other times it seemed I did not have what I really needed to make me feel at home, as if my room itself was restless. Often I didn't know what I really needed and God had to show me. I guess in so many ways I had to learn to get rid of the old, the makeshift, the not good enough, to make room for the best in my life.
I have been thinking a lot about things like this since I took the time out this year to put my house completely in order before I go on with my studies and my future plans for work. I have built up a backlog and have to find out what to keep and what to let go, in every kind of way. I have lived so many lives already, pushed myself into many roles, and often not taken time, and space for me. God has always found His space in my life, but often we were both on the run, keeping up with each other, He with me and I with Him. And also He was saying to me, "Make space for tomorrow, Meg. There are big things coming."
He said that to me a year ago through a scripture verse that astonished even the spiritual friend/director who gave it to me, through our connection brought by the seminary course in Spiritual Formation.
It was Isaiah 54: 1-5, especially, verses 2 and 3b:
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left.
God was telling me to stretch my tent curtains wide, to get out of the box, to be ready for expansion in every way. I already felt so stretched and expanded!!!! Well as the year went on, I did do that in my heart and mind in every way I could. And now, as I let my body and my house catch up with this journey, I have delightful surprises.
Now maybe for some of you it is hard to keep up with the connections I love to make between my material possessions and my spiritual life, in an unusual way. But from what I have learned it is typical for my personality type preference, INFJ, in Myers Briggs language, something I am trained to administer. All the different parts of my life have to be connected for me to feel in harmony, including my possessions.
Well, now, with a house full of my ancestral furniture, I had an interesting experience. Our dining room has hosted two sideboards, both over 100 years old, from two sides of the family. The first one was my mother's dresser, her mother's before her, and it became our first real sideboard after Mum's move in 2007. Then last summer the "monster" sideboard that dominated the cottage came to live here too. The dresser didn't seem to belong anymore, and yet I couldn't imagine using it as a dresser for me. It was too special. I could make do with the painted cheap one in our room, even if the drawers would always stick and the handles hurt and it wasn't really big enough.
Then I began to think that really it could come to live in my bedroom, that it would look great, and that it would be okay to let go of the old crummy one. And my sister said it was about time I had some decent furniture in our bedroom!!! Now that it is there something deep has settled in my being. Making space for the "new", letting go of the old, has brought new life and solidity to our room. The new is actually old, as in family and heritage, and it seems God is really saying that is part of the new new for me.
Embracing the future can mean embracing the past in a new way. Making space for God's plans can mean making more space for ourselves, our heritage, our history, and as we embrace it in deep personal ways it can bring new healing and joy into our lives. I have been doing that in many ways these past years, and it never ceases to amaze me how it continues. This "new" furniture in my intimate space, our bedroom, is a new version of the old. God works deeper as He works wider. Expanding our horizons can sometimes just mean rearranging the furniture of our lives, letting go of some old stuff, and enjoying the new arrangements.
,,,,,,,
Making Space for Tomorrow: Rearranging the Furniture in Our Lives
All of my life I have enjoyed moving furniture around, creating spaces in rooms, making "little houses" my sister and mother said. Whenever we were travelling when I was younger, and stayed in motel rooms or on board the Empress of France crossing to live in Scotland for a year, I would take a corner of the room and set up boundaries with whatever and make my little house, set up my dollies, and play. Somehow I learned to make myself at home wherever I was.
In other ways it was hard for me to settle, and has been in my life. Many times I have had too much stuff, and had to take time out of my life to sort and get rid of things, like I am doing a lot in the basement these days. Other times it seemed I did not have what I really needed to make me feel at home, as if my room itself was restless. Often I didn't know what I really needed and God had to show me. I guess in so many ways I had to learn to get rid of the old, the makeshift, the not good enough, to make room for the best in my life.
I have been thinking a lot about things like this since I took the time out this year to put my house completely in order before I go on with my studies and my future plans for work. I have built up a backlog and have to find out what to keep and what to let go, in every kind of way. I have lived so many lives already, pushed myself into many roles, and often not taken time, and space for me. God has always found His space in my life, but often we were both on the run, keeping up with each other, He with me and I with Him. And also He was saying to me, "Make space for tomorrow, Meg. There are big things coming."
He said that to me a year ago through a scripture verse that astonished even the spiritual friend/director who gave it to me, through our connection brought by the seminary course in Spiritual Formation.
It was Isaiah 54: 1-5, especially, verses 2 and 3b:
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left.
God was telling me to stretch my tent curtains wide, to get out of the box, to be ready for expansion in every way. I already felt so stretched and expanded!!!! Well as the year went on, I did do that in my heart and mind in every way I could. And now, as I let my body and my house catch up with this journey, I have delightful surprises.
Now maybe for some of you it is hard to keep up with the connections I love to make between my material possessions and my spiritual life, in an unusual way. But from what I have learned it is typical for my personality type preference, INFJ, in Myers Briggs language, something I am trained to administer. All the different parts of my life have to be connected for me to feel in harmony, including my possessions.
Well, now, with a house full of my ancestral furniture, I had an interesting experience. Our dining room has hosted two sideboards, both over 100 years old, from two sides of the family. The first one was my mother's dresser, her mother's before her, and it became our first real sideboard after Mum's move in 2007. Then last summer the "monster" sideboard that dominated the cottage came to live here too. The dresser didn't seem to belong anymore, and yet I couldn't imagine using it as a dresser for me. It was too special. I could make do with the painted cheap one in our room, even if the drawers would always stick and the handles hurt and it wasn't really big enough.
Then I began to think that really it could come to live in my bedroom, that it would look great, and that it would be okay to let go of the old crummy one. And my sister said it was about time I had some decent furniture in our bedroom!!! Now that it is there something deep has settled in my being. Making space for the "new", letting go of the old, has brought new life and solidity to our room. The new is actually old, as in family and heritage, and it seems God is really saying that is part of the new new for me.
Embracing the future can mean embracing the past in a new way. Making space for God's plans can mean making more space for ourselves, our heritage, our history, and as we embrace it in deep personal ways it can bring new healing and joy into our lives. I have been doing that in many ways these past years, and it never ceases to amaze me how it continues. This "new" furniture in my intimate space, our bedroom, is a new version of the old. God works deeper as He works wider. Expanding our horizons can sometimes just mean rearranging the furniture of our lives, letting go of some old stuff, and enjoying the new arrangements.
January 03, 2009
joy in finding new reflections out of Christmas lessons
Well, it's that time again, new year or not, for my weekly post on www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I so appreciate the regular challenge and opportunity of writing something for this blog, and doing my best to make it something worth reading in a devotional, reflective way. Speaking of being reflective, I am enjoying doing my final synopsis for the set of excellent courses I took this fall at Georgian College on Saturdays in Teaching and Training Adults. They were a refreshing revisiting of teaching and learning theory for me, without high pressure performance and evaluation. The final synopsis involves really sincerely reflecting upon my perspective and philosophy as a teacher. I have found it very enlightening and helpful, both for my past as a teacher and any future teaching I will do, and also for my understanding of myself and my orientation to learning, to people, to students, etc.
Here's my blog post for the team blog:
Taking Christmas Lessons into the New Year as Word-Made-Flesh
Incarnated lessons continue into this new year for me. Yes, indeed, our bodies remind us of our needs, and overcome our mind control when we need them to. Such was the lesson I learned on Christmas Day, written about here a week ago. But the lessons of incarnation are much bigger than that. Jesus was God in human form, but He was the Word. He was the Word that created the world and is the Word that still recreates it; He was and is the Word that heals people's bodies and minds miraculously. Words have power and are incarnated in many ways. We are His words in so much of what we do, and we know the deep conviction we feel when our words do not bring life.
I am reminded of these complexities as I do a teaching assignment on learning styles and multiple intelligences. I remember the ratio of communication from former classes in counselling - that the verbal component of communication is only 7%: the rest is made up of body language, context...all the non verbal stuff. I am excited that one of my Christmas gifts is a subscription to Scientific American Mind, which can keep me up to date in a popular sort of way with brain research. An area of fascination for me is EMDR, a form of trauma therapy using bilateral brain stimulation that helps to release traumatized emotion trapped in the amygdala,a small mass in each brain hemisphere deeply connected with memory and visual learning. Our bodies and minds are so complex, as well as the interaction between them. Would that they were as simple as the computerized system on my car that tells the mechanics which little part needs to be replaced or repaired.(and at such cost!!)Yet how wonderful it is that our complexity is so often overruled by God's simplicity, His healing and overcoming words.
My nephew's gift to each of us this Christmas was his words: not the oft repeated phrases of our Christmas greetings, but words specific to each of us, embellished with drawings and poems well chosen. I felt understood, cherished, and challenged. My daughters and niece have often written such insightful penetrating words, gifts of time and themselves in unforgettable ways. Others too, family, friends, mentors, acquaintances, strangers - I am touched by their words of affirmation and blessing, and they by mine. My daughter's photo story book about our life in Uganda (described in last week's post) was a word made flesh, with power to bless me, even as they disturbed me, with tears. I am sure those tears were not just grief, but joy in her creation, joy in our life there, joy in this reconnection.
My sister shared with me from her monthly digest of meditations a very insightful article on these aspects of incarnation. I share some of them here with you now:
Adapted from: Corbin Eddy's Who Knows the Shape of God? Homilies and Reflections for Year B (Ottawa: Novalis,2002) pp. 37-41
May we, as we go forward into a new year filled with the lessons from the Christmas season, be empowered with a greater sense of God's creative power at work within us and others, through our words and actions, through every way in which we show and experience the Word-made-flesh.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us; to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3: 20-21
Here's my blog post for the team blog:
Taking Christmas Lessons into the New Year as Word-Made-Flesh
Incarnated lessons continue into this new year for me. Yes, indeed, our bodies remind us of our needs, and overcome our mind control when we need them to. Such was the lesson I learned on Christmas Day, written about here a week ago. But the lessons of incarnation are much bigger than that. Jesus was God in human form, but He was the Word. He was the Word that created the world and is the Word that still recreates it; He was and is the Word that heals people's bodies and minds miraculously. Words have power and are incarnated in many ways. We are His words in so much of what we do, and we know the deep conviction we feel when our words do not bring life.
I am reminded of these complexities as I do a teaching assignment on learning styles and multiple intelligences. I remember the ratio of communication from former classes in counselling - that the verbal component of communication is only 7%: the rest is made up of body language, context...all the non verbal stuff. I am excited that one of my Christmas gifts is a subscription to Scientific American Mind, which can keep me up to date in a popular sort of way with brain research. An area of fascination for me is EMDR, a form of trauma therapy using bilateral brain stimulation that helps to release traumatized emotion trapped in the amygdala,a small mass in each brain hemisphere deeply connected with memory and visual learning. Our bodies and minds are so complex, as well as the interaction between them. Would that they were as simple as the computerized system on my car that tells the mechanics which little part needs to be replaced or repaired.(and at such cost!!)Yet how wonderful it is that our complexity is so often overruled by God's simplicity, His healing and overcoming words.
My nephew's gift to each of us this Christmas was his words: not the oft repeated phrases of our Christmas greetings, but words specific to each of us, embellished with drawings and poems well chosen. I felt understood, cherished, and challenged. My daughters and niece have often written such insightful penetrating words, gifts of time and themselves in unforgettable ways. Others too, family, friends, mentors, acquaintances, strangers - I am touched by their words of affirmation and blessing, and they by mine. My daughter's photo story book about our life in Uganda (described in last week's post) was a word made flesh, with power to bless me, even as they disturbed me, with tears. I am sure those tears were not just grief, but joy in her creation, joy in our life there, joy in this reconnection.
My sister shared with me from her monthly digest of meditations a very insightful article on these aspects of incarnation. I share some of them here with you now:
Spend a few moments with the central image of the (Christmas) story: a 'word taking flesh'. How does your own word take flesh? It begins in your mind, heart and soul, but takes concrete form 'in flesh'. Sometimes it takes flesh in language, sometimes in gesture, sometimes in a facial expression, perhaps even in a work of art.
A word or an idea cannot simply remain in our minds and hearts and expect another to receive it. To effect or create anything, it needs to be expressed. It can't do anything if it's bottled up. It has to come out somehow. A clenched fist is a word made flesh. A smile is a word made flesh. A spoken word is an idea, a concept or a feeling made flesh. A blueprint for a building or a work of art is a word made flesh.[...]
Jesus as Word-made-flesh does not come to rescue God's people from a dark and dangerous world, but to embrace that very world and to teach us how to embrace it in His spirit, to find abundant life in its abundant possibilities. [...]
It is the Word-made-flesh, Jesus born on Christmas Day, who is grace upon grace and the best and fullest sign of our own possibilities as words made flesh in our own right - for we are created in the image and likeness of God. In the very person of Jesus, God reveals humankind's highest and most glorious possibilities, and invites us to discover our highest potential and destiny in Jesus.
Adapted from: Corbin Eddy's Who Knows the Shape of God? Homilies and Reflections for Year B (Ottawa: Novalis,2002) pp. 37-41
May we, as we go forward into a new year filled with the lessons from the Christmas season, be empowered with a greater sense of God's creative power at work within us and others, through our words and actions, through every way in which we show and experience the Word-made-flesh.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us; to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3: 20-21
December 31, 2008
joy in rejoicing in this year, and looking forward to the next
What a prosaic title....but of course it's what we are all doing, I trust. It has been a hard year, and also a wonderful year. I have grown so much, and learned so much, and there is so much that I am grateful for, so much to look forward to, whatever the difficulties and trials of life. I trust it is the same for any of you reading this.
My plan to start a new blog will have to wait until the new year...part of the whole thing of being realistic and not binding myself into boxes and rules that I don't need to...keeping dates that don't matter and trying to tie things up neatly instead of just letting them be what they are...so whenever it happens, I will have a new blog...and tie this one into it...it doesn't have to be neatly at the end of the year or the beginning of the new one...
To anyone who reads this from time to time, bless your hearts and days in the year to come!!!
My plan to start a new blog will have to wait until the new year...part of the whole thing of being realistic and not binding myself into boxes and rules that I don't need to...keeping dates that don't matter and trying to tie things up neatly instead of just letting them be what they are...so whenever it happens, I will have a new blog...and tie this one into it...it doesn't have to be neatly at the end of the year or the beginning of the new one...
To anyone who reads this from time to time, bless your hearts and days in the year to come!!!
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