Loose Ends (Advent Psalms #1)

During Advent, I am reflecting on the theme of waiting in four psalms.  I chose this theme because it is particularly appropriate to Advent and to my life right now.  When and how do these prayers talk about waiting?  How does that shape the way we wait during Advent and the rest of the year?  My prayer is that my words and the meditations of our hearts would be pleasing to the Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
This reflection focuses on Psalm 27.

Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.Psalm 27:14

This is the very last verse in the psalm.  This is the psalmist’s conclusion: wait for the Lord.  This conclusion breaks a lot of English writing rules.  In English writing, or other formal communication, we are supposed to sum up what we’ve said so there aren’t loose ends.  But this psalm ends with waiting, which is full of loose ends. 

Those loose ends make sense when you read verses 7-13 of this psalm.  It would be hard to tie up the psalmist’s desperation into a neat bow.  The Message puts verse 7, “Listen God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs.”  This is the prayer of a desperate person.  A person who is earnestly seeking God, but doesn’t seem to be getting an answer.  The psalmist implores God, “do not hide your face from me….Do not reject me or forsake me….Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes.”  In this prayer, the enemies are real.  And God’s answer seems to be silence.  At this time in the psalmist’s life, God is hidden.

It wasn’t always so for the psalmist.  Verses 1-6 are a soaring declaration of trust and confidence.  They don’t minimize the trouble; there are plenty of wicked enemies in these verses, too.  But the psalmist also has deep trust that God will keep him safe, will hide him from his enemies.  The psalm starts with the probably familiar words: “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?”

This is one reason I love they psalms.  They do not force us to have one feeling or one prayer at a time.  These prayers are as complicated as our lives.  We can usually remember the ways God has cared for us in the past: the right job at the right time, a good friend walking with us through a hard time, a spouse when you had given up hope of ever marrying, a special knowledge of the Holy Spirit’s presence with us.  The list can go on and on.  Our great God, the maker of heaven and earth, is our light and our salvation.  We don’t need to be afraid.  

But at other times of life, this care is hard for us to see.  The right job doesn’t come, a loved one dies and you feel alone in the world, all you get from online dating is a string of bad dates, God seems far away.  Hidden, even.  Our prayers join the psalmist: “don’t hide your face from me!”  It is important to note that this psalm, like other psalms in the lament genre doesn’t say pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get over it.  It doesn’t give a theological treatise on why God isn’t actually hidden.  It gives honest voice to the psalmist’s questions and cries.     

And the psalmist doesn’t feel the need to tie up all the loose ends.  The psalmist resolves this prayer with waiting.  He has quiet confidence that he will see the goodness of the Lord again, but he ends with waiting.  Perhaps it is a middle time.  A time between the despair and new life.  Advent is a middle time, too.  Advent captures in a particular way the already-but-not-yet.  We are waiting to celebrate Christ’s first coming, but we are also waiting for Christ’s second coming.  There are still loose ends in the redemption story.  We’re in the middle time between Jesus coming to redeem the world and Jesus coming back to make everything new. 

I like to think of the last verse of Psalm 27 as a bit of a pep talk the psalmist gives himself for the middle time.  In the middle of all this, wait for the Lord.  Be strong and take heart.  You know what kind of God this is.  Wait for the Lord.  Perhaps this is a pep talk that we need to give ourselves, too.  Even if God seems hidden, wait for the Lord.  Be strong and take heart.  Seek shelter in God’s presence through whatever rituals are helpful for you—community worship, listing the ways God has been good to you in the past, Advent rituals, writing your own prayers.  Rest in the messy middle time.  Hold the loose ends in your lap—you don’t have to have it all figured out right now.  Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.  

Thanksgiving Standing Stones 2013

I have a tradition at Thanksgiving to make a list of “standing stones”—the things that I look back on in the year and say “look at what God has done.”  Last year was full of big and joyful milestones, like being ordained.  This year is a bit more subdued, especially the last few months.  But still, I am thankful for the opportunities and gifts God has given me this year. 


Travelling to the UK for three weeks in January.  I got to experience the church and culture, which despite common stereotypes, caused me to say look what God is doing!





Performing my first baptisms of two young people that came to the United States as refugees.  Their faith is rich, deep, and growing as they have faced many difficulties in their short lives.  I am thankful that I got to be a small part of their stories.




I got to go on lots of short camping trips this Spring, Summer, and Fall.  It was wonderful to spend lots of time outside hiking, eating, reading, watching birds, and enjoying the wonders of God’s creation.  (If you’re curious, the photo is from May in Tahquamenon State Park Rivermouth Semi-Modern Campground.)


My pastoral residency at Church of the Servant, which ended at the end of July.  This one is definitely bittersweet—I really miss being a pastor there, but I am so overwhelmingly grateful for the two years I got to spend there learning, loving, preaching, visiting, baptizing, welcoming, and being loved.




The two weeks I got to spend in Colorado and Wyoming during October.  I spent time with Mary and Jared (my sister and brother-in-law), and my friend Allison and her family.  I saw a whole new part of God’s creation—an exhilarating part.  I even climbed mountains, sort of.  At least I went on a short hike above the treeline.  


Having a spiritual director who helps me each month to see what God is doing in my life.  I am thankful for her support and encouragement that God is working in me, even when I can’t see exactly what God is doing yet.


I am so thankful for the gift of friends who have listened to me, waited with me, encouraged me, prayed for me, discerned with me, and loved me.  I really would not have made it through these years without them.


“Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.”

-- Psalm 106:47

Photo of spiritual direction feet by Michelle Kroll, used under a Creative Commons License.  All other photos are my own.

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: Confession for Christ the King

This morning I was privileged to lead the confession and assurance during worship at Hamilton (MI) CRC.  I share here the words and prayer I led. 

In the church year, today is Christ the King Sunday.  This is a Sunday to remember that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords.  And it is a day to remember Christ must reign in our hearts, minds, and bodies.  But as we look at our hearts, minds, and bodies, we see how we have set ourselves up as king.  Let us confess that sin before God and each other. 

Gracious God,

You gave Jesus the highest name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

But so often we refuse to bow.  We want to stand and be our own lords.

Our hearts are full of pride that thinks first of ourselves. 

We are selfish with our time, our abilities, and our money.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.

Our minds do not always acknowledge your kingdom.

We assume that we are right and everyone else is wrong. 

We use our minds to judge people who are different from us

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.

We use our bodies for our own purposes instead your purposes.

We use our bodies to hurt other people and your good creation.

We also do harm to our bodies by not caring for them well.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.

In your great mercy and love, forgive us, Lord.  In the name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

Even though we rebel against Jesus’ kingdom, God still loves us.  Hear these words: (Recited by two young boys from the congregation)

1 John 4:10-11
"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

People of God, know that you are forgiven and live at peace.

Photo by Jason Train.  Used under a Creative Commons License.

Goodbye, Grand Rapids

Tonight is the last night I will sleep in my apartment in Grand Rapids.  For the foreseeable future, it is the last night I will stay in GR as a resident, and not someone’s guest.  This is a sad night for me.  This is the place I became an adult.  I have lived here for 3/4 of my adult life.  I went to Calvin College here.  I went to Calvin Theological Seminary here.  I had my first call at Church of the Servant here.  Living in Grand Rapids has shaped me in so many ways. 
People love to hate Grand Rapids; some call it “bland rapids.”  It is not as big or as cosmopolitan as New York or Chicago.  But Grand Rapids has its own charm.  There are lots of wonderful places and things to do in Grand Rapids.  Let me share a few of my favorites with you:

• Calvin College—where I learned how to be a thinking Christian mindful of the broader world
• Oakdale Park CRC—the church I attended while I was at Calvin
• Ice skating at Rosa Park circle
• Little Africa Ethiopian restaurant—a favorite place my friends would go when we were at Calvin
• $5 student tickets to the Grand Rapids Symphony
• Calvin Theological Seminary—where I did the formal education part of becoming a pastor
• Monroe Community Church—the church that loved me through seminary
• Kava House
• Art Prize—most interesting and fun thing that has started in GR recently
• The Green Well—a favorite with some of my seminary-era friends
• Peking Wok (which has very sadly closed)
• Eerdman’s Bookstore—they have a great selection of discount Eerdman's books
• Concerts at Calvin College—why didn’t I go to more when I was a student?  They have really interesting artists
• The Festival of Faith and Writing—so many wonderful readers and writers gathered together
• Church of the Servant—where I became a pastor
• Summer concerts at the Fredrik Meijer Gardens Amphitheater
• Bethany Refugee Services and the hundreds of refugees that are resettled here every year
• Baker Books and Icons Coffee—wonderful bookstore and coffee shop really close to my house
• Kentwood Public Library

And of course, the people are such an important part of Grand Rapids and my experience here.  Professors and friends from Calvin College.  Professors, staff, and students at Calvin Seminary, where I was enfolded into community.  Other wonderful friends that I made during my seminary days.  Colleagues and congregants at Church of the Servant.  I wouldn’t be who I am without all of you all.
I don’t know where I am going to land in the future, but I am thankful for the ways Grand Rapids has shaped me, and I am excited to take that with me to my unknown destination.  Thanks, Grand Rapids.  Its been great!  

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: Great is Thy Faithfulness

This weekend my family is celebrating my maternal grandfather’s 90th birthday.  My grandpa has been following Jesus for his whole life and would be the first to say that God has been faithful.  Life has not been without challenges, but God has been with Grandpa and used him to bless many people.

Loving and Faithful God,
For keeping a child of your covenant, baptized when he was an infant, safe in your hands,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For his parents who loved him and taught him about you,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For keeping Grandpa safe while he was deployed in the Navy,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For giving him a beautiful wife who loved him until her dying day,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For three children that he loved and supported (and is still very willing to help weed gardens or repair their homes),
Great is thy faithfulness.
For helping him to become a great teacher and principal,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For blessing him with grandchildren—both adopted and biological—that he loves deeply,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For saving his life from cancer,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For Grandpa and Grandma’s consistency at showing up at their grandkids events—church programs, piano recitals, sports games, etc.,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the hours of volunteer service at Desert Christian High School, World Renew (formerly CRWRC) Disaster Response Services, Bibles for Mexico Thrift Stores, and other places,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the love he shows his great-grandchildren through creating toys and babysitting,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the love of and commitment to the church (there are few times I’ve heard him complain about it!) that he demonstrates to all of us,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For 90 years of following you,
Great is thy faithfulness.
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Personal photo of my grandpa and me at my ordination, January 2012.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Two years ago this week, I started working at Church of the Servant.  I had just graduated from seminary a few months earlier and it was my first pastoral call.  I was nervous.  I wasn’t completely sure I would actually like being a pastor full-time.  And I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant that I was now a pastor.

Throughout seminary, I felt torn.  Before I went to seminary I taught English in China.  That had been an interest of mine since I was in high school.  I went to college with that in mind.  I was an English major and Chinese minor.  And I loved teaching English.  If I had chosen my life’s path I would have gotten an MA in TESOL (teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).  Instead, God called me to seminary, to the world to theology, Biblical languages and studies, church history, and pastoral care.  And there were lots of moments that I felt lost and out of place.  I would hear people talking outside of class and have no idea who or what they were talking about.  I grew to enjoy seminary and had wonderful internships.  But I still felt like I had two parts.  I had the English teacher part of me and the pastor/seminarian part of me.  And they didn’t go together.

Then I started at COS where I became the primary pastor for the Basic English Service.  As I prepared sermons, I needed the skills I learned teaching English of explaining abstract or difficult concepts with simple words.  I needed the skills I learned in seminary of how to read a Biblical text well and understand what it is saying.  I needed the skill of speaking slowly naturally and articulating words carefully.  I needed the systematic theology I learned to help explain what Christians believe.  I needed all of the cross-cultural skills that I had developed.  I needed to know how to structure a sermon effectively. 
  
In this call, the English teacher part of me and the pastor part of me started to come together.  The threads of my life started to get pulled together into one strand instead of being separate.  My spiritual director shared a phrase with me, the title of a Flannery O’Connor short story, “everything that rises must converge.”  This has been true for me in the last two years.  Everything that had risen in my life converged, and I am so grateful.
I am grateful for the opportunity to preach in this unusual environment and the ways that it has shaped my preaching.  Preaching regularly to a community has helped me form a rhythm of sermon preparation and become comfortable with preaching.  It is still always a little nerve-wracking somewhere in the process, but it also feels like this is what I do, because I am a pastor now.  And preaching in this unique service helped me to hone in on being clear and having one point in mind.  It helped me to think through what is most important in the given passage and leave lots of interesting but not essential information in the study.  It was a privilege to preach to many people that were hearing the story of the Bible for the first time, and I hope that I keep that in mind even if I am in a church where they are a lower percentage of the congregation.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the wonderful staff at COS.  They respected me as a colleague, encouraged me when things were difficult, modeled practices of Christian ministry, and loved me.  I learned a lot from spending time with them in the church kitchen and work room, listening in to conversations about the budget, handling pastoral situations, and picking curriculum for kids.  The high rate of turnover with residents is hard for the staff because they get attached to us and then two years are over and we leave, so I am especially thankful that they took the time to get to know me and allow me to learn so much.
I am grateful for the many cups of chai (both Nepalese and Sri Lankan versions) I drank in people’s homes.  I was welcomed into people’s homes with such gracious hospitality.  I don’t think I was ever told I couldn’t come, and it was a rare day when I wasn’t offered chai, or juice, or fruit.  Americans (and I am not an exception) are not that good at being hospitable to strangers.  I hope that I will be able to share some of the hospitality I received with others.  It was a privilege to be welcomed in to homes, to hear the stories of people in my congregation (most of whom were refugees), and walk alongside them in life.  I am thankful for their love and their prayers.
 
I am grateful for the strong volunteer base at COS.  Every program I worked with had strong volunteer leaders—people who dedicate hours of their time and energy to serving the church and community.  I’ll admit, sometimes this was frustrating and sometimes those leaders were frustrated with me.  But I am thankful for the relationships that formed and that we ended on a good note.  I feel at peace that even relationships that were sometimes tense ended well, and I am so thankful. 

I am grateful that many of my experiences, gifts, and interests have risen in my life and converged together in becoming a pastor.  In these two years, I became a pastor in an important way.  I am not wondering if I can do it anymore.  I am not trying to imagine how I would face pastoral situations the way I was two years ago.  Although my time being a pastor at COS has come to an end, and I don’t know where I will be called next, I am a pastor now.  I look forward to the (yet-to-be-determined) day when I start my next call, when I can take all I learned at COS and be a pastor in a new congregation. 

Everything that rises has converged.  Thanks be to God!   

Sunday Afternoon Prayers: For a Bittersweet Day

Today is bittersweet.  It was my last Sunday morning with my congregation.  I am so thankful for these two years, and it is so hard to say goodbye.  And so today I offer two prayers.  Both of these prayers originate in Africa and came to me in An African Prayer Book.

My prayer of thanksgiving, for the people I have had the opportunity to know from around the world and for the ways that they have shown that church can be like a big family.

Our Churches Are Like Big Families

Lord, we thank you that our churches are like big families.
Lord, let your spirit of reconciliation blow over all the earth.
Let Christians live in your love.
Lord, we praise you in Europe's cathedrals, in America's offerings, 
And in our African songs of praise.
Lord, we thank you that we have brothers and sisters in all the world.
Be with them that make peace.
Amen. (West Africa, pg. 65-66).

And my prayer for the people that I am leaving, that God will continue to be at work in and through them and will continue to hold them in the palm of his hand.

The Privilege Is Ours To Share In the Loving

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, the privilege is ours to share in the loving, healing, reconciling mission of your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, in this age and wherever we are.  Since without you we can do no good thing.
     May your Spirit make us wise;
     May your Spirit guide us;
     May your Spirit renew us;
     May your Spirit strengthen us;
So that we will be:
     Strong in faith,
     Discerning in proclamation,
     Courageous in witness,
     Persistent in good deeds.
This we ask through the name of the Father.
(Church of the Province of the West Indies, pg. 96-97)


Prayers from An African Prayerbook, selected and with an introduction by Desmond Tutu, Image/Doubleday books, 1995.
Photo by John Flanigan, http://www.flickr.com/photos/82369865@N00/5414528258/in/photolist-9fsSBu, used under a Creative Commons License

Trouble and Grace

"The world is Trouble...and Grace.  That is all there is."

So concludes Henry Smith in Gary Schmidt's young adult novel, Trouble (pg. 296).   Trouble tells the story of Henry's family's failed attempts to avoid Trouble, and how they find Grace instead.  The Smith family is old money in Massachusetts.  They live in a home that has stood strong for 300 years.  Henry's father always said, "if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you" (pg. 1). 

You know when that is the first line of a novel, their existence will soon change, because Trouble is lurking just around the corner in this world.  Trouble does come and it changes the family forever.  I don't want to spoil the novel for you, but Trouble comes in the form of cars, history, prejudice, arson, love, and death.  The family discovers you can't actually avoid Trouble.  It is everywhere, whether you like it or not.

But as they live with the Trouble, the Smith family also finds Grace.  It turns out to be harder to see and more nuanced than their initial reaction to Trouble: just saying everything is "fine." Grace means making hard decisions about who to love.  Grace means doing things the hard, but right, way.  Grace means taking a hard look at each other and seeing the truth.  It comes in with a whisper, and it changes the Smith family.  In the end, Henry finds Trouble and Grace are all that's left.

Trouble and Grace.  These are also the two words that frame the method I learned to preach.  In

seminary, our basic preaching textbook was called The Four Pages of the Sermon.  The four pages are not literal, but four figurative moves of a sermon (an outline of sorts).  In this method you start by discussing the Trouble in the text and then a parallel Trouble in the world.  Then you move on to the Grace in the text and Grace in the world.  Some of my classmates hated this method (and some of the non-preaching profs weren't that fond of it either), but I found that it worked well for me, especially as I got started.  I'll freely admit it works much better with some types of texts than others--as I preached through the Sermon in the Mount this year I preached very few strict four page sermons.  But even when I use an alternate structure, these rhythms of Trouble and Grace remain.  

The Bible is full of Trouble and Grace. Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless, and God gave them a son.  The writer of Psalm 46 felt like his world was falling apart, and trusted that God would keep him safe.  The foolish man built his house on the sand, and the wise man's house stood strong.  Like the Bible, our lives are full of Trouble and Grace. God brings hope in the midst of dashed expectations. God keeps us safe despite the chaos of our world.  God helps us to build our lives on God.  Even if our lives seem full of one or the other at a particular time, when we think about a congregation, it is inevitably full of both.  Someone who just lost their job sits next to someone who just got promoted.  Trouble and Grace.  And God working in the midst of both.  Sometimes God's Grace is presence with us as we walk through times of Trouble, and sometimes Grace means God removes the Trouble.

For the Smith family, God is present with them through Trouble (although they don't articulate that in the novel).  And God brings them Grace.  That's one of the reasons I have found the rhythms of the Four-Page Method helpful: "The world is Trouble...and Grace.  That is all there is."

Personal Photo at Lake Michigan Recreation Area, June 2013

A Prayer for My Office

As you may know, my current pastoral call is coming to an end soon.  I am a Resident Pastor, which is a two year first call.  Those two years will finish at the end of the month.  This morning, at the start of my last full week in my office, this is my prayer.

Gracious God,

Thank you for this office.
Thank you for the books that line the shelves and the wisdom they've shared with me.
Thank you for the pictures that remind me of people and events that have shaped my life.
Thank you for the children's art inspired by my sermons, reminding me they are listening, too.
Thank you for the table and chairs where I've had so many conversations.
Thank you for the robe and stoles and your call to serve the Church as an ordained minister.

Thank you for this place to pray, study, talk, cry, think, and serve.

As I box it all up soon, I pray for the place I'll unpack it.
I don't know where that is yet, but you do.
Show me where it is.  And help me to wait patiently in the meantime.
Help my new congregation to wait, too.  
Guide our steps as we get to know each other.  

This room will be empty for a day or two, waiting for the new occupant to move in.
Bless him and his ministry here.
May this place and the people here be as much of a blessing to him as they've been to me.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: We Will Not Be Afraid

My prayer this afternoon is Psalm 46, which was my sermon text this morning, for my last sermon at COS.  It is a prayer of trust for people whose world is changing.  

God is our refuge and strength,

    an ever-present help in trouble.
 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
 though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
 God is within her, she will not fall;
    God will help her at break of day.
 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see what the Lord has done,
    the desolations he has brought on the earth.
 He makes wars cease
    to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Personal photo, Muskegon State Park, April 2013.

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: A Prayer for Summer

Summer just officially arrived this weekend in the Northern Hemisphere, and today kicks off my church's summer worship schedule (which allows a bit more time for people to get to know others who usually attend different services).  And so today, a prayer for the beginning of summer.

Thank you, God, for summer,
For the warmth of the sun,
The power of thunderstorms,
The many shades and hues of green,
The bounty of the earth.

Thank you, God, for the feelings of summer:
Freedom,
Expansiveness,
Openness,
Adventure.

Help us, gracious and hospitable God,
To use these gifts of summer to bless others.
May we use the freedom we find in our schedules to build relationships with others,
May we extend the expansive feeling, inviting people who are different than us into our lives.
May we have a special openness to others and to what you might do in us and through us.
May we be adventurous--following the Spirit's leading outside of our comfort zone.

God of Life--rich, abundant life--
Give us your abundant life in this season of abundance.
Give us life to the full because we have been transformed by you.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Personal photo, June 2013.

On Sacred Rhythms

Life has rhythms.  The rhythm of leaves budding, growing, coloring, and dropping.  The rhythm of people growing up, leaving home, marrying, having children, raising children, retiring, and dying.  The rhythm of the sun coming up and sun going down. 

And the spiritual life has rhythms, too.  The rhythm of advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and ordinary time.  The rhythm of baptism, profession of faith, serving the church.  The rhythm of prayer and Bible reflection. 

Ruth Haley Barton wrote a book called Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation.  It is a book about what are classically called spiritual disciplines.  We might also call them spiritual practices or spiritual rhythms.  They are the practices that give a rhythm to our spiritual life.  Sometimes that rhythm is imperceptible, or we wish that we had a faster rhythm.  But even when we’d choose a different rhythm, God works through them.

Another one of my favorite books about spiritual practices is called Flunking Sainthood.  The author, Jana Riess spent a year focusing on a variety of spiritual practices.  She starts the year as a “lighthearted effort to read spiritual classics while attempting a year of faith-related disciplines like fasting, Sabbath keeping, chanting, and the Jesus Prayer” (pg. ix).  Each month she picks a discipline, reads some spiritual classics related to that discipline and attempts to practice it.  And she struggles, even fails, with all twelve. 

After a few months and a significant life experience, she found that “Although I didn’t see it while I was doing the practices themselves or even while I was writing the chapters in this book, the power of spiritual practice is that it forges you stealthily, as you entertain angels unawares” (Flunking Sainthood, pg. 168).  God used both her attempts at these different practices, and even the process of failing, to shape her to become more Christ-like and more able to reflect Christ to the world.  She, like thousands of Christians before her, discovered the power of spiritual practices, sacred rhythms, to shape Christian life.

Growing up, I don’t remember hearing about spiritual disciplines or spiritual practices as a group or term.  And yet, we had plenty of them.  We read Bible story books or other devotional material after dinner.  My dad sang to us before we went to sleep.  We went to church twice on Sunday.  My parents taught me to tithe.  We took an extended family spring break trip to do hurricane relief in South Carolina.  There were Christian rhythms in our life.  They shaped my Christian life and how I practice my faith. 

As I grew up, some of my rhythms have developed and changed. They have shaped the rhythms of my life as a single woman.  Like Riess, I have certainly failed some.  Over the summer, I’m going to be reflecting on some spiritual practices that have been important in my life, or that I would like to experiment with.  I have plans to explore writing prayers, meeting with a spiritual director, keeping the Sabbath, and doing justice, among others.  I hope that I, and my readers, will learn new rhythms and that those rhythms would shape us to become more Christ-like.  

Drum picture by Martha Riley, used under a Creative Commons License.

Praying hands picture by C Jill Reed, used under a Creative Commons License.

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: Psalm 42 & 43

This song has been my prayer this week.  I woke up with the chorus on my heart Monday morning, and it has continued throughout the week.  Greg Scheer, the composer, describes it: "Psalm 42 and 43 are set to a haunting, melancholic melody that mirrors the poignancy of the original Psalm text."  You can listen to Greg sing the song on his website.

I think this song is on my heart right now because it both captures the longings of my heart in a challenging time and my trust that God is faithful and will see me through.

1. As the deer pants for the water
so my soul longs for you, my Lord.
When can I come to You again
to praise You as before?

Chorus
Why should I let this sorrow fill my soul?
My life is in His Hands, my hope is in the Lord;
and He, I know, will be my Savior still.

2. Day after day He sends His love
I feel His peace come raining down.
I raise a song to Him at night
like fire from the ground.

3. Send me Your light and truth to guide me
as I travel through this land.
Lead me to Your holy dwelling
at my journey's end.

If you would like to sing this song in your congregation, music is available on Greg's website and it is included in the recently released Lift Up Your Hearts hymnal.

Photo by Paul Gorbould.  Used under a Creative Commons License.