notes on a Pentecost column

Christmas and Easter are obvious major church days. Pentecost is decidedly less so. One of our  thoughtful members at First Presbyterian asserts that this new century is the century of the Holy Spirit and is frustrated with how we work with the Holy Spirit.

I have never been satisfied with the liturgy of Pentecost. We read it as  a day when the doors were blown open, so we try to induce a sense of “holy chaos.” So we tell everyone to wear red, the tradition liturgical color for the work of the Spirit. We may try balloons, or read in different languages, or liturgical dance. Then we move back to the usual service the very next week.To me, it feels as if we are trying to impose a certain sense of the Spirit, even demanding that we can call down, initiate, a spiritual experience.

For over a century, we have seen an upsurge in “pentecostal” groups that emphasize and experience different aspects of the work of the Spirit, as divine gifts.I will not judge those experiences. I will oppose one element that I detect in some of the rhetoric, that such experiences should be normative for Christians. Not long ago, i attended a national discussion on the Holy Spirit for our denomination. I was struck by how much people wanted to share a charismatic experience, but how little they wanted to do to explore other vital elements of the spiritual experience.

Finally, the readings for this Sunday include Ps. 104, one of the great creation psalms. the psalm encourages us to move beyond the aesthetic response to a pretty sunset into the u full expanse of creation and glimpse the workings of the Spirit.Indeed, one could claim the Spirit as the connective tissue between the human and nonhuman elements of the natural world.perhaps we could also use natural images as images of power, instead of a focus on photo-worthy natural beauty, in our own backyard. The early French explorer, , Father Pierre Francois de Charlevoix, wrote of the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much the same breadth,.. but the Missouri is by for the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waters to the opposite shore without mixing them, afterwards, it gives its color to the Mississippi which it never loses again but carries down to the sea ..." At the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers the volume of water in the Mississippi nearly doubles,

God’s spirit acts as a confluence. Consider using a variety of natural image sot help ease you in consideration of God at work in the creation. god’s world pulses with life and breathand energy, Spirit, every second of existence. Let me close with a quote from the theologian Jurgen Moltmann as he turns 90- "The gift and the presence of the Holy Spirit is the greatest and most wonderful thing which we can experience - we ourselves, the human community, all living things and this earth. For with the Holy Spirit it is not just one random spirit that is present, among all the many good and evil spirits that there are. It is God himself, the creative and life-giving, redeeming and saving God. Where the Holy Spirit is present, God is present in a special way, and we experience God through our lives, which become wholly living from within. We experience whole, full, healed and redeemed life, experience it with all our senses. We feel and taste, we touch and see our life in God and God in our life."

May 24 Week Devotional Pts

Sunday-Ps. 104 is an ode to creation. Please consider working with an element of creation from science and build a prayer around it. Find a picture that attracts you and build a prayer around it. Read a book on scientific advances and connect it to this psalm.

Monday-St. Augustine wrote: "In this prayer, all whom He redeemed, whether then alive or thereafter to live in the flesh, were prayed for by our Redeemer ... He conjoined those who were yet to believe on Him through their word" (Tractate 108). In other words, we also are being prayed for in Jesus' intercessory prayer. So we, too, may "listen in" and meditate on his prayer as we go about our daily lives of discipleship.     

Tuesday-“If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.” —Julian of Norwich

Wednesday-We sometimes think of the journey as a linear path to travel, when in reality we travel more in circles and spirals. We don’t arrive at the summit and proclaim ourselves done and complete. We arrive back at the desires which set us on the path in the first path, but perhaps with deeper wisdom or more doubts this time around.Pilgrimage leads us home again, but that home is deep within each of us. We will cycle through our lives over and over, meeting old themes and habits again, being invited to release, to walk forward in trust, to embrace mystery many times. (from Abbey of the Arts)

Thursday-On her deathbed, Gertrude Stein is said to have asked,"What is the answer?" Then, after a long silence, "What is the question?" Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start by listening for the questions it asks.(F. Buechner)

Friday-Tagore speaks:“Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. …I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee and that thou art my best friend but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.” –Tagore-Macrina speaks:What is the tinsel that fills my room? What confines and restricts me? What unnecessary stuff (inner or outer) weighs me down? What obstacles prevent me from being my best self? These questions do not necessarily have to be answered—just pondered.(Macrina Wiederkehr)

Saturday-The price of wisdom, in the biblical sense, is the willingness to learn: "Get wisdom, and whatever else you learn, get insight," say the biblical wise ones (Prov. 4:7b, NRSV). The price of learning is sometimes unlearning—having our illusions exploded.For the Spirit to "guide us into all truth, as Jesus promises (see John 16:13) we must learn that ignorance is our enemy, naïveté a false friend, guileless not always a virtue, and total innocence undesirable.(from Weavings)

Pentecost 15

May 24 Acts 2, Ps. 104

When Pentecost occurred some tribal peoples bleieved in pantheism, many  things were gods.On this Pentecost Sunday let’s get acquainted with a fancy word, panentheism.It imagines all in God, and God is in all, a God beyond us and yet within the world too? God is connected to the creation, but is not only creation, not limited by creation. It is a version of speaking of God as omnipresent. It fits the activity of the spirit well in creation. God’s energy is involved in the created order and the relationships within it. It is the opposite of Calvin’s thought that God makes separate discrete decision outside of the system for what happens in life.It has the sense tha tthe divine flows through creation.panenetheism” is a matter of cleansing the doors of perception, as William Blake affirms. It involves awakening to the holiness and wonder of every moment in living and dying.   It involves breathing in the wonder of life, opening your senses to the holiness of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound.  It involves pausing and noticing the infinity resident in every moment of experience, whether thoughts, emotions, dreams, encounter, or relationships. (Epperly)

The Spirit is connected to the yet to be experienced future.Ps 104-let sins cease-Leviathan as God’s plaything. Creation is god’s not ours alone v. 30 and the spirit being sent“Lived

god’s spirit is in every breath.god’s spirit is in every breeze.Fire as a symbol of god from early times.

god not limited to the past. God not limited to ethnic groups.Wide angle view and a deep focus at the same time-Sting had a song, every breath you take. V. 30 of Ps 104 has a hint that every breath, every respiration, re-spiriting is a new creative gift from god the Creator Spirit dwells at the heart of the natural world, graciously energizing its evolution from within, compassionately holding all creatures in their finitude and death, and drawing the world forward toward an unimaginable future. ..the Spirit embraces the material root of life and its endless new potential, empowering the cosmic process from within. ..energized from the spiraling galaxies to the double helix of the DNA molecule by the dance of divine vivifying power (191 Elizabeth Johnson, Quest). thought to be the day when Moses received the tablets. I love the idea that the flame that preceded the commandments now appears not in a volcano but in individual little flames, tongues like fire, -move from not understanding in Isaiah to a thunder that leads to understanding here

Mississippi and the confluence (Father of Waters-Piasa bird and Leviathan) In 1721, French explorer, Father Pierre Francois de Charlevoix, wrote of the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much the same breadth, each about half a league: but the Missouri is by for the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waters to the opposite shore without mixing them, afterwards, it gives its color to the Mississippi which it never loses again but carries quite down to the sea ..."At the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers the volume of water in the Mississippi nearly doubles, accounting for approximately 45% of the flow at St. Louis in normal times and as much as 70% of the flow during some droughts. God’s spirit acts as a confluence. Please consider using some different naturla images in prayer life to capture other elements of the SPirit.

God’s spirit lifts up into the presence of Christ. We discover the hidden Christ by participating in the sacrament of Communion.The Spirit is the connection that creates the union between us and Christ and with each other. We are recipients then of a great gift.

Column Notes on Pew Study of Decline of older churches and rise of the nones

This is a difficult column for me to write, as it is a bit of an elegy to a religious scene passing by.. The Pew 2014 religious landscape  study demonstrates a continued decline in the long-established churches, Protestant and Catholic alike. The newer American faith groups have grown a bit. I  hasten to add that the largest percentage increase in America is among those who are unaffiliated with a religious group at all.

One of the places we decide we may want a patina of religion is when we face death. I get more calls from funeral directors who are told to “find a minister/preacher” to hold a service since the family has no connection to church. the rite of passage of marriage creates a similar impetus. Since our sanctuary is lovely, we get a number of calls to see if a wedding could be held here. it is clear that the desire is for a pretty background for pictures.

Older established, mainline churches are in decline across the board. To think-take doctrine seriously. Zenith with interest in institutions. So many hospitals, colleges, and charitable activities have been sponsored by the older churches, and our society is the better for it.The very word now brings up thoughts of the bureaucratic. we will be a lesser society in matters of careful, thoughtful faith as the great seminaries close their doors.

Part of our demise is that we have been too nice, too easy on each other. We actually accepted people saying that they would let their children decide for themselves about church membership, as if a child has a claim on going to school. So, we have not held on to succeeding generations-in part this is due to increasing intermarriage among church groups, and its result is to open the doors to other faith groups.. In our quest to be tolerant, we lost a sense of where we do stand-at the same time the values espoused by the older churches seem to fit with the move of the culture. Part of our decline is sheer Ignorance-I know someone who is considering moving from the Presbyterians to a more liberal denomination, but he has no idea that the denomination he is entering is far more liberal than the Presbyterians.

The older churches have been too dismissive of worship, Bible study, prayer and other spiritual practices.Many Protestant churches have said things such as going to church does not make you a Christian, but the correlative point not going to church is proof of not being a committed Christian got lost. In seeking to reach out, we seem like another soft-hearted social service organization, but we have often lost the distinctive religious component of that message.

Years ago, the great Richard Niebuhr (who spent some time at Eden Seminary) wrote of churches seeing Christ against the culture  but also for the culture. he obviously approved of a stance of Christ transforming the culture. In our time, the more successful churches seem to take a counter-cultural rhetorical stance, a sin the world is evil and against the church, but take on decidedly pro-cultural stance in terms of their ethical positions and their market orientation to presenting their religious point of view. The long-established churches in America seem to be in the minority on religious doctrine, as we have emphasized the church as an entity, but America is a nation of people seeking individualism and the authority of individual preference.  Robert Bellah and his associate in Habits of the Heart caught the wave of american religion with their interview with “Sheila” and i her pastiche of various spiritual notions that she termed sheilasim. I will miss a religious landscape of carefully composed ritual, not needing to re-invent the wheel. We will be the poorer for their loss.

ascension/May 17-Sermon Notes

May 17 Ascension and John 17

Jesus prays for us.(17:6-19) So we may have a physical separation, we are in communion with Jesus Jesus is somewhere else. At the same time, we sing that Jesus abides with us. Jesus exists in eternal life. What does eternal life look like from where you sit?  Where do you see love enacted in the lives of your people?  God gave us eternal life, and this life is in God's Son.John Calvin taught that Christ truly inaugurated his kingdom only at his ascension to heaven. Calvin believed that as Christ withdrew his bodily presence from his people, he began to rule heaven and earth with more immediate power. Christ’s ascension to heaven is beneficial to our faith in two ways. First, it opened the way into the heavenly kingdom that had been closed after the fall. And second, Christ in heaven has been our constant advocate and intercessor (2.16.16). By the power of his Spirit, Christ is now present with his people all over the world in his Word and in the sacraments.

The ascension was a vital piece of early Christians. Jesus may have died in infamy, but looked, not only is he raised, but t raised in power at the very right hand of god.ascension-is Jesus gone from us forever?The ascension of Jesus into heaven alters our picture of God. We can no longer define God in a way that leaves God completely detached from human experience. So heaven is the very presence with God. . When we turn to God in times of distress or temptation we are not addressing a deity aloof and unfamiliar with our struggles. but also assures us that affliction will not have the final word because it is the risen and ascended Christ who intercedes for us and nothing can separate us from his love (Romans 8:34).(working preacher site?)

If the world is so awful then why pray with it in the frame at all? In the end, God so loved the world. the prayer is filled with the world to give.With the ascension it is not only God with us and God for us but us with God.The prayer of Jesus has a hint of real need, almost desperation, as he fears his disciples off in the world without him there. it feels a bit like a parent sending a child off into the world of college or career. will they make it without me right there?The point of the story is not that when Jesus left His disciples He visibly embarked upon a wonderful journey into space, but that when He left them He entered the side of the created world which was provisionally inaccessible and incomprehensible, that before their eyes He ceased to be[sic] before their eyes. This does not mean, however, that He ceased to be a creature, man.Barth, Karl. "  

Rahner -he sits at the right hand of the Father...The absolute Logos shall look at me in eternity with the face of a man.-- on their way to the beatific vision -- to bypass the humanity of Jesus. ...Because [Jesus]wanted to come close to us definitively, he has gone away and has taken us with him...The reason for this is that his Spirit.. fullness of life from the Father, this Spirit is already in us now..." (p.104) In the Ascension, Jesus, the human and divine Anointed One, God's Son, returns home with all that is ours, making it possible for you and me to share God's own life, Godself, the nearness of the Spirit.

May 17 Week Devotional Points

Sunday-Ps. 1 probably is meant to introduce all 150 psalms., a sort of preface or introduction to the entire bloc of material. If so, what stands out to you as important features of this first prayer?  Are you someone who skips the preface or introduction of a book or even the social niceties of being introduced to someone?

Monday-When we abide in love we can experience a sense of union with all there is. It is the source of spirituality, especially the mystical paths found in all religious traditions, a sense of the ultimate oneness of everything that is and seeking to experience that unity in daily life. Love calls us into connection with the world. In times when feeling disconnection and isolation is easier than ever, love calls us to step into the flesh and blood relationships, to engage, to risk, to be vulnerable.(Abbey of the arts)

Tuesday-”he is equipped with the religious garment whose color and shape and size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spiritual complexion, angularities, and stature of the individual who wears it; and besides I was afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to human liberty, and paralysis to human thought."Mark Twain

Wednesday-"The Frankfurt Prayer," which aptly describes the contemplative yearning, even for our time: Savior teach me the silence of humility, the silence of wisdom, the silence of love, the silence of perfection, the silence that speaks without words, the silence of faith. Lord, teach me to silence my own heart that I may listen to the gentle movement of the Holy Spirit within me and sense the depths which are of God. Amen

Thursday-Believing in anything beyond that which can be touched, smelled and tasted, from this perspective, "is to take too great a chance," writes Luibhéid."But," he continues, "the willingness to take just such a chance is surely the mark of the Christian. A creature of the day and of circumstance, the Christian nevertheless claims, at times weakly, at times with powerful courage, that God does indeed exist, that there is somewhere an enduring and timeless domain where the burdened heart may aspire to find ease. The Christian has in him the capacity to hope for better things."M Jinkins, Louisville

Friday-“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men (and women); and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

- Herman Melville

Saturday- I’ve been thinking about how little I ever consider the Ascension. Take a look at the stained glass window in the sanctuary and reflect upon it. the theologian Pannenberg wrote that the Ascension was the impetus for the Great Commission. How od you imagine it and what is its impact?

Mother's Day 2015 notes

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”

― Washington Irving

“I don't know what it is about food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make - pancakes, meatloaf, tuna salad - but it carries a certain taste of memory.”

― Mitch Albom

I would like to draw some parallels between the love of God and the love of Mothers- Mothers have nine months getting to love the new life within them. Scripture says that God was in planning before the foundation of the world, an eternity to come to see us and love us. For that matter, all life emerged from God’s work, so perhaps we see that God could well love the whole creation as a mother loves a child, with all of its flaws and imperfections. At Bible Study a woman said that she worries that she loves her family more than she loves God. That is a worry I don’t think would cross the mind of a lot of fathers. I don’t know how Mary, the mother of Jesus, worked that out in her life. In Jesus Christ, we see the love of God clearly. Before Jesus said a word or healed anyone, we get a glimpse of the love of God that was determined to demonstrate that love in a person, in an incarnate way. We see love for humanity clearly. God’s love is incarnate in Jesus Christ. Mothers incarnate love for us every day. Mothers are a part of so many memories, especially of childhood. In the womb, the umbilical cord forms, so that we are nourished through the mother. At birth, the cord is cut. We are connected by cords of love all through our lives, even when we cut the apron springs and begin adult life on our own. Our very existence depends on being connected to the hand of God holding the world from spinning into entropy and decay, chaos and confusion. On this Mother’s Day, the force that no equation can gather, no force control, is that of love.

May 10 notes-John 15:9-17

May 10. John 15, Ps. 98

no longer disciples but friends- metaphor into specific relationships from the vine and the branches is now extended . Friendship presumes a basic equality.Friendship are chosen, or at least emerge from common experience. Jesus moves from the more unequal position of top-down teacher to student, disciple, image and speaks of friends.

Ps 98-new song-remembered his love- cosmic music- For some reason pop culture images of friendship have been circling around inside. In songs we have   you’ve got a friend, thank you for being a friend,. Bette Midler sang you’ve got to have friends as does Elton John about the road being lighter when you have friends along the way.The eminent philosopher Bruce Springsteen sing I’ll wait for you/should I fall behind, wait for me.” At graduation for the Indianapolis children’s choir, the seniors would sing Friends by Michael W. Smith. Movies, too, see friendship and important relationships-Return of the Secaucus seven, Big Chill, In that film the Jeff Goldblum character says that he always felt his best when he was with this group of people. Four seasons. TV had Lucy and Ethel, the work friendships of MASH and Mary Tyler Moore, or the comedies from Happy days to Friends, How I Met your Mother, or Big Bang Theory.

Joy is promised too in this ode to friendship, divine friendship. In surveys, joy does not appear to be the first word to leap to mind when people describe Christians.

(Greek view of friends)Damon and Pythias-When I was a kid we emphasized integration and openness to having friends from a variety of backgrounds. Now being inclusive has a more mandatory feel, and we have reacted against. it. We are now in a more affinity-based period, and our ambit of friendships seemed to have grown smaller. The unitive push of romance I don’t feel in friendship, so it is not the same soul in different bodies but 2 distinct selves who occupy the same social space, 2 souls who have found common ground.

Addison wrote that friendship doubles our joys and divides our griefs.Proverbs 18 reminds us that a good friend may well stick by us closer than our deepest kin. Buddha spoke of friendship having a mutual sympathy.

I realize that we often say that a sign of a good friend is that we can be apart for a good while and pick up where we left off fairly easily. I suppose that is true, but it is also true that neglect has left a lot of our friendship by the roadside. Jesus Christ calls himself our friend. How do we nurture that friendship? Perhaps we sing What a Friend We Have in Jesus in church or to ourselves.; I was reminded by one of my classmates back at Princeton that a brilliant attorney who left to study with us used to hum Blessed Assurance when he would get stressed, so it was like the soundtrack of Greek and hebrew classes.We can unburden ourselves to a friend and still be accepted as a friend. At its best, confession can be speaking with a spiritual friend to admit some wrong. What is therapy but having a professional friend weigh one’s troubles and perspective, to point out obstacles to well-being external or self-imposed?

Sermon notes-May 3 I John 4:7-21

May 3- I John 4, John 15:1-8

John 15:1-8  I’m attracted to this image of the vine in that the branches are connected to each other through the vine. I don’t think we can find any distinctions between the various branches of the vine. When I think of a vine, I think of a lush tangle of growth and fruit. It’s hard to tell an individual branch amidst the weaving of growth. WWW stands for a web, interconnections.

From an early age we are trained to be independent, to make it on our own. The truth is that when we get disconnected from each other and from God, we get disconnected to our own selves. When a prayer goes unanswered, we may feel that God is disconnected from us. A lost friendship does diminish the quality of our lives. When we get cut off from each other, we lose the connection that allows fellow feeling. Sadly, some relationships do wither on the vine. Poisons threaten the branches that prevent the nutrients from reaching them

We know that distance does not have to undercut connection. Communication builds up the strength of our relationships. We speak of a wired, or better, wireless world for connection. When I was in Bloomington, I was struck by so many of the students walking about with cell phones pressed to their ears. My daughter’s phone has one type of ring for calls and another for a mysterious, to me, form of communication called texting, or receiving short thought bubbles, tweets. We can directly use some of the same notions for prayer life. I guess we could call short prayers as tweets. I love the idea of keeping our spiritual cell phones close to our ears to hear what message God may well be sending us. Cut off from the vine, we may allow ourselves to wither away from it.

Easter life is life that pulses with new growth and abundant living. Easter life is a life of connection to the source of our very being, a constant transmission of life-giving energy to each one of us. We are not made to wither on the vine, but to flourish..“We bear fruit not by squeezing it out of ourselves but because we are extensions of the vine. God who wants us to be fruitful. God’s love, presence, are abiding place of our soul.

If we want to bear Jesus’ fruit, to abide in him, in his love-kinship language- Love not self-generated-, but a gift.we are both conduits of it and live through it.  Jesus as one and only begotten, one of a kind-Jesus in this world, -loved us in and through Jesus -mutual love is here, very sign of remaining abiding indwelling.maturity moves us toward the goal, purpose of God so it fits,perfects-this is what we are designed to be together. We are recipients of divine love-but it has both vertical and horizontal dimensions of love. Recognizing and staying connected

v.10 has the reformed emphasis on God as the source of love. Our love is a response. Perfect love casts our fear.(v.18). To what degree does fear of punishment motivate us? Should it be religious motivation?  v. 8, 16 assert:How is this prone to becoming overly sentimental?-love perfected (v.12) has the sense of a purpose fulfilled, a telos, an end, a goal met. It could be seen as the abstract made concrete. I love that it refuses to separate love of God and love for others. It is a direct assault on the sort of piety that judges others harshly and sees others as objects, not people to love. God is love. What does that mean to you?

Week of May 3 devotional points

Sorry this is late. i was down with sinus infection.

Sunday-Ps. 22:25-31 is the lectionary selection for today. I needed to look up the section of it. the american right often speaks of class warfare. Here, the image is that both rich and poor will have a banquet. It has a future outlook to it, as if a future cna exist after suffering. Here yet again, the future gets the last word.

Monday-Life is pervasively unsatisfactory, even when it is far more than merely satisfactory, even when it is wonderful. This reframing of Buddhism's touchstone tenet may have something to teach non-Buddhists, especially those of us whose faith takes into account the empirical reality often referred to in classical Christian theology as "original sin," the brokenness of creation that goes beyond individual acts of sin and is woven into the warp and woof of existence. From Louisville Seminary president Jinkins

Tuesday-Ironically, in our day God's power seems neither obvious nor disruptive. Our eyes do not easily see God at work in the world. Yet, we confess that we are disciples—God's work, our hands. How is your own short-sightedness preventing you from seeing God at work in the world? What might you see if you learned to see with different eyes? What might you lose? What might you gain? God, you are beside us, shepherding life and health for all. Teach us to see you, in each other and in ourselves. Amen.Catherine Malotky

Wednesday-Suddenly pictures were taken from miles away, and we saw it (the earth) at last for what it truly is. It is about the size of a dime. It is blue with swirls of silver. It shines. The blackness it floats in is so immense, it seems almost miraculously not to have swallowed it up long since...The holy earth. We must take such care of it. It must take such care of us. This side of paradise, we are each of us so nearly all the other has. There is darkness beyond our wildest imagining all around us. Among us there is just about enough light to get by.(Buechner)

Thursday-Richard Rohr in this morning's devotion "God mercifully doles out our life in doses. Grace is too much for a moment."

Friday-Barbara Brown Taylor has a wonderful chapter in her book An Altar in the World about “getting lost.” What would it mean to wander and allow yourself to feel the vulnerability of being a bit lost or disoriented? What new awareness might break in from this softened place? What might happen if we began each day of our pilgrimage with a meditation: while lying in bed in the morning before rising, imagine each part of your body softening, releasing into the currents of the seas or floating on the wind. Then soften your will and see what images rise up from this place. What is the holy direction you feel rise up in you?

Saturday-I’ve been hiking in local areas lately. All of them are nearby.why do we take the beauty close by as somehow less impressive than that which is far away? where are your favorite local spots for natural beauty? are you able to pay in the its presence, or are you more overcome with awe and enjoyment wordlessly?

May 10 -Devotional Pts for the Week

Sunday-Ps 98 asks us to sing,sing a new song. What would elicit a new song? What makes a new song more immediate than an old one? What are issues with old songs?

Monday-The hymn "Precious Lord Take My Hand" is often sung at funerals.. The hymn was written by Tommy Dorsey. His wife died when she gave birth to a baby boy. The baby boy died that evening. It was in the depth of his grieving that he sat down at the piano. He later said, "I sat down at the piano, and my hands began to browse over the keys. Something happened to me then. I felt at peace. I felt I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody. Once in my head they (the words) just seemed to fall into place."

Tuesday-Acts 10:44-48 Hector Tobar's account of the 2010 Chilean mine disaster, "Deep, Down, Dark," recounts how 33 men were trapped for sixty-nine days beneath 2000 feet of rock. By their third day, angry at mine owners, longing for home, facing a hopeless plight, Sepulveda,, yells out, "I want to pray." He is not alone. He's a Jehovah's Witness; most of them are Catholic; but they turn to Henriquez, a devout Evangelical... He drops to his knees. The men, humbled, do likewise. Henriquez simply prays, "We aren't the best men, but, Lord, have pity on us." One man remembers his excessive drinking. Another his harsh words to his daughter. "Consider this moment of difficulty of ours. We are sinners and we need you. We want you to make us stronger and help us in this hour of need ... Please, Lord, take charge of this." Gordon Long Wednesday-We can get too comfortable with the often-quoted wisdom, "Pray as you can, and not as you can't." Consider this- "Until I try some ways I think I can't pray, I don't know quite so well how I can..." Do you enjoy nature and physical exercises? Deepen them. Is keeping a journal or quiet centering prayer not so natural? Stretch your self.Ira K Groff Thursday-The journey calls us to pack lightly. We discover that the old ways, habits, and patterns no longer serve us... Travel is easier with light bags. What do we want to carry forward with us?We then cross a threshold which is a space between. ..Thresholds are sacred places in the Celtic imagination where the veil is considered thin between heaven and earth. When we open ourselves to the liminal and stop grasping at the way things were, we may discover a variety of unseen presences supporting us along the way.Abbey of the Arts" Friday-For your Spirit woven into the fabric of creation for the eternal overlapping with time and the life of earth interlaced with heaven's vitality I give you thanks, O God. For your untamed creativity, your boundless mystery, and your passionate yearnings planted deep in the soul of every human being I give you thanks. Grant me the grace to reclaim these depths, to uncover this treasure, to liberate these longings in being set free in my own spirit to act for the well-being of the world."(from "Celtic Benediction" by John Phillip Newell) Saturday-(Eph. 4:26)  - don't hold a grudge, let go of your offense, don't let your anger control you.  There are occasions when it is appropriate to be angry - anger can spur us to respond to an injustice and seek to right a wrong.  But, when anger seeks revenge instead of justice, God's Spirit has been pushed aside by a spirit of vengeance.There is a saying: "Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." Rather than drinking poison, may God grant us the grace to drink from the cup of reconciliation.