We had plans to work outside today getting ready for the Hester family reunion next week. I turned on the television to catch the weather (like a good farmer does every morning) to see what was coming our way. Bad news and more bad news- bombings, death, terrorists, news about the killers of a family in Florida, and another Michael Jackson story- greeted me. After the weather, I began channel surfing and made a wonderful discovery.
One channel was running a show called Sunrise Earth. This morning they were in Cambodia at a Buddhist temple. As the sun slowly rose to the sounds of chanting monks, birds called to each other. The dark, strange looking shapes, the larger building, the trees and sky, came alive as a beautiful sunrise unfolded on the screen.
Inside the temple, three monks sat chanting in their orange robes, kneeling on a grass mat covered floor. The repetitive chant flowed like soothing water over my frazzled self. To my delighted wonderment, the camera revealed a Disneyland light display behind the Buddha. Running lights and flickering lights and colored lights along with the traditional candles illuminated the face of an ebony Buddha with an overbite.
I sat entranced as a rainbow over the temple came into view. A pigeon sitting on top of the temple roof stretched its legs and groomed his feathers. The clouds shifted shapes and colors while ever so slowly the darkness receded. The monks stood and walked out of the temple single file towards their day half a world away. Children began to make their way towards school in their uniforms as bicycle riding adults went about the business of the morning. And the only soundtrack is the quiet busyness... no music, no auto traffic, no laugh track. What a lovely way to begin my busy day visiting a village in Cambodia at the break of day.
One of the reasons I love to write in the morning is it gives me a quiet parentheses in my day, a time to be still, to think, to feel the presence of God before my day begins. Anne Morrow Lindberg, one of my favorite writers, captured my feelings about writing in these words. “I must write it all out at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living for it is being conscious of living.” It is my morning prayer.
The monks know that morning prayers help your day begin with the proper framework, the acknowledgment of the Higher Power that is beside us in all our lives, all around the world, in our coming and going. Morning prayers put our place in the world into perspective. Terrorists and murders and suffering and wars have been with humankind as long as we have been alive. The Bible records faithfully the many ways we take our lives in vain but we have choices we can make, choices that can lead to peace and hope. Choosing to pray in the morning, whether it is chanting or writing, meditating or singing, can shape shift your day so that you walk “in the fullness of the Lord”. It will be a busy day but it has gotten off to a good start. Thanks be to God.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Of roosters and hens...
Those cute little chicks we bought in the spring are now ten hens and four- that’s right- four roosters. The hens will soon be laying and the roosters have begun roostering. The competition amongst the roosters is heating up as they crow the morning sun light into being. Funnily enough, there is a bass, two baritones and one tenor voice. The tenor is just beginning his singing career. Roosters have to learn to crow so there is a lot of time spent in practice, usually beginning at five a.m. or so, a tad early for us. You have to “go to bed with the chickens” to be able to get up with them. Rain slows them down but being dedicated crowers, it does not stop them. Tomorrow three of the roosters will return to the breeder who offered a money back guarantee for them. We will see if one rooster will be quieter. One of our house guests said last week that she was a firm supporter of gun control but she had begun to reconsider her position at five a.m. that morning.
The chickens have developed personalities. Michael feeds and waters them twice a day. They know him and he knows them. Some are more curious and some are quieter. Chicken fights... two chickens will swell up and run at each other, bumping chests and fussing... happen with no damage to body or soul. Everybody is figuring out their place in the flock. Some are leaders and some are followers. Some are mouthy and others just want to hunt for bugs in peace and quiet. Every day the chickens gather in the shade and nestle down next to each other for nap time. Every body has a place and the flock is quiet and safe.
The next bag of feed Michael buys will be laying mash and then the egg production begins. Chickens have to grow up enough to lay. Some are early layers while others take longer to begin. It will take the right kind of feed with ground up oyster shells for calcium, as well as maturity for the chickens to lay. We have been collecting egg cartons to share eggs. With ten hens, we can expect more eggs than we can eat so like zucchini in the summertime, eggs may begin appearing in unlocked cars at church.
Last night our little worship group had the first of three meetings to tell our stories, say what we need and get ready to make a decision about our next step. Some of us are weary still and low energy. Some of us need more than we have. Some of us are focused and ready. All of us are committed to each other, our community, our communion, our flock. There will be one more meeting for sharing and then a third meeting where we make a decision on which fork in the road to take. Our goal is to be up from our resting time and traveling on by the first of September.
One of our group who had not been a part of our old church observed that we had changed. No longer defined by the hurt and anger she felt early on in our time together, we are beginning to look to our future and are able to speak our needs, our must haves, our hopes and dreams again. It scares us to death because we know how much we stand to lose. Some where in here, God is at work, pushing us towards each other, moving among us with hope, love and joy.
When you have made leaps of faith and ended up at the bottom of a cliff, broken and bleeding, leaping off into the unknown again requires trust that God is always with you in the flying times and in the broken times... that somehow you will be able to say as Paul did, all things work together for good for those who love the Lord. And as Carolyn reminded us, a little wine for the stomachs sake (or the soul’s sake) was also part of Paul’s theology.
So we will meet again to eat and drink, weep and giggle, crow and cluck, nestle up next to each other, pray, give thanks and beg for help. We will rest in the shade of the outstretched wings of our Mother Hen who is always watching over us, loving and caring for us in brokeness and in wholeness. We know to Whom we belong and we are God’s little chicks growing up into hens and roosters. Our trust is in the Lord who made heaven and earth. It is enough, more than enough as we live in faith, with hope for our future and joy in our present. Thanks be to God.
The chickens have developed personalities. Michael feeds and waters them twice a day. They know him and he knows them. Some are more curious and some are quieter. Chicken fights... two chickens will swell up and run at each other, bumping chests and fussing... happen with no damage to body or soul. Everybody is figuring out their place in the flock. Some are leaders and some are followers. Some are mouthy and others just want to hunt for bugs in peace and quiet. Every day the chickens gather in the shade and nestle down next to each other for nap time. Every body has a place and the flock is quiet and safe.
The next bag of feed Michael buys will be laying mash and then the egg production begins. Chickens have to grow up enough to lay. Some are early layers while others take longer to begin. It will take the right kind of feed with ground up oyster shells for calcium, as well as maturity for the chickens to lay. We have been collecting egg cartons to share eggs. With ten hens, we can expect more eggs than we can eat so like zucchini in the summertime, eggs may begin appearing in unlocked cars at church.
Last night our little worship group had the first of three meetings to tell our stories, say what we need and get ready to make a decision about our next step. Some of us are weary still and low energy. Some of us need more than we have. Some of us are focused and ready. All of us are committed to each other, our community, our communion, our flock. There will be one more meeting for sharing and then a third meeting where we make a decision on which fork in the road to take. Our goal is to be up from our resting time and traveling on by the first of September.
One of our group who had not been a part of our old church observed that we had changed. No longer defined by the hurt and anger she felt early on in our time together, we are beginning to look to our future and are able to speak our needs, our must haves, our hopes and dreams again. It scares us to death because we know how much we stand to lose. Some where in here, God is at work, pushing us towards each other, moving among us with hope, love and joy.
When you have made leaps of faith and ended up at the bottom of a cliff, broken and bleeding, leaping off into the unknown again requires trust that God is always with you in the flying times and in the broken times... that somehow you will be able to say as Paul did, all things work together for good for those who love the Lord. And as Carolyn reminded us, a little wine for the stomachs sake (or the soul’s sake) was also part of Paul’s theology.
So we will meet again to eat and drink, weep and giggle, crow and cluck, nestle up next to each other, pray, give thanks and beg for help. We will rest in the shade of the outstretched wings of our Mother Hen who is always watching over us, loving and caring for us in brokeness and in wholeness. We know to Whom we belong and we are God’s little chicks growing up into hens and roosters. Our trust is in the Lord who made heaven and earth. It is enough, more than enough as we live in faith, with hope for our future and joy in our present. Thanks be to God.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
We are not the Waltons...
God wants to know us... in total depth and reality, the darkness as well as the light, the anger as well as the love. Morton Kelsey
It was a wonderful week at the beach... for all twelve of us. Our three children, Megan, Alison and Adam with their partners in life, Mike, David and Michelle... the four grandsons, Matthew, Mason, Mead and Aidan... and us, the grandparents under one roof, slept and ate and played and laughed and yelled and were happy and grumpy together all week long. Every day was an adventure in family living.
Remember the Waltons? That T.V. family in the Virginia mountains who were scrappy and plucky, full of love and generosity even in the midst of the Great Depression? The ones who got crossways sometimes but always seemed to work it out in an hour or so? I loved the intergenerational family unit on that show, partly because my grandparents were such an important part of my childhood and I always wanted them to live near us, and partly because there was always someone else to go to besides your parents for affirmation and instruction.
Real family is never so neat and tidy as the Waltons. Our differences, gifts from God, pose challenges to our own particular ways of being. We have to move over, share, hush up, bite our tongues, smoosh together sometimes when we would rather be alone, give up the illusion of being the sole controller of our fate. We come into being in families and we live in the reality of being known by those who birthed us and those who watched us grow... parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. They know us in ways that are blood kin ways of knowing, living with us for a lifetime, seeing us stumble and rise to walk again, loving us through all of life.
This knowledge can be clear sighted or it can be caught in a myopic pattern that allows no room for growth or change. Most of us grow out of our childhood ways of being and become adults influenced by our past but not children any longer. Sometimes families keep us type cast as the princess, or the problem child, or the athlete, or the funny one, or the peacemaker. Those pieces of who we were/are rarely define our whole selves as grownups. It can be lovely to visit the Land of What Once Was (perhaps) but it can be deadly to live there.
Our families can be lighthouses illuminating the journey, a turning dynamic light that allows us to see what might lie ahead. Or, they can be a fixed source of light with only one path lit up and not much room for exploration. Both kinds of families have darkness as well as light and choose different ways of moving through it.
Morton Kelsey’s quote reminds me that we are all part of a much larger family, the Family of God. In this family there is room for all of who we are and a saved place at the table for family meals. We just have to show up, wounded, weary, wicked and whomped though we may be, to be loved and soothed. We can bring our funny, joyful, smart mouthed selves to the table and everyone will laugh at our jokes. God will see and know our angers and hurts, our dark places that live next to our light filled loving selves and all will be well. So today, I give thanks for families, our initiation into the world and a practice time for the Family of God.
It was a wonderful week at the beach... for all twelve of us. Our three children, Megan, Alison and Adam with their partners in life, Mike, David and Michelle... the four grandsons, Matthew, Mason, Mead and Aidan... and us, the grandparents under one roof, slept and ate and played and laughed and yelled and were happy and grumpy together all week long. Every day was an adventure in family living.
Remember the Waltons? That T.V. family in the Virginia mountains who were scrappy and plucky, full of love and generosity even in the midst of the Great Depression? The ones who got crossways sometimes but always seemed to work it out in an hour or so? I loved the intergenerational family unit on that show, partly because my grandparents were such an important part of my childhood and I always wanted them to live near us, and partly because there was always someone else to go to besides your parents for affirmation and instruction.
Real family is never so neat and tidy as the Waltons. Our differences, gifts from God, pose challenges to our own particular ways of being. We have to move over, share, hush up, bite our tongues, smoosh together sometimes when we would rather be alone, give up the illusion of being the sole controller of our fate. We come into being in families and we live in the reality of being known by those who birthed us and those who watched us grow... parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. They know us in ways that are blood kin ways of knowing, living with us for a lifetime, seeing us stumble and rise to walk again, loving us through all of life.
This knowledge can be clear sighted or it can be caught in a myopic pattern that allows no room for growth or change. Most of us grow out of our childhood ways of being and become adults influenced by our past but not children any longer. Sometimes families keep us type cast as the princess, or the problem child, or the athlete, or the funny one, or the peacemaker. Those pieces of who we were/are rarely define our whole selves as grownups. It can be lovely to visit the Land of What Once Was (perhaps) but it can be deadly to live there.
Our families can be lighthouses illuminating the journey, a turning dynamic light that allows us to see what might lie ahead. Or, they can be a fixed source of light with only one path lit up and not much room for exploration. Both kinds of families have darkness as well as light and choose different ways of moving through it.
Morton Kelsey’s quote reminds me that we are all part of a much larger family, the Family of God. In this family there is room for all of who we are and a saved place at the table for family meals. We just have to show up, wounded, weary, wicked and whomped though we may be, to be loved and soothed. We can bring our funny, joyful, smart mouthed selves to the table and everyone will laugh at our jokes. God will see and know our angers and hurts, our dark places that live next to our light filled loving selves and all will be well. So today, I give thanks for families, our initiation into the world and a practice time for the Family of God.
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