Waiting Prayer

Waiting Prayer

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.” Isaiah 35:5-6

In 2014 I titled these verses in my Bible as “My Prayer” because it became my hope and my desire in a certain area of my life for which I had not seen it fulfilled. So I remained in a time of waiting…waiting with patience. I believe that much of what we pray requires waiting with patience.

Questions for Peacemaking

Questions for Peacemaking

Last summer I went to Northern Ireland for a peace-making retreat.  We met with artists, songwriters, and ministers who had been a part of the Good Friday Accords.  We stood in the room where Catholic priests met monthly with protestant pastors because, they reasoned, how could you love your neighbor if you didn’t know who your neighbors were?  The protestants and the Catholics, the British and the Irish met clandestinely for years; people with opposing ideologies, values, religions, putting their lives in jeopardy, to lay the groundwork for a world after The Troubles. This peace work wasn’t creating policy; it was creating community.

Image of God

Image of God

Many years ago now, a wise old priest invited me to come speak at his church in Alabama. “What do you want me to talk about?” I asked him.

“Come tell us what is saving your life now,” he answered.

These lines come from Barbara Brown Taylor’s introduction to her book An Altar in the World. She says that each chapter in the book is a tentative answer to this question.  She sets the stage a bit: “My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them.”

A Time for Grief

A Time for Grief

My dad’s health had been declining for several years, but in recent months the decline began to accelerate. After I visited my parents at the beginning of May, I found out later that dad said, “I think that will be the last time I see Katrina.”  I was gutted. When I had said goodbye to him, I did not think it would be the last time. And upon hearing this, I was determined that it would not be!

Unraveled

Unraveled

If I stop and listen to my own sighing over the way the world is today, I recognize that I wish reality were something different, that it be something that it is not. And so my expectations begin to unravel. All those loose ends, leave me with the barest, worn bit of frayed cloth to hang on to. But as much as I try to re-weave life back into what it used to be, it simply cannot be done.

Thomas Merton addressed this point of frustration when he wrote, “Our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is, and not as it might be. The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it…What is uncertain is not the ‘coming’ of Christ, but our reception of him.”

All Things New

All Things New

I've been thinking about heaven these days. More precisely, I've been thinking about the new heaven and the new earth, the time when all things will be made new. In regard to scripture's description of this age, it's difficult to know what is literal and what is metaphorical. For example, Isaiah writes “the wolf will lay with the lamb” and there will be “no killing on my holy mountain” (Isaiah 11:9) while at the same time we will eat “choice meats on the mountain of the Lord.” (Isaiah 25:6). The images in Revelation are even more mysterious. Yet, amid the uncertainty, I have a theory; not a doctrine, just a theory.  I suspect that in the age to come we will be, quite literally, surrounding the throne of the Almighty in rapturous worship and simultaneously engaging in normal earthly life – planting gardens, walking with friends and surfing big waves in wild oceans.

From Where Does Our Giving Come?

From Where Does Our Giving Come?

“Where do you believe what we give to others comes from?” I asked. 

 “From a place of self-emptying or from fullness?” 

 And why is this helpful to distinguish? Because on the face of it, what’s easy for any of us to believe is that when pouring yourself out for— or into— someone else, relationally or otherwise, you as the giver must or will become less. Drained or diminished in some way. That to serve or support or listen or absorb is to shrink or reduce or lop off a piece of oneself. 

Sacred Silence

Sacred Silence

This week I attended my first Quaker worship service. I welcomed the invitation of an hour of communal silence. The world has grown so noisy and even finding my place in traditional “Christian churches” has left me crestfallen and longing for more of Jesus.  

As I found my way to the meeting, held at a local community center, I saw the simple circle of sixteen chairs. I noticed the established name tags. I found the familiar “Hello My Name Is” sticky and wrote my name with a big black Sharpie. I looked around the room and found a seat next to a woman who was friendly and made light conversation. 

The Times Call For Mystics

The Times Call For Mystics

By the time February rolls around I am usually hanging onto life by my fingernails. This self-diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder girlie struggles to survive the Big Dark in the Pacific Northwest each year and this winter is no different. Perhaps it is worse: my dad passed away in November and gestures wildly at the world all this is happening too. There aren’t enough candles in all of Home Goods to hygge my way through the dark, the grief, and the nightly news. 

What’s a baby contemplative to do? What else can I add to my life beyond my arsenal of mental health and spiritual life professionals, pharmaceuticals, and copious mind-numbing doses of reality television? 

Welcome Change

Welcome Change

As the youngest of five, I have always felt entitled to the perpetual "fountain of youth"--even though the calendar turns every year. That illusion morphed into pixelated fragments in a single moment last year. “You have cataracts,” the doctor said. My brain exploded. I knew my prescription was out of date but, this is the language of old people I thought!