"Find the gap where God lives."

"May you grow sleepy enough

to find the gap where God lives. 

may your soul find it's waking there."

Jan Richardson

It was early on a Friday morning.  A day that is set aside for my writing. It is my intention to get the basic outline of the sermon I plan to preach on Sunday morning.  Early in the week, I look at the readings and begin the process of picking out words or ideas that jump out at me.  One of the many gifts of preaching each week is the need to live in the words and stories of scripture very intentionally.  

Each time a reading comes up in the lectionary, we are in a different place.  Scripture has the mysterious and magical way of speaking to us all these years later.  God in God's infinite wisdom is able to be present to us, when we open our hearts and minds. 

One of the disciplines that I know really allows me to learn and grow with God is that of writing.  I have a love, hate relationship with writing.  Anne Lamott wrote a great book called; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.  One of her many thoughts that I could identify with is the following; 

"Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train.   You don’t drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor’s yard every time it piddles on the floor  You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper. " 

Lent is a time that I try very hard to look at the things in my life that strengthen or deepen my relationship with God.  Writing is one of them.  But like any of the other things we do that challenge us, it requires discipline. Sometimes we don't feel like it.  Sometimes nothing is there.  What then?  Are we not trying hard enough?  No, not usually.  Usually we need to pay attention.  Pay attention to were we are, pay attention to what we need, pay attention to what God may be inviting us to.  

As I was feeling empty or stuck, I picked up the meditation book that I am working with right now.  Jan Richardson's; In the Sanctuary of Women.  In it she shared some thoughts from Thomas Moore, that talked about threshold spaces, those time when we let our mind off the hook, those times when we just let our minds wander and be.  

"Moore is making a case that awareness, wisdom, and soulfulness do not arrive solely through perpetually vigilant consciousness.  There is a different kind of waking that comes in giving ourselves to practices that cultivate a mindfulness of mystery.  I add my own: walking, lectio divina, lingering at the dinner table with friends, creating or encountering artwork, poetry. "

Reading this reflection was so freeing for me.  I have discovered over the last couple of years that I try so hard to find language for something sometimes that by brain hurts.  I want the words!  How do I say this?  Yet, nothing comes.  In these cases it is not about my mind being a wandering puppy, or my own avoidance.  It is time to breath and step away.  It is time to let my mind learn and interpret and speak in other ways.  

"What practices help you be present to the God who delights in meeting us not only in our focused awareness but also in the gaps in our attention, in dreams, in mystery?"  

Jan Richardson

On this morning, after this meditation, I stepped away from words.  The sun was out.  I bundled up.  I got the leash and the snow shoes and the dog and I went and played in the snow.  I played with the camera.  We played.  We wandered.  

On this Monday in the third week of Lent.  I invite you to let you mind wander.  Let God speak to you in the many different ways that your senses allow.  

"Even in the desert,

even in the wilderness,

sabbath comes. 

May you keep it. 

Light the candles, 

say the prayers: 

Welcome Sabbath.

Welcome, rest. 

Enter in 

and be our guest." 

Jan Richardson