From Inward/outward

By Thomas Keating
The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from God.
Source: Open Mind, Open Heart

journaling

This is copied from the current issue of Christian Century magazine.
Question; Does this apply for blogging and facebook?

Write on: Researchers have known there are health benefits from journaling, whether the writing is about good experiences or traumatic ones. Researchers at the University of Missouri concluded that it doesn't take much writing to matter: they saw results after only two minutes of writing for two days
(British Journal of Health, October 30, 2007).

WHEN DEVELOPING a disciplined practice,
one of the most valuable gifts we can give ourselves is gentleness. In everyday life, we tend to associate discipline with rigidity, rules, and consequences for misbehavior. Sometimes this kind of discipline is indeed necessary. However, we tend to downplay the equally important role of gentleness in making changes. Change requires a great deal of effort from anyone engaged in it, even if the change is positive. Change plunges a previously ordered system into temporary chaos, and chaos is stressful. Gentleness takes into account our effort and stress; treating ourselves gently is a way of offering encouragement and appreciation for the work being done.
- Sarah Parsons
A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent
From p. 52
of A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent
by Sarah Parsons.
Copyright © 2005 by the author. All Rights Reserved.

From Verse and Voice at Sojourners

The Talmud reads, "Never pray in a room without windows." Never pray without the world in mind, in other words. The purpose of the spiritual life is not to save us from reality. It is to enable us to go on co-creating it.
- Joan Chittister

Misc.

Light snow today, and cold. Are the seasons moving backwards? I am thinking of the people working with Red River valley flooding. My son, Nick, plans to leave tomorrow along with other HS students to do a day of sandbag work in Fargo . He doesn't remember it but he was around that work back in 1997 when we were sandbagging in Ortonville. Sara is back to Duluth; with stories from her road trip to Arizona. I plan to use her restaurant hospitality story in my sermon tonight at Light of the Lakes. I am preaching on the "I am the bread of Life" words of Jesus.
We had a full table for the lectionary group today. That was fun. We are helping with Interfaith Hospitality work this week and hope to have some guests from there as part of our usual Wed night church supper. Tomorrow and Friday I will help with some afternoon transportaion
My parents have returned from Arizona, back to TRF. Maybe the other sign of spring is the large green frog (concrete, ceramic or fiberglass?) that is set on the steps of house down on our block.

Praying the Decalogue

MARTIN LUTHER ENCOURAGED CHRISTIANS
to pray through the Ten Commandments each day as a form of spiritual evaluation.
Christians are to look at each commandment both positively and negatively:
that is, the negative commandment not to steal leads to reflection on the positive virtue of giving; the positive commandment to honor our parents invites reflection on how we might have dishonored them. Using this framework, pray through each commandment [Deuteronomy 5:6-8, 11-12, 16-21].
Allow God time to speak to your heart about the positive and negative elements of each one.

This will be an evaluative prayer,
so have a pen handy in case God brings to mind someone with whom you need to set things right.
- Meeting God in Scripture: Entering the Old Testament
From p. 29 of Meeting God in Scripture: Entering the Old Testament ,
Participant’s workbook.
Copyright © 2007 by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved

As a people, we are afraid of silence. That’s our major barrier to prayer. I believe silence and words are related. Words that don't come out of silence probably don't say much. They probably are more an unloading than a communicating.
Yet words feed silence, and that's why we have the word of God... the written word, the proclaimed word. But the written and proclaimed word, doesn't bear a great deal of fruit - it doesn't really break open the heart of the Spirit - unless it's tasted and chewed, unless it's felt and suffered and enjoyed at a level beyond words.
If I had to advise one thing for spiritual growth, it would be silence.
Thomas Merton, from Contemplative Prayer

We are afraid of religion because it interprets rather than just observes. Religion does not confirm that there are hungry people in the world; it interprets the hungry to be our brethren whom we allow to starve.
- Dorothee Sölle,German theologian and writer, Death by Bread Alone (1975)

GOD, JUST AS WE WEAR GREEN
on Saint Patrick’s Day,
you too seem to be a wearer of green.
Clearly it is your preferred color in painting creation.
No wonder green is the liturgical color for Ordinary Time, calling us to make the ordinary, extraordinary.
Your own vestments are woven of moss and fern,
celebrating your promise of making the whole earth your “emerald isle.” Amen.
- W. Paul Jones
An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful
From p. 104
of An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful
by W. Paul Jones. Copyright © 2006 by the author.
All Rights Reserved

Monday Rambles

Snow melting... water dripping..spring fever...and a day off from church stuff mostly, (only one trip to the hospital, three emails and 4 phone calls!) so washed/cleaned the car, got the oil changed, went for a walk, cleaned a little in the garage, cooked out on the grill, got the broken glass fixed on a kitchen window, and cleaned up some of the dirty winter snow debris.
And I think I have some ideas now for the Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday sermons and maybe a seed thought for Easter!
Sara has been texting updates for Arizona. She is at my sister's house in Payson tonight. Yesterday they hiked in the Grand Canyon. She texted me today that the Sedona UMC is made of adobe. Nick called from Chicago and is looking forward to seeing the Blue Man concert.

Updated rambles

It is a gorgeous snow melting day.
I finished the sermon for tomorrow; it s on the cleansing of the temple, gospel text. I walked over to say Happy Birthday to Alice for her open house. She is 95 years old! Sara is out on her spring break road trip and Nick left this morning for the school band trip to Chicago. Beth is trying to make some deadline for her PhD classes.
I might take another short walk and then read some more of Barbara Brown Taylor's newest book.
What's been going on?
The past week was a Monday with the Seniors group for our annual retreat. This year we looked at R. Job's Three Simple Rules. (Wilma Roberts plans to offer a more complete study when she returns.) On Wednesday afternoon we had a funeral . Ken had worked for the Highway patrol so we had quite an impressive display of officers in uniform from the State Highway Patrol but also the Sheriff and a DNR officer and a militairy honor guard from his military service as well. I was there in my alb and stole so I guess I have a uniform as well, to remind me of my duty, service and role. That could be another blog of its own.
Oh yeh, the usual lectionary group, confirmation class, pastoral calls, got added to the mix along with Thursday ministerial association and Trustees meeting. For the Lenten season we had a a very meaningful Wednesday evening service led by the people of Rejoice Lutheran. This next week we host the service. Carl Larson plans to preach on Jesus as the light so I have been writing and gathering prayers on the theme. On Friday I did a committal service at the Camp Ripley Veterans cemetery for a member of the Grand Rapids UMC on behalf of pastor Marva Jean. Connectionalism at work!
Sorry that the posts here have been sparse. Facebook seems to compete for the time that this blog might have received.
Thanks to the persons from Marshall and Red Wings areas that seem to check in now and them.
Rambling along.

From Richard Rohr

Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing—that we must go down before we even know what up is. In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all must "die before they die." Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as "whenever I am not in control."
If religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, humanity is in major trouble. All healthy religion shows us what to do with our pain. Great religion shows us what to do with our pain. Great religion shows us what to do with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust.
If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.
If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somewhere in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down. The natural movement of the ego is to protect itself so as not to be hurt again.
from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 25


http://www.cacradicalgrace.org

Be kind to yourself, dear – to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.

~ Rumi ~

TO BE HUMAN
means living a life of ups and downs,
experiencing the full range of emotions from great joy to great sorrow.
To resist sorrow, pain, anxiety, and confusion is tantamount to refusing to be human, and we lose much rich experience and closeness to God when we refuse to be our full selves.

- Sarah Parsons
A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent
From p. 18 of A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent
by Sarah Parsons. Copyright © 2005 by Sarah Parsons. All Rights Reserved.

Bill Holm poems

Advice
Someone dancing inside us
has learned only a few steps:
the "Do-Your-Work" in 4/4 time,
the "What-Do-You-Expect" Waltz.
He hasn't noticed yet the woman
standing away from the lamp.
the one with black eyes
who knows the rumba.
and strange steps in jumpy rhythms
from the mountains of Bulgaria.
If they dance together,
something unexpected will happen;
if they don't, the next world
will be a lot like this one.
Bill Holm



CPR OR No CPR
We bring Aunt Martha to the nursing home.
They weigh her,
barely a hundred pounds,
and we help her lie down for a nap.
She closes her eyes,
and the lines of her frail body
almost vanish in her loose-fitting black dress.
I remember how this woman,
after her husband died,
ran the farm herself,
operating tractors and combines,
digging post holes and stretching barbed wire,
dehorning cattle and castrating pigs.
She cooked, too, and baked bread,
and fixed her daughters' hair.
Everyone knew Martha could do anything.
Now the nurse adjusts the Venetian blinds
and, speaking softly,
tells us we'll have to talk it over with Martha
when she wakes up
and decide which box
to check on her chart--
"No CPR" means that if she ever stops breathing,
they won't try to bring her back.
Standing near her bed, we talk in whispers,
wondering how we'll raise this subject,
when, without opening her eyes,
she speaks in the voice she once used to direct
a crew of men shelling corn or filling silo,
"I'll kill anyone who brings me back."
Leo Dangel: Home from the Field

WE ARE BORN
and we shall all die.
The person who is in communion with God wears mortality comfortably. To be with God is to be at home in this world and the next.
- Rueben P. Job A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God
From p. 114 of A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God
by Norman Shawchuck and Rueben P. Job.