Homework

The posts this week have been based on part of a Sunday school lesson I taught from  the first chapter of the book, "Light of the World: the Meaning of Memory" by Amy-Jill Levine.  At the end of the lesson, I gave the class homework with the goal of trying to help them to create a space to hear the voice of God.  Here are the options I gave them altered a little to expand them beyond Advent.  Is there one that you might try?

• If you want to know about what it means that John was to be the new Elijah (which we didn’t  discuss at all), read Malachi 4:5-6 and compare it to Luke 1:16-17.  This one is very specific to the lesson and to Advent, but it leads us to the idea that understanding scripture requires homework.  It's not understanding through simple osmosis (or only attending Sunday school).
• Consider ways to re-hear the gospel.  Reread either the Magnificat (Mary’s song) or the  Benedictus (Zechariah’s song).  Rewrite them in your own words.
• Use your phone’s timer and sit in a quiet place for 2 minutes.  What does 2 minutes of silence  feel like? Can you be silent for 5 minutes? 10 minutes?
• Choose a book and read it during Advent – a little at a time so that you can savor it.  And it doesn't have to be only during Advent.  
• Start today and read one chapter of Luke a day.  After 24 days, you will have read the whole  book.

Prayer Vigil

Our church hosts a prayer vigil each Lenten season - usually beginning on Holy Saturday, and continuing until Easter morning.  Each slot is an hour long.

I participated several years, but I don't think I've done it lately. This year I claimed the Sunday morning 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. hour to pray.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. It didn't seem like a good idea this morning.  I realized it meant getting up an hour early and getting ready by 8:00 a.m.  We leave the house at 9I:00 a.m., so I would need to finish the prayer time and then walk about the door.  No lazy Easter morning for me.

I even considered skipping it.  Shortening it.  Doing it at a different time.  Something to change what I had agreed to do.  But Steve had the hour before me, and he got up early, and he went downstairs to spend the hour in prayer.  Sigh.  I guess I would do it, too.

I had forgotten.  It had been so long since I spent an hour in prayer, all at one time, dedicated with no interruptions, that I had forgotten what a joy it is.  

I need to be more intentional about this.  I need to be more disciplined about this.  I just need to do it.

Open Eyes - Still

I was walking through downtown Charleston during May, and I saw a bookcase out on the street (for those who know Charleston, it was outside of Taylor Books). For some reason, I stopped and snapped a picture with my iPhone. As I thought about that, I remembered that years ago, I would carry my camera around, and use it for a lens to look for God - to open my eyes to God's presence.

In May, I realized that I hadn't been doing that. So, I went onto my Facebook account, and posted that I was going to do a Month of Images: to open my eyes.  I did it, posting images every day for a month.

I did remind me to look around, and I'm still doing it, even though I don't post an image on Facebook every day - just every so often.

What discipline do you use to open your eyes to God?

Two Disciplines

I've picked up two disciplines lately.

First, I'm back to blogging.  To many people that would not seem to be a discipline, but I find to be.  Giving intentional thought to matters of faith, daily, has an impact on my journey.  I've noticed it, even in just the last few days.  I think about God more, I watch for God more, I note God's presence more.  All of that, I think, makes me open to God more.  It might be someone odd to do that kind of journaling online (which is what blogging is to me), but I find it helpful.  And hopeful.

Secondly, as I mentioned a few days ago, I'm serving on the prayer team for an Emmaus Walk.  This is a new role for me - I think I've done every lay role now except for music (which no one would ever want me to do!).  After I said yes to the walk lay director, I started thinking about serving in the prayer chapel. Previously, I had served as media tech, and that position requires much preparation (at least it does for me to be comfortable on a walk).  I wondered what kind of prep work would be helpful for a person serving in the prayer chapel.  Hmm.  Prayer, I think.  So I started a prayer journal for the walk.  I try (especially recently) to write my prayers in it daily.  It's helpful.  And I hope that it prepares me for the task of praying during the weekend.

What disciplines can you pick up that would be helpful and hopeful for you?  It's such an individual decision - you need to decide what is best for who you are.  God's blessings on your decision.

Surround Sound

Last week, I attended three concerts - all of them at our local University and all of them concerts in which my younger son was playing trumpet.  A great music week.

At the beginning of the last one, the symphonic band lined up around the walls of the concert hall, surrounding us.  The lights went completely out, so that the room was dark.  The Director walked down the middle aisle, and began directing the concert band using a glow stick.  Really, really cool idea.

The music filled the space.  I have two trumpet playing sons, and I've been to many band concerts, but this was band music unlike any I've ever experienced.  It was surround sound.  The music wasn't in front of me on the stage, but it was all around me. I was in the center of the music.  And in the dark, the music was all there was.  I couldn't watch the players or the audience.  I was even in front of the conductor, so I didn't watch the bouncing glow stick.  I just closed my eyes, and was IN the music.  It was fantastic.

I wonder perhaps if that is what following regular spiritual disciplines will lead us to.  We come close enough to God that we can close our eyes to everything else - everything that distracts us - and sit in the center of God's will, God's music, and just be.  Surrounded by God.

Wax and Wane

This morning I watched this video by Sandy Allnock.


She is an artist who does paper-crafting - mainly cards.  In it, she is talking to her future self.  She is currently experiencing a very creative and productive time in the work she does, but remembers that previously, she had about an eight month period of low mojo - a less than creative and productive time.  Creativity, naturally, I think, experiences sine waves of intensity - there are times when we are more creative than other times.  In the video, Sandy shares three things she wants her future, not-as-creative self to remember.  As I listened to her, I thought what she was saying would apply to our spiritual lives, as well.  My experience, and the experience of others I have spoken with, is that there are times when we feel closer to God than other times. Do we just wait for the distance to end, or is there something we can do about it.

1. Sandy advises her future self to "just do something, every day."  Doodle, make something (anything!), color, play with art - even if she doesn't feel inspired or if the product isn't any good.  Just keep practicing.  I think we can do that spiritually, too.  Spiritual disciplines aren't designed for when we feel God close close close.  They are designed for when God isn't close.  Just do something, everyday.  Read, pray, praise, worship, fast, meditate, listen to music, speak with other Christians, feed the hungry - just do something everyday, even if you don't feel inspired.  Practice, even if it doesn't seem as if anything good is coming out of it.
2. Secondly, Sandy tells herself to be ruthless.  Her discipline is to put the cards she makes in a box, and when the box is full, to throw the worst one away.  It's a reminder to her that there are standards. The is a level of proficiency below which she will not accept.  This means that sometimes she makes a card, and she won't put it in the box because she knows it isn't good enough.  She'll work on it some more, or she'll toss it before it makes it to the box.  I'm not sure how we can apply this to our spiritual lives, because we don't often produce something that we can add to a box, but I think it speaks to us about how we accept the times of distance; perhaps we tell ourselves that this is not acceptable.  As a Christian, there is a line of spirituality that we will not cross; we cannot just give up on wait for things to get better.  There are things we can do to improve our relationship with God, even when we don't feel like it, so we can't just give up.
3. Sandy's third piece of advice is to try something new.  Make something different.  If painting isn't working, then do fiber craft.  If card making doesn't inspire, then go write a poem.  Do something new that you didn't think you would like.  We can do that, too.  Inspiration for teaching Sunday school not there?  Then go volunteer at a homeless shelter.  Having trouble getting up and going to worship?  Try writing cards to homebound people.  Go visit them.  Stretch yourself and try something you don't think you will like.  Your devotional time in the morning feeling flat?  Throw out your resource and find something new.  Go on a retreat!

How close we feel to God can wax and wane, but God is always there.  We don't have to accept the distance as unavoidable.  Even if what we do isn't immediately effective, perhaps there is something we can learn about ourselves or about God during these quiet times.

Power in Music

I have been traveling for the past couple of days.  On one of my flights, to block out the sounds of the engines, I was listening to music on my iPod.  I found a playlist called 'Mom" so I chose it, wondering what songs might be part of the list.  They were contemporary Christian songs from probably 2006 and 2007, just after my Walk to Emmaus.  As I listened, I remembered driving in the car with that playlist going, windows rolled down, singing in joy to the music.

Listening to that music again, that I hadn't heard in so long, not only brought back memories, but also echoes of the closeness I felt to God at the time.  Music has power to do that.

In my reunion group, we've talked about how we don't always feel as close to God as we might have in the past.  I've shared that I think our feelings of spirituality ebb and wane, like waves.  And that's OK.  Notice that I have used the word "feel" pretty often in this post.  I don't think we will "feel" close to God all the time, but that doesn't mean that we aren't close to God, or that God isn't close to us.  It is a gift at times to recognize that the veil is thinner.  Even so, during times when God's presence isn't felt, we can know that God is near.

Even so, we are not pingpong balls floating on the ocean.  We have the capacity to open ourselves up to God, and to be ready for God-encounters.  How do we do that?  There are many spiritual disciples that we can do, and they are called disciplines, I think, because we are to do them even when we don't feel like it.  Think of the word discipline as translating to "routine."

How does that relate to music?  It might be that if you are looking to have a few moments of "feeling" close to God, you might want to listen to music that has been part of your spiritual moments in the past.  Like the scent of baking bread, those songs have the power to trigger memories and feelings from higher worship moments in the past.  Secondly, listen to music that you haven't heard before, or that you don't associate with those moments - yet.  See if the music itself can draw the experience of God closer.

Music has power.

*The playlist was called "mom" because one of my sons, probably Grant, set it up for me because I didn't yet know anything about iTunes.  

A More Generous Love

Several years ago I was a student in a Disciple I class.  The teacher of that class taught us several ways to move deeper into a Biblical passage - questions to ask of any passage to seek out the meaning in it.  Those bible study techniques have stuck with me, and I often use them when I teach, to lead the class into the passage.

I was reading Nouwen's book, Here and Now, this morning. The chapter I read was about reading spiritually.  We often read to gain knowledge, but to read spiritually, is to allow God to read us.  He says, "Spiritual reading is reading with an inner attentiveness to the movement of God's Spirit in our outer and inner lives.  With that attentiveness, we will allow God to read us and to explain to us what we are truly about."

It's a different way of reading, isn't it?

Nouwen writes that we should ask the question, "How does God speak to me here and call me to a more generous love?"  I like that as a way to read the Bible.  What is God using in this passage to lead me to a more generous love?  Using that question can allow God to read us - to point out to us where we are not being loving, not being generous.  Through that question, God can open our hearts to feel a more generous love toward someone else.