Awakening the "slumbering mystic" in each of us
FEBRUARY 21ST, 2010— FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT
DEUTERONOMY 26:4-10, ROMANS 10:8-13, LUKE 4:1-13
Dear Friends,
This week's Gospel recounts the Temptations of Jesus. What are your temptations? Edwina Gateley in her book of poems, There Was No Path So I Trod One suggests that there is a "slumbering mystic" in each one of us. I resonate with that as I have been feeling called to spend more time, more often in prayer. In her first poem in this collection Edwina speaks of what might be a great temptation for us today:
I don't know about you, but often I slip away to some busy-ness and don't surrender to prayer, to just sitting there with God, to just letting God love me, to just attending in stillness to what is going on around me, to just wondering.
Barbara Brown Taylor in her book "An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith" reminds us that we don't have to travel to a monastery in India or a missionary project in Belize to pray. She asserts that we can find spirituality in a trip to the grocery store or in a toothache or in whatever finds its way to us this day. So this Lent, I find myself resolving to attend intently to what I am doing in the moment and meeting God and self and others whole-heartedly right there. I further resolve to surrender more often to prayer. What are you resolving to do this Lent?
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and we invite you to join us and the Congregational/UCC Community that hosts us at 7:30 p.m. for worship as Lent begins. We invite you to come and journey with us as we walk through Lent together. Join us for our Sunday Eucharist every Sunday at 5 p.m. Join us for 3 Friday night "movie" reflections on the power of Forgiveness. Join us for our Community Retreat on Saturday March 27 on The Merciful God. Join us in daily reflections during your own quiet time at home using the book, A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent by Martin L. Smith (or another prayer practice of your own choosing knowing that our community is praying, too, in a unison of hearts.) Just knowing that we are praying together is a source of strength and a joy for us!
If you are looking for reading for Lent, we'd like to suggest "An Altar in the World : A Geography of Faith" by Barbara Brown Taylor. It looks really good and we plan to read this in solidarity with our 'host community's' choice of this "geography of faith" for their Lenten reading.
As always, The Spirit of Life Community invites you to come and share in the experience of an inclusive Catholic community where every voice is heard, and women and men are unafraid to acknowledge the equality of women and men; and to embrace feminine as well as masculine... and beyond... images of God. As a community, we try wholeheartedly to "be Christ" to one another, to tend to the needs of one another, and to those in need in our world. Together, we celebrate our belief that we are being transformed by God's grace as we gather together in prayer. We warmly invite you to come and gather with us at our Table, and join in our experience of the "kin-dom" of God. We are an inclusive, open, affirming and interactive community, deeply committed to being a people of "justice and joy."
With prayers that you will experience an awakening of your "slumbering mystic",
FEBRUARY 21ST, 2010— FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT
DEUTERONOMY 26:4-10, ROMANS 10:8-13, LUKE 4:1-13
Dear Friends,
This week's Gospel recounts the Temptations of Jesus. What are your temptations? Edwina Gateley in her book of poems, There Was No Path So I Trod One suggests that there is a "slumbering mystic" in each one of us. I resonate with that as I have been feeling called to spend more time, more often in prayer. In her first poem in this collection Edwina speaks of what might be a great temptation for us today:
Adirondack
There is a chair
a heavy grey Adirondack
that sits alone
and empty
upon a hilltop
surrounded by
wild brush and
sprouting things.
In all weathers it stands
firmly rooted
to the lonely patch
of woodland
as if it had been thrust up
from the earth
like a tree.
Little creatures sit
upon its broad arms,
nibbling and scratching,
insects wave and scuttle
in its joints.
And I am awed
before its silent invitation,
its fierce beckoning
to slip into its woody embrace
and stay,
held there,
in its solidity.
Sacred it sits
in its leafy solitude
and I, secular,
slip away quietly:
Unwilling to surrender.
a heavy grey Adirondack
that sits alone
and empty
upon a hilltop
surrounded by
wild brush and
sprouting things.
In all weathers it stands
firmly rooted
to the lonely patch
of woodland
as if it had been thrust up
from the earth
like a tree.
Little creatures sit
upon its broad arms,
nibbling and scratching,
insects wave and scuttle
in its joints.
And I am awed
before its silent invitation,
its fierce beckoning
to slip into its woody embrace
and stay,
held there,
in its solidity.
Sacred it sits
in its leafy solitude
and I, secular,
slip away quietly:
Unwilling to surrender.
Edwina Gateley
I don't know about you, but often I slip away to some busy-ness and don't surrender to prayer, to just sitting there with God, to just letting God love me, to just attending in stillness to what is going on around me, to just wondering.
Barbara Brown Taylor in her book "An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith" reminds us that we don't have to travel to a monastery in India or a missionary project in Belize to pray. She asserts that we can find spirituality in a trip to the grocery store or in a toothache or in whatever finds its way to us this day. So this Lent, I find myself resolving to attend intently to what I am doing in the moment and meeting God and self and others whole-heartedly right there. I further resolve to surrender more often to prayer. What are you resolving to do this Lent?
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and we invite you to join us and the Congregational/UCC Community that hosts us at 7:30 p.m. for worship as Lent begins. We invite you to come and journey with us as we walk through Lent together. Join us for our Sunday Eucharist every Sunday at 5 p.m. Join us for 3 Friday night "movie" reflections on the power of Forgiveness. Join us for our Community Retreat on Saturday March 27 on The Merciful God. Join us in daily reflections during your own quiet time at home using the book, A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent by Martin L. Smith (or another prayer practice of your own choosing knowing that our community is praying, too, in a unison of hearts.) Just knowing that we are praying together is a source of strength and a joy for us!
If you are looking for reading for Lent, we'd like to suggest "An Altar in the World : A Geography of Faith" by Barbara Brown Taylor. It looks really good and we plan to read this in solidarity with our 'host community's' choice of this "geography of faith" for their Lenten reading.
As always, The Spirit of Life Community invites you to come and share in the experience of an inclusive Catholic community where every voice is heard, and women and men are unafraid to acknowledge the equality of women and men; and to embrace feminine as well as masculine... and beyond... images of God. As a community, we try wholeheartedly to "be Christ" to one another, to tend to the needs of one another, and to those in need in our world. Together, we celebrate our belief that we are being transformed by God's grace as we gather together in prayer. We warmly invite you to come and gather with us at our Table, and join in our experience of the "kin-dom" of God. We are an inclusive, open, affirming and interactive community, deeply committed to being a people of "justice and joy."
With prayers that you will experience an awakening of your "slumbering mystic",
Find more about past weekly reflections and podcasts in our ARCHIVE PAGE.
