Be surprised!!

"What matters in the deeper experience of contemplation is not the doing and accomplishing.  What matters is relationship."  Loretta Ross-Gotta


Today had been one of those days where each thing that I have tried to complete has required so many more steps than are really needed.  Each thing I thought might be quickly accomplished either required information I didn't have, couldn't find or required making phone calls.

Many times in my life it has been these days that have eventually turned into a day of complete lack of productivity.  This is due to my eventual giving up and being worn down by my own struggle and frustration.  This struggle and frustration is almost always with myself.  Why aren't I more organized?  Why didn't I keep that piece of paper?  What are your questions?  I am praying that you have some also.

Advent is a time of reflection and renewal.  It provides us with a time of intentional prayer and discernment.  One of the books that I am using this Advent is:  "Watch For the Light,  Readings for Advent and Christmas."  It is a collection put together for each day.  Today's reading is:  "To Be a Virgin" by Loretta Ross Gotta.

After running around my space, looking everywhere for a prayer that I wanted to include today, I kept thinking, let it go, let it go.  I eventually stopped and sat down with my prayerbook and this advent reflection book and began to breath.  One of the first things I was reminded of was the above quote. 

 "What matters in the deeper experience of contemplation is not the doing and accomplishing. What matters is relationship."  

Mary was a young woman, some would argue girl.  Many believe she was around the age of 16.  When the angel asked if she would carry Jesus, God incarnate, she said yes.  Really in the scheme of things she asked very few questions.

"It may be good and well for Mary to offer space in herself for God to dwell and be born into the world, but few of us possess the radical belief such recollection requires."

How is it that we create space for God to be born again in our lives?  Where is the fertile ground for which something to grow?  We do this not by doing all the right things, not by trying to be something we aren't.  We do this by believing and loving the spirit that lies with each of us, that is growing each breath we take.  

"The redemption of the creation is resting on the consent-the choice of this mortal woman to believe fearlessly that what she is experiencing is true.  And to claim and live out that truth by conceiving the fruit of salvation."  

Claiming and living out our truth is a central tenant to our faith.  We are called to be the instruments of God's love and word in the world around us.  We are called to speak the truth even when that feels hard.  We are called to live into the love and passion that Jesus came to teach us.  It is through that very love and passion that we are called to love others.  We must love ourselves as we would love those around us.  

"We think we have to make Christmas come, which is to say we think we have to bring about the redemption of the universe on our own.  When all God needs is a willing womb, a place of safety, nourishment, and love."  

Each year as I pray with and about Mary I am in awe of her offering, her willingness to say Yes!  Yet again, in my hustle and bustle of needing to get things done, it has been in the stopping that I am really only able to say Yes.  It is really only with the reminder that God continues to move and grow in each of us.  When we can breath, give thanks and let go, God has a far more open door.  

"In the end, when all other human gifts have met their inevitable limitation, it is the recollected one, the bold virgin with a heart in love with God who makes a sanctuary of her life, who delivers Christ who then delivers us."  

Years ago, a man far older and wiser than I used to ask me the same questions each time God needed him to.  Do you have all you need today?  My answer, regardless of how hard I thought my life was, was always yes.  Then he would tell me to start my day over again. My day has begun again.  How is it that we can made sanctuaries of our lives?  How is it that we can say Yes, to the lives God is calling us to live? How can we remember the things that are most important? 

On this December day, let us remember all those that mean so much to us.  Let us give thanks for the many blessings we have.  God continues to call us out of our comfort zone but we are not alone.  

Loretta Ross-Gotta ended her reflection with the following statement.  I offer it to you as we all go out to the world in a new way.  Be surprised!!!

" What if, instead of doing something, we were to be something special?  Be a womb.  Be a dwelling for God. Be surprised." 

Amen!!

"I Stand By the Door"

Recently in conversation this poem has come up and I was able to share it.  It is without doubt one of my favorite poems of all time.  Now with the gift of technology we also have a reading.  

Who was standing by the door for you?  What was that like?  Are you able to stand by the door today? 

The lectionary Page:

SAMUEL SHOEMAKER

PRIEST AND EVANGELIST, 1963
 

Sam Shoemaker, DD, STD (1893-1963), was an Episcopal priest who was instrumental in the Oxford Group and founding principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Samuel Moor Shoemaker was the rector of the Calvary Church in New York City, which was the United States headquarters of the Oxford Group. Bill Wilson attended Oxford Group meetings at the Calvary Church and Sam was instrumental in assisting Bill Wilson with the writing of the bookAlcoholics Anonymous (nickname: The Big Book). Bill acknowledged this linkage when he wrote in the book, A.A. Comes of Age (page 39):

In 1917, Sam Shoemaker had been sent to China to start a branch of the YMCA and to teach at the Princeton-in-China Program. There, in 1918, feeling discouraged, he first met Frank Buchman who told him of the four absolutes, honesty, purity and unselfishness and love. Later, Shoemaker would speak of the meeting as a major influence for the start of his ministry, that being the time when he decided to let go of self and let God guide his life

Bill Wilson, in 1955, would later give credit to Sam Shoemaker whom he referred to as a co-founder of AA.

" It was from Sam Shoemaker, that we absorbed most of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, steps that express the heart of AA's way of life. Dr. Silkworth gave us the needed knowledge of our illness, but Sam Shoemaker had given us the concrete knowledge of what we could do about it, he passed on the spiritual keys by which we were liberated. The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Group and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and from nowhere else."

Rev. Shoemaker wrote over thirty books, at least half of which were circulating before A.A.’s 12 Steps were first published in the Big Book in 1939."

Advent Conspiracy 2011

Gracious God, be in.......

Gracious God, be in.......

"Holy God, be in my mind
that I might let go of all
that diminishes the
movement of Your spirit
within me.

Discerning God, be in my
eyes, that I might see You
in the midst of all the busyness
that fills my life.

Loving God, be in my
heart, that I can be open
to those I love, to those
with whom I share
ministry and to the whole
human family.

Gracious God, be in that
grace filled silence that
lies deep within, that I
might live in Christ
as Christ live in me.
Amen"      CREDO

Have you ever laid your head on the pillow at night with a running list of all those things you so wished you had finished that day.  Phone calls, cards or bills mailed, loops closed that you were sure today was the day these would get done.  Yet you lay there thinking, where did my day go?  How could I already be this exhausted, how could it be time to get some sleep?

My guess, or prehaps, my hope, is that we have all experienced this.  Recently a friend of mine posted on facebook:  ""I would like a refund on this past month.  The November I received clearly only had about five days in it.  Thank you."  Laughing out loud is one of those things I love, and this person hit the nail on the head for me.  Where did it go??  Others seem to be getting so much more done than I, or are they?

Who do we hold ourselves up to?  Who and maybe more importantly why do we feel the need to compare ourselves to others?  Each and every one of us know deep in our hearts how we can best use our day.  We all know that we live in the reality of this world.  Demands of jobs, family, friends and community pull us out, pull us away from that still small voice within. This is not to say that any of these things aren't blessings and important.  But how often do we allow these needs to block the room that God is trying to settle in, to grow?

"Loving God, be in my
heart, that I can be open
to those I love, to those
with whom I share ministry
and to the whole
human family."

Most of those demands and expectations are increased significantly during this season.  The season we are called to prepare for new life, to make room for the rebirth of our lives with God.

Prehaps, today we can take a deep breath.  What is really important today? What ways must I be responsible to commitments that I have made?  What ways can i be present to God, both within me and the world in which I live?

Forgiveness, hope, creativity and love.

"Henri's entire ministry was built around Jesus' farewell address in the Gospel of John in which Jesus says, "I have called you friends"; "I will not leave you orphaned";" I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you"; "My peace I give to you"; "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you"; and "You will have pain, but your pain will turn to joy." For Henri, Jesus' revelation was primarily in the real of relationship; in Jesus, God invites us into a relationship of forgiveness, hope, creativity, and love." 
From; "The Essential Henri Nouwen, edited by Robert A. Jonas

Forgiveness, hope creativity and love.  I find it really interesting that forgiveness is before hope.  Hope continues to be an important theme for me this advent.  Hope that God can stoke the fire of love and passion within me.  Hope that we can experience God in the lives we live.  Hope that when we experience that fire we are driven into the world to be a sign of God's love. 

What gets in our way?  So often we live with messages from our past or from the world around us that we are not enough, we don't have enough or some form of shame based negative message.  Those dark messages, those places within us that hide or squash God's passion do not reconcile with the God of my understanding.  God's love and compassion are so vast that we truly do not have the capacity to warp our hearts and minds around it.  As human beings we listen to our elders, parents, teachers, ministers.  We listen as children, we come to the world with wonder and innocence.  When fear and darkness replace the wonder, God struggles to shine through. 

Forgiveness can be looked at as removing a veil.  What would it be like to let go of the messages that stand in your way?  What would it be like to stand still and listen?  Have you ever been for a walk in the woods in the wintertime?  You are the only one there.  The stillness surrounds you, the breaking of a branch, startles you, and the quiet feels like a blanket surrounding you.  In the stillness you experience a knowing, a knowing that allows you to remember that you are God's beloved, a knowing that the fear of those messages was not your fear.  The fear of those messages was about something or someone else.   

At this time of Advent, ask yourself what those messages are that block the light of God's presence within you.  How are messages of fear and shame darkening your way?  Prayers of forgiveness for those people or institutions that are the source of those messages can be offered up to God.  I am not suggesting that this is easy or that these prayers will be needed only once.  Discipline is a crucial element of the Christian walk. As we are reminded in the Gospel of John, "I will not leave you orphaned"; "I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you."  But, I am here to suggest that if we do offer up those prayers, if we do then move to embrace hope, creativity and love, it is in those places that we will experience God's grace. 

Advent is a time of preparation, a time of making room.  Could forgiveness be a form of cleaning out our basements?  Letting go of all those things that we really don't need, and perhaps are suffocating who we are and who God is calling us to be. 

Why are we watching?

Advent is a time of preparation and wonder.  Recently I have been aware of how much I really love Advent.  Why?  What is so different about our lives, our circumstances this day?  During prayer and writing it came to me that Hope is central to the journey to the manger.  Hope in new life, new paths, new beginnings. 

Could we be watching with the hope that we will be found?  One of the significant differences between Advent and Lent is the difference between honest self appraisal and preparation of the self.  Let me explain.  Lent is a time where we know that like everyone else we have parts of who we are that block our way from being in right relationship with God.  In Christian language, our sins stand in the way of our being the authentic light and love that God so calls us to be.  Throughout the year we ask for God's forgiveness as we prepare for Eucharist.  Advent is a time when we prepare for and make room for new life.  We are again reminded of how it is truly with God that we live our lives with joy and purpose.  Advent is the time when we prepare for the sacred presence of God living within and around us. 

Within each of these seasons comes a very intentional message of hope that we are not alone.  We are on this road of life with a divine source that continues to want more of us than we can imagine.  But Advent allows us to know that it is never to late.  God is always ready and longing to be with us, ready and longing to bring new life and joy through us into the world. 

We are watching so that we can be found. We are watching because we never really know when or how Christ will be born into our lives. 

I have added a list of special Advent resources on the right hand side of this site.  Please explore any and all of them.  Most of all I encourage us to spend time in prayer and reflection.  Some may do this in the traditional way, others may choose to do it while running, walking, painting or playing your favorite instrument.  How are you making room for the presence of the divine in your life? 

I look forward to hearing from any of you about disciplines or practices that you are using.  Do you have memories of years past and the new births that you can see and remember in retrospect? 

I end this post with a prayer written by Michelle Thomas-Bush.  She is today's writer of the "Following the Star" advent meditations.  I encourage you to visit, the music and images are beautiful, as is the reflection. 

"Let us begin Advent, waiting.

Not the “going back to sleep” kind of waiting.

Not the impatient pacing, or the wasted anxiety of waiting.

Not even the passive-aggressive waiting that says, “Really? We’ll see.”

Let us begin Advent, waiting.

Getting up and joining the adventure,

Even when we don’t know where it will take us.

Shifting the impatient waiting to expectant living.

Boldly claiming the Good News that we know will come.

Waiting with joy as we reach out with the grace of God that is so much more than amazing.

Let us begin Advent."

Life from Wakefield to Ireland

Advent is upon us.  It is a time when we are called to see the many places that God breaks into our lives.  We are called to prepare and nurture that place deep within us that longs for the all powerful love of God.  Look around your life......what do you see?