Friday, July 12, 2013


A meditation on the water softener
I was attempting a time of silent prayer the other morning, but I kept getting distracted by the sounds. The birds were singing just outside the window. The furnace would start up. I could hear a clock ticking on the wall. I decided to turn the “distractions” into signals and meditations.
Birds were singing the simple joys of
life. The furnace reminded me that the Holy Spirit was a fire to be warm within me. The ticking clock pointed me to be patient in the good steadiness of God’s time.
Then I could hear the water softener. It was starting its re-charging cycle. I knew that I had just recently added salt. I thought of the salt and the water
and how the softener would remove the hardness, or reduce some of the minerals that would otherwise build up inthe system. I wondered if I had a spiritual water softening cycle as well. Is that what prayer is also about: recharging and removing some of the hardness that builds up in my system?
I need softer water. Jesus gives us this living water and we are called to be salt of the earth and to have salt. I thought of how the water softener is set on a regular schedule to do its re-conditioning. I can also re-program it for times when I need it to work more often because of more water usage.
Maybe I should at least be as organized as the plumbing in my house. Refill the salt. Keep the re-charge schedule of prayer and worship. Schedule more when needed. Care for the hardness that builds up my heart.
Soften my heart, O God. Let me enjoy the water of life you offer.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Some good words for the day by way of inward/outward

Accepted and Loved


When I discover that I am accepted and loved as a person, with my strengths and weaknesses, when I discover that I carry within myself a secret, the secret of my uniqueness, then I can begin to open up to others and respect their secret.
Each human being, however small or weak, has something to bring to humanity. As we start to really get to know others, as we begin to listen to each other's stories, things begin to change. We begin the movement from exclusion to inclusion, from fear to trust, from closedness to openness, from judgment and prejudice to forgiveness and understanding. It is a movement of the heart.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Obviously I have not  been posting. But think about this. The last post with text was called When Advent Comes.  Now I have  been appointed to Advent United Methodist Church but when that post was made in November I had no idea that would be in my future.  And the date, November 11, 2011, would also be 11-11-11 which happens to be my wife's favorite and we enjoy noting  11:11 time signals as good omens,   But my "sign" is that the post after Advent simply says : "God in All" 
I look forward to ministry at Advent trusting that God is in it all!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Friday, November 11, 2011

When Advent Comes

I will revisit these words and listen for the Advent terms!

Hope
By Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.

Source: The Cure at Troy

posted at inward/outward on 11-11-2011