Monday, March 28, 2011

Diamonds

Grace is the beauty of priceless diamonds that are somewhat evasive, cannot be produced by human beings, and suddenly surprise.  You have seen this precious gift of grace -on a sunny day when looking out over an almost still body of water -the sunshine glistens and sparkles in a fantastic shimmer of  light, sparkle, twinkles. It is a breathtaking scene that surprises and delights.  The dance of light is brighter than any rock diamond, sequined dress, or disco ball.  At the 10.5k part of a run, it is the sigh of a thank-you to the Creator; it is the aha of, "this is why I came out for a run today";  it is the sight to keep one running, in the hopes of seeing the next piece of grace along the way.
May you be blessed with surprising instances of sparkling grace.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

when the snow melts away

Today I was in the front garden raking off the top layer of leaves; the bottom layer is still frozen.  Come to discover that the foot board and head board that I had secured to the front of the house, side by side to add dimention to the flower bed, were stolen; both of them.  I was disappointed by the discovery and wondered how long it has been without me noticing their disappearance.
 What I did find however, was my orange pen that has been missing since December.  The orange pen is the one I use when reading to make notes that are my own thoughts, additional to the work being read, that are thoughts related to future thesis writing. That was a fantastic surprise.  Better yet, the pen still works.
 There were other items I happened upon today that were momentarily waylaid.  Grace was in finding the lost!
I wonder if I'll ever find the foot and head boards?

Thursday, March 17, 2011

tears

Yesterday I was sad, close to tears ...just on the brink one might say.  But tears are good. 
 I saw tears today in the eyes of a colleague.  I saw tears in the eyes of a daughter.  I heard tears from the other end of a phone call.  For the past few days I felt tears in the world around me; it rained.
Today amidst the tears sprung sunshine: perhaps it was a lightness of people as they went revelling in green for St.Patty's day, or the crocus and snowdrops, or the distant past being put to rest for one child, or emotions  being deflatted ---through tears.
 Wet grace.

P.S. never be too strong by holding the tears inside.  Let tears fall and share them, perhaps your tears will give permission for  someone else to feel wet grace too.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

when there are no words

It has been a horrendous week; in the world, at home, in my very being.
The Prayers of the People, this morning in church, were done during the Kid's Corner. As we sat at the front we talked about sighing -how perhaps during 40 days of fasting in the wilderness that Jesus sighed.
We talked about praying and not always knowing what to say. We talked about the Spirit groaning within/praying when words are too little. So we tried it.
The prayer mentioned the catastrophies in the world - we sighed. as the prayer went on, we sighed more deeply, more prayerfully; tears came and we sighed with thanks for love where we see it and for the breathe of life for this day.
Grace was found where words were gone and all that was was a sigh.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

FERN HILL by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
 About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
 The night above the dingle starry,
 Time let me hail and climb
 Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
 And honoured among wagons I was prince fo the apple towns
 And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
 Trail with daisies and barley
 Down the rivers fo the windfall light.

 And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
 About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
 In the sun that is young once only,
 Time let me play and be
 Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
 Sang to my hornm the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
 And the sabbath rang slowly
 In the pebbles of the holy streams.
  
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
 Fields hig as the house, the tunes from teh chimneys, it was air
 and plying, lovely and watery
 And fire green as grass.
 And nightly under the simple stars
 As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
 All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
 Flying with the ricks, and the horses
 Flashing into the dark.

 And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the brith of the simple light
 In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
 Our of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

 And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
 Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was ong,
 In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
 My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing i cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
 In all his tuneful turning so few and such monring songs
 Befor ethe children green and golden
 Follow him out of grace,

 Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
 Up to the swallow throughed loft by the shadow o fmy hand,
 In the moon that is always rising,
 Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
 And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
 Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
 Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

home spa

There is nothing better than 11 hours of sleep last night; I need say no more!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Obis form

Presently it is 8:23pm.  For the past hour I have thought of one thing, going to bed as I have been rather tired all day.  When I finish this post, I am going to get out fresh Egyptian cotton sheets, strip and remake our obis form mattress. Then I will crawl in with an academic book (as these occupy my thoughts so the mind doesn't go wild when trying to sleep after the light goes out) and put my head on my chiropractic pillow.  Ahhh.  Grace to be found in surrounding soft comfort.  Happy and blessed dreams to all of you.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Sunday Feb.27th, sermon

Epiphany VIII

The state of the world: it flashes in newspaper headlines, 20 second blips on the radio, and in fragmented sentences on Twitter.  I am reminded of the Billy Joel song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire”; a song lyric that was a rhythmic list of the state of the world from Billy Joel’s perspective beginning in the year he was born 1949 through 1989. The song pointed to “the fire” - a nod to conflict and societal turmoil.

You know the song I mean: it begins -
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell,
And so on...
The last two weeks of newspaper headlines, radio blips, and tweets could write a new version of the song many times over.

Earthquakes, after-shocks, flooding, power out
Gas price, soaring oil, lyme disease, bad cocaine

Epidemics, euthanasia, threats of a bio-terror
Propaganda, protests, sanctions, state unrest

Iraq, Iran, imams, Afghanistan
Saudi, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia

Gadhafi, Mubarak, leaders up in arms
Gunshots, streets unsafe, justice, prison breaks

Billy Joel said:
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

What else do I have to say.  I can’t take it anymore.

And then in the midst of this chaotic mess we are confronted this morning with words written in a different rhythm.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither toil nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?.....Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you –you of little faith?  Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” for it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But strive first for the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Continuing with the chorus of the afore mentioned song:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn’t start the fire –this is true; but I wonder if we really try to fight it today –or rather do we simply grumble about the terrible mess the world is in from our removed relatively safe perspective; then we settle into our lazy boy chairs with a cup of steaming coffee -to fear, lament and worry that our pension plans will plummet and we’ll have to pay 3 and ½ cents more for a litre of gasoline. 
Worry; this has become our society’s collective protest.
Worry; it hasn’t stopped any conflict in the world, it hasn’t warmed the heart of any world leader.
Worry; hasn’t managed to control the weather, the earth’s crust, or the spreading of pandemics.
Worry; hasn’t made us feel safer.

Worry –means we have too much stuff that we are afraid of losing.
Worry –means that we have too much time on our hands and a lack of vision.
Worry –is the absence of hope and a void in our spiritual well being.
Worry – puts into question our relationship and understanding of God.

A search for the opposite of worry –returned the answers:
Peace, ...confidence, ...faith, ...trust, ...feeling love, ...calm, ...fearless, ...being happy, ...prayer
I wonder if any of these words are the answer to the epidemic of worry that has invaded and paralyzed our society and unfortunately us as well.
For weeks we have been sitting on the mountain and eavesdropping on Jesus as he speaks to the disciples.
Jesus began with the beatitudes, highlighting words like: poor, meek, merciful, pure, peacemakers, happy.
Jesus talked kingdom talk with images of the disciples being salt and light to the world.
Jesus commended the disciples to not just keep the law, but live it in its fullness –loving God, loving neighbour –doing more than simple responsibility by selflessly giving one’s cloak and walking the extra mile to relationship.
Jesus teaches the disciples to pray.
Through these teachings Jesus instructs the disciples in the “how-to” of the following command,  “do not worry”.  Jesus in wisdom proceeds the “do not worry” with the how so that the disciples have no need to fret about the how.

Taking Jesus words and integrating them into our lives will not be easy this week.
To not worry, will take discipline, faith – in fact it will be an impossible task...so let’s make a commitment to start to heal our addiction to worry.
How?
Give something away to someone who needs it more: something from your home, something useful, something you have a connection to.  This is the beginning of having less to worry about- some day it may lead to downsizing.
Take two minutes every day to sit and pray.  Pray by offering to God by name, the places of chaos in the world.  This is the beginning of letting go of things over which you have no control –they become no longer yours to worry about.
As you go to bed and are waiting to fall asleep each night, concentrate on the goodness you experienced throughout your day.  Consider how you can add goodness to tomorrow.

These are simple commitments to make; baby steps in our growing journey away from worry - heeding Jesus’ words; and in time to totally move from worry and live in the fullness of faith.

In your giving of something away, in your two minutes a day of prayer, in your concentration on goodness and bringing goodness,  -in your endeavour to rid your life of worry – may God fill the void and make you whole.

God Is Known- Eye to Eye, Heart to Heart

  The following lines from today’s scripture weave together in my mind.   I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their he...