Pondering Means Not Hurrying

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2: 19In a single verse, we are privy to what Mary actually did—after she was told that she was going to have a baby and that her baby would have a sacred role in God’s plan for humanity.We see in Mary’s response an action that is beautiful, humble and meaningful. She doesn’t rush around telling her closest friends what has happened. She doesn’t make a plan. She doesn’t fret, worry or let her nerves get the best of her.Mary’s heart reveals two needed postures in today’s frenzied world with 24/7 news in the ever-ready, always on world we live in today. Mary “treasures” the information she has been given. Then, Mary “ponders” it.To treasure and ponder both the seen and unseen things of our lives grounds us. By treasuring and pondering truth, we develop and grow a contemplative soul—a soul that ponders the invisible; a soul that responds rather than reacts and a soul that is anchored in a bigger picture of life than just the urgent, pressing and hurry.[tweetthis]There are five components needed to grow a contemplative soul.[/tweetthis] These five components have been the foundation for Gwen and me in our life in our sabbatical and post-sabbatical. 

1. We need silence. In today’s world of outer noise and inner confusion, silence helps us find our heart. It’s only 18” between our head and our heart but that journey is said to be one of the longest journeys in the world. Silence helps us de-clutter our minds; center our hearts and work through the mental congestion where it seems there is always a sort of committee meeting happening in our minds. Silence is necessary to grow a pondering heart. Without silence, we are told that it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.  Every day, seek to spend 10-20 minutes in silence. Start with 10 and grow your time to be more like 20. Most spiritual masters encourage us to spend 20 minutes in quiet---learning to treasure the Presence of God in our midst. There what’s unimportant in our lives grows smaller while what is really important becomes larger and Great.  By far, the very best book I've read on silence this past year is Martin Laird's "Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation."

2. We need Solitude. Solitude is not just being alone. It is understanding the movement of beginning alone and entering the realization that you are not alone—really. You are in God’s presence. As Mary spent time “pondering” her aloneness was transformed in hearing again and again what the Angel actually told her. She relished in that experience. We can relish in ours. When we learn how to “do” solitude, we are entering a movement on which all spiritual mothers and fathers would agree: Without solitude, we cannot find our heart or True self. Solitude grounds us from the applause of people, the scaffolding of position and power and helps us leave the tyranny of the urgent to connect with the Ground of our Being.  I'd highly recommend, Henri Nouwan's The Way of the Heart to help you grasp the classic understanding of solitude.

3. We pray. I’ve found that prayer is the great stumbling block for most people who follow Jesus. We either don’t pray at all or our prayers are more quick rescue pleas from some situation we are hoping to avoid. Prayer is conversation. It is dialogue not monologue. It is a two way, reciprocal conversation where we speak and God speaks. The Ancients said, “God’s first language is silence” and if all we hear is silence from God in our prayers then we posture ourselves to experience a sort of Grand Silence—a quiet that assuages our aches and fears. The silence brings us to Presence. As we “ponder” and “treasure” we articulate what is stirring. We give words to the wordless feelings we experience. We connect. We sit in our connection.  The book that rocked my world this past year on prayer is Cynthia Bourgeault's Inner Awakening.

4. We become slow. There is an art of slowing that our culture is missing today where everything is fast and instant. The cult of speed causes us to move so fast that we speed by Heaven in our midst. No one who lives with “hurry” as a mantra has time to “ponder” and “treasure” and thus, we miss the richness of a feeding that can be ours. Walk slowly. Move slowly. Be attentive to your taste buds rather than scarfing down our food where there is barely time to taste or “taste and see that the Lord is good.” For more on slowing please read: The Jesus Life by Stephen W. Smith. There are chapters describing the way of the table and the rhythm of life that helps one foster a contemplative heart.

5. We experience consolation. A person who nourishes a heart to “ponder” and “treasure” is a person who learns where the source of consolation really is and how consolation works in the soul of a person. Ignatius of Loyola said that if a person spent time every day to notice how they were consoled by the love and grace of God every single day for three months, they would never, ever be the same again. This is the practice of examining your day---and tracing back through the seen and unseen events of your day and noticing how God was seeking to console you—the way a mother would console a fretting child. Does he do it through beauty? Does God do it through a conversation or something you notice? And the opposite is also true: how did you experience the desolation of God’s seeming absence? Where did it seem that you were totally on your own with God no where in sight?  Jim Manny's book is a classic on this!

  As we enter these days of Christmas an in anticipation of the New Year--- Mary can become a teacher for us—a mentor we need to become less busy and deeper in our hearts!  

Listening to the Word

There is an art to deep listening!

As moderns, we think we know how to read most books.  Yet in our fast society and driven cultures, we graze over books rarely having a moment to sit with what we are reading. We think that reading the Bible through in a year will actually help us.  But it's interesting that Americans are really the only culture that promotes such a thing.  There is a better way to read---a way that ushers you into an experience of encounter that is too deep for words!

Lectio Divina means literally, “Sacred” and “reading.” It is not reading fast. It not reading for information. It is not Bible study. It is the slow art of deep listening. In the ancient way of reading the Scriptures in a sacred way, we simply read a short text of the Scriptures slow. Not everything good is fast. By repeating what you read a few times we are invited into the passage we read. To listen deeply, you  may read the passage several times--perhaps listening to the same passage four times.  It's as if, once is clearly not enough. We read to be read by the Scriptures, not to just gain information.

Reading the Bible in this way is really a child like experience—an invitation to become like a child and hear something very important. Remember when someone might have read to you when you were a child? It elicits feelings of being connected; being with someone; being wanted in a way because someone was taking the time to do this with me—for me—to me.

It’s very similar when we learn to practice reading the Scriptures this way. When we read the story about Jesus calming the Sea (Mark 4:35-41), we read it slowly to see things; to hear things; to smell things; to feel things. We can and will miss the deeper meaning in a single reading of the passage. When we slow down and read the passage several times, we may see ourselves in the boat or in one of the “other boats” that were in the exact same storm. When the boat begins to sink, we may see ourselves frantically bailing out water or holding on for dear life. But as Jesus stands up to quiet the sea, we find ourselves wondering if He might turn to the storm within our own hearts—our work situation; our marriages; the storm of our finances and the storm of today’s fragile world. Everything is possible when we read the Scriptures with new ways and new ears to really listen—to listen very deeply to what is being read.

Cell by cell, our brains need to hear things layer upon layer, so that WHAT can actually change our lives actually WILL  really change our lives. We will feel as the disciples felt on the Emmaus road when they confessed "Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us?"  Reading and by read by the Word nourishes a flame of meaning within us.  An old Greek philosopher said that “Repetition is the mother of all things.” To repeat something is how we as humans learn. Once is simply not enough. We need to hear something really important more than once. We may not be listening the first time. We may be distracted. I may have been focused on an email I should have sent before I even sat down to read the Bible. We’re not fully present. So reading the Scriptures slowly and repeatedly, allows us to hear with our hearts not just speed read with our minds.

Quadrant by quadrant, our hearts begin to burn with clarity, insight--knowing that we have been "spoken" to.  We read the Scriptures so that what is being read by move through our heart, quadrant by quadrant--until the Word can penetrate into the deepest, most hidden quadrant—that quadrant Jesus was concerned about most in a human being’s heart.  Jesus, himself, spoke about what’s way down deep—in the fourth quadrant of our hearts—where no one knows what’s really there—not even ourselves. He explained it clearly, “It’s what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution.” If the source of our pollution is down deep, then doesn’t it just make sense to participate in reading the Scriptures in a way—to that THEY can sink down deep to cure the source of the pollution?   So, doesn’t it really make sense, to let the pure, clean and transforming Word sink way down to the place where transformation really needs to happen? The slowing down of how we read the Scriptures is important so that we can actually be read by the Scriptures. Just to read a passage might bring inspiration. But transformation happens when the Word sinks deeply and ushers us into real change—changing our desires as well as our habits.  Why would we want to skim the passage then--only noting what we've already seen before? This way, even a single word might become our daily bread--the bread that will really sustain us and nourish us!

Henri Nouwen has reminded us, “The Bible is a sacred book and must be read in a sacred way.” Our modern way of reading almost anything began in our grade school experience where we were all taught to read for comprehension—to read so that we might pass the State’s standardized test. But reading the Scriptures in an ancient way not only requires us to re-learn how we actually read the holy book but also requires us to surrender old ways; old styles; and old, long held, gripping ways we go about reading the Scriptures and also being read by them.

There are four things we need to surrender when we begin to read the Bible in an sacred way:

1. We must surrender our desire for power and control.

   In a retreat I attended, people made comments after the various movements of the Lectio way of reading together. Often, the leader might ask, “After I read it the first time, share a word or phrase that seemed to stand out; seem to somehow get your attention.” But as I listened closely to the responses of those sharing, most of the comments seemed more about power and control than about being deeply spoken to in the Lectio. When we read the Scriptures in a way to be read by the Scriptures, it is the power of the Word, not the power of our sharing that matters. The Power of the Word is yielding to the fact that there actually is a Word for us to first listen to before we react to the word.

   We are so quick to speak—and our quickness in speaking may be rooted in our subtle ways of sharing what we already know—some podcast that we recently listened to; some sermon we just heard; some book we just read---that in our sharing our “insights”—we may be sharing facts and statements that seem to underscore OUR importance—not the importance of the Word.  When we learn to respond--not to react to that we have just heard, we are allowing the deep work of listening to happen in us.  It's true in a conversation and it's especially true in a conversation with God through reading the Bible. What someone ELSE said about the passage is simply NOT the agenda here. What God said to you is the crux of the matter. We can forget this.

   It seems odd that power and control can disrupt what people really hear—but it does. We should learn to be careful as we enter reading the Bible in a way so that the power belongs to God and the control is of the Spirit—not of a person.

2. We can surrender to our desire for affection, esteem and approval.

   It truly is amazing and concerning how the human ego can show up in all it’s self-perceived glory—even in something so holy as the reading of the Scriptures. What we share may actually be veiled and smug statements that are more about our self. We think if we say something funny, people might begin to like us or accept us. We surmise that if the insight we share is really deep, people might be impressed with us and seek us out. Someone might notice us. And isn’t it really the entire point of a Lectio to let the Scriptures be noticed and not an extrovert?   Our words can so easily get in the way of someone who is truly in the poster of listening deeply so that they might be spoken to. If we surrender our desire to speak up and get noticed, then we find ourselves in the posture of truly receiving; truly being ministered to; truly being served the very Bread of Life.

3. We learn to surrender our own desire to change any situation, person ---even our own self.

   How often have we all had the experience of sitting in a sermon; experiencing a class or participating even in a Lectio with the hope that the person next to us—might REALLY get it—this time. After all, we’ve already “gotten it” we assume. By our own desires and also efforts, we perhaps think we might manipulate the Spirit to “really speak,” really convict or really get to someone. We can lay this down and as we lay our desires to have someone else change, we posture our own hearts that we can, ourselves be spoken to. Why? Because our motive is not about anyone else—other than ourselves. We are the beggars who need the daily bread.

4. We can surrender our modern ways of approaching the Scriptures and embrace the ancient ways.

   When the Bible tells us that “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” we need to adjust then to the fact that there really is a power that comes from the simple act of listening to someone read the Scriptures.  In our age of light shows and smoke machines--even in worship services, I know it seems odd to say this, but it's simply true. Yet, we are perhaps in our modern times, transmitting the dis-ease of the soul called:  “Attention Deficit Dis-order” and we cannot be still, sit still or really listen unless it is in PowerPoint, loud and perhaps in a rap like cadence. The Lectio experience invites us to simplicity---to turn off iphones and to not use PowerPoint and to simply do the simple thing of the forgotten art of listening. We can learn to grow the ears of the African elephant to literally wrap our ears around a text because we know way down deep that THIS word is what will really fill us; THIS Word is what will really speak to us; THIS WORD is what is really eternal and not cultural and not a way people “use to” hear from God. No, we can hear today if we learn how to surrender to how we actually listen. Culture is shaping us in far, far more ways than we are aware.  Being shaped by the Word is our opportunity here--resisting the shaping of cultural and relevant ways.

In Lectio Divina, we learn to open ourselves to the love and presence of God.  People can get in the way of our opening ourselves.  So we need to be careful to not be a distraction for the love and presence of God.

Lectio is a simple practice that offers rich and wonderful moments in our relationship to God.  To protect this practice a few guidelines are important to ensure we experience what God offers us.

Finally, the one who is reading the Scriptures assumes a very hidden role. You become the flute which the air moves through. It’s the air that matters, not the flute. So, for the ones who lead the Lectio, we can always remember, “It’s not about me.” And when we surrender to that posture, we realize it’s not about our insights---there should be none shared by the one who leads. The leader simply is there to read---not to share their own insights. Their actual physical position, posture and influxes of the voice might also get in the way of someone actually hearing what is important for them to hear. Because we cannot know what God wants to speak to someone else—we, as the reader, seek to remain neutral as if we are simply the vessel. The Lectio is the time to take off the teaching hat; the preaching voice and the group leader’s attempts to get everyone to participate. Some may remain silent—because something too deep for words has perhaps just happened. Lectio is not the time for community building. It’s not the time for teaching. Lectio is the act of surrender our many words for the One, true Word—the Word that changes everything. 

Recommend Resources to help you study this more:

Too Deep for Words by Thelma Hall.  Perhaps the single best reference on Lectio Divina I am aware of now. As I checked just now, there are used copies for a penny!  Go to Amazon to Get it!   

Opening To God by David Benner.  I love this book's wonderful survey of how to enter into the movements of Lectio Divina.  Get it on Amazon Now!

The Lectio Divina Guide - A simple guide a created to get you started.

Five Reasons Why I Pray at Fixed Hours of the Day

Growing up a Baptist, I never even heard of the Fixed Hour Prayers, the Daily Office or Divine Office until I, like Paul, learned to put aside childish spiritual ways and be a man in my spiritual journey. In my spiritual tradition, spontaneous and heart felt prayers were what was admired. As a boy, I remember my father driving us home from church chiding a fellow deacon because he read his prayer during worship—an act that no one who walked closely with God should ever do. To my father and for me, it was unthinkable that saying a prayer would not be heart-felt, said at the moment and spontaneous.  God forbid! Growing up for many of us in our spiritual lives involves re-thinking or perhaps learning for the first time how important praying is a regular and consistent times of the day.In my long journey now of walking with God, there is no practice I enjoy more and no prayers I like to pray more than old prayers and in addition, in order to live with rhythm and to make space for God in my life, I practice Fixed Hour Prayers or Daily Office as much as I can. Let me explain. Here are five reasons why I do this and you might want to do it also:

1. Praying at a  regular times of the day is an ancient practice revealed in the Bible.

The prayer book for the early Christians was the Psalms. They prayed the Psalms and knew the psalms and shared the Psalms as their primary source of spiritual encouragement. The Psalmist said, “Seven times a day do I praise thee.” Psalm 119:164. Most pastor and missionaries that I work with rarely pray. Most do not pray with their spouses and few pray as a family. The same is true of marketplace leaders and small business folks. Who has time to pray once, much more SEVEN times a day? Most of us feel fortunate to say a quick prayer before we scarf down our corn flakes or power drink because we need to be on to the next thing.We are too busy to pray. Yet, praying at fixed times of the day is the primary way to call our attention back to God—to become aware and awaken to a different cadence of life than power, money and self-promotion.[tweetthis]Fixed hour prayers call busy and ordinary people to live in a daily rhythm of putting ourselves in the presence of God in a conscious and meaningful way.[/tweetthis]It's called Fixed hour prayers because our spiritual fathers and mothers chose regular and consistent times to come together, drop what they were doing and turn to God. There are several different versions of what times people actually practiced fixed hour prayers but in general, there is a morning time, a noon-time, an end of your work time and a before you go to sleep time.  Of course, people have added to these and subtracted from these.  Some times of prayers are strict such as in monastic communities. Some, like myself, find a more relaxed and less structured way to practice this ancient way of praying. We are much more tolerant and forgiving and we do it as we can and when we can. At our work of Potter's Inn, we do this on our Soul Care Days and in our retreats. Its often the highlight for many guests to first learn about this--then engage in the doing of Fixed Hour prayers. Yet to be honest, we are not all on the same page when it comes to this.  What I can tell you is that this one practice has brought my marriage more together. It has given Gwen and I something we do together which closes the gap between us. It is a simple, non-threatening way to share our hearts and some time.One man at our retreat pulled me aside to say, "You taught me about this years ago. I want you to know that fixed hour praying is the best thing that my wife and I have EVER done in our marriage. It's brought us together in a way I never thought possible."  I hear this alot as people engage in this practice. 

2. Praying at regular times of the day helps order my day; lessen the chaos and calls me back to what really matters in life.

Like you, I live a full life. My day is full of appointments, meetings and errands. Yet, when I know that my time of prayer is coming, I have the opportunity to stop what I am doing and this stopping is my primary way of structuring my life for what really counts. I stop. I pray. I reflect. I pause. Then I move back into my life. But the stopping and praying orders my internal chaos and loosens the chains I feel when I live by the tyranny of the urgent.  Gwen sets her time of prayers on her iphone. A bell rings and calls her to pause, pray and look up.  We need these reminders. I have some recommendations for you at the end of this blog.The famous painting by the French artist, Jean Francois Millet, “The Angelus” reveals a couple standing in the field, stopping to pray. They have evidently just heard the church bells sound out the chimes that everyone needs to stop. Everyone needs to pray. Everyone needs to lift up their eyes from the working world to their God and say a few words. I love this painting. But without church bells, we have nothing telling us to stop. We have nothing helping us live in rhythm. We have nothing telling us to live for something more than money. Praying at regular, fixed times of the day, gives internal order to a chaotic life.  The collapse of time, where everything is busy and everyone is over-committed is in my opinion the number one reason the wheels of the buses are flying off of our lives and we are collapsing in exhaustion and fatigue---with no time for God or being with God.

3. I pray the Fixed Hour Prayers because as I pray—I find myself in community.

For me, the most powerful motivation for praying a regular times of the days is this: When I pray at Fixed Hours, I am reminded that I am not alone. But how does this happen? It happens to me because I know that many of my friends across the world are practicing what I am practicing. I begin praying alone but somehow find myself in the midst and company of a holy few--a group of men and women, who like me, are doing what pilgrims have done for thousands of years.I have a close friend who lives in Africa. When I pray at regular times, I know that David is praying—or has already prayed the same and exact prayer I am about to say. I realize that my friend, Fil, who lives in North Carolina has prayed the prayer I am about to say—but he said it in his own time zone which is two hours before me. I also realize that my friend who lives in California will soon be opening up his prayer book and talking to God about the exact same thing I just told God. We come together in prayer and in the praying a gap of time and years is closed.It’s uncanny how this works—but it does work. I have the deepest sense of community by praying at regular times of the day and this mystery is deep, profound and comforting. Every time I pray like this, I am not alone.

4. I pray at fixed hours because it is easier than not praying at all.

In my work with leaders, you’d be surprised at how man times I hear pastors, missionaries and other Christian leaders who try to do it all well, confess that they rarely, if ever pray. Many will try to have a “quiet time” or will attempt to read the Bible for a few moments. But then an inner committee meeting begins in their heads telling them; shaming them; nagging them to do something more important. So prayer is dropped and their inner life runs a muck.Prayer is perhaps the greatest practice of the spiritual life that people struggle with. The disciples sure struggled with prayer.  Ignorant of how to do it, they pleaded with Jesus, "Teach us to pray."  That same plea, I think, is the private plea of most people I encounter--in the church! We just need help and cannot assume we actually know how to pray; when to pray and what to pray. Fixed hour prayer is a mentor to us.Let me be truthful, we often do not know what to pray or how we should pray. As a result of these two traps, we often do not pray at all. When we follow historic, ancient prayers, we don’t have to make up holy words or try to impress God. We simply say that is right there before our eyes and hearts. We enter a long-standing chorus of men and women who have gone before us that have discovered what I am discovering. Fixed hour prayers really work. Fixed hour prayers really help.

5. I pray at Fixed hours because Jesus prayed at Fixed hours and so did Paul and Peter and the early church.

A few years back, I wrote the book, “The Jesus Life.” The writing of this  book changed my life. I fell in love with Jesus all over again and I realized that Jesus’ ways of living were really pathways for me to live. The early followers of Jesus were not called Christians but followers of “the way.” We are told this five times in the book of Acts! I believe we modern folks, have lost our way. We’ve traded ancient and proven ways for modern day shortcuts to almost everything in life that is dear to us.Jesus prayed the Psalms. So, it’s this simple. If I want to be like Jesus, I need to pray the Psalms. Knowing that Jesus prayed at regular times of the day motivates me to want to do the same. When I realize that the early church did this, I want to follow in their way. The modern church has lost it's footing here. We have failed people by ignoring this ancient way of talking to God and being with God.Paul and Peter prayed at fixed hours ( Acts 3:2 and 10:9). It’s not odd or weird to realize that as the early followers of Jesus began to embrace and integrate their new way of living that they felt it important to pray at regular times of the day.When I realized this—I was greatly helped. When I read about Daniel who we’ve heard stories about in the lion’s den praying at Fixed hours, I was also encouraged (see Daniel 6:13).I’m afraid, we’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water. In our attempts to accomplish more and to live productive lives, we’ve abandoned ancient spiritual practices that offer us hope and a renewing of our inner life. Fixed hour prayers is one such practice that truly can revolutionize your life. I think you should join me and thousands of others in this practice and just see what you think. I'd like to know your thoughts---your resistance and your celebration of this way of praying! Here are some resources to help you begin or continue the practice of Fixed Hour Prayers. 

1. Explore a Community in Europe living by FIxed Hour prayers and join them with an APP!
2. Here's the OnLine Version I used every day- and multiple times and it has an APP also!
3. Here is the Daily Office produced by Phyliss Tickle and sits by our chairs in our home. We use this far, far more than any other version. It's easy to use and has an excellent Introduction to Fixed Hour Prayers we use at Potter's Inn.

The Wild and Peaceful Landscapes of Stillness

During Sabbatical I had some amazing adventures in experiencing the difference between the stillness I thought I knew about and had studying about and the stillness that patiently lead me to wild and peaceful landscapes within me that I had never seen or even knew existed.There is nothing like being surrounded in stillness by an endless deep ocean and a crisp blue sky that seems to stretch to eternity. I sat still; I stood still, even holding my breath so as not to miss the glory of such a sight. Creation of the Creator unfolding right in from of me and I became a silent witness. What a privilege. I was honored and to this day I hold the honor in my heart.To encounter the Creator at his work while wrapped in stillness is to not remain the same. Stillness gave me the deep awareness that while being a silent witness, being actually present with God in a glorious display of nature right before my eyes, he too was present with me in the landscape of the dark, rugged crevices of piercing grief and suffering . In stillness I experienced my presence with God in beauty and his presence with me in brokenness. We were together and it was good. Nothing fixed or figured out. Nothing healed and made brand new.Stillness gave me an experience with Companionship and Compassion and Comfort. I wasn’t alone with my isolating fears and blinding tears. Stillness ushered me into that mysterious peace that had nothing to do with understanding anything. Stillness granted me the reality of Divine Presence. Stillness let me know God in the midst of what seems to be a godless situation. Stillness made an inviting space for me to know and listen to God say, “Be still and know me”. And I did.Stillness gave me space to listen to the unexpressed voice crying out from my desolate wilderness. This is what I heard:A Prayer for Tommy*Holy, precious, purest angel face,God, please kiss him with your tender grace.Double chinButton nosePerfect little fingersSweetest tiny toes.Holy is this momentLove and sorrow flowsHearts that ache to hold himAre held by One who knows.Tommy Jacob Smith, my fourth grandchild: born March 5,2015—died, March 5, 2015

Sabbatical: Going to the End of My Rope

“You’re blessed when you are at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”—Jesus in Matthew 5:3, MessageMost every person I know needs to dismantle their emotional programming for what it means to be happy in life. We are hard-wired to think that happiness and joy come by chasing the outer markers of success in life: a bigger house, a nicer car, a new toy. I explore this in Inside Job, my new book. We believe a lie and we make a vow that determines how we will live our life and try and try to be happy.Jesus turned this kind of thinking up on it’s head. To be happy—to be blessed—requires a total shift in our paradigm of how we view life. He offered us a paradigm shift in what is called the “Beatitudes.” These statements found in Matthew 5:3-14, are short, pithy and life-altering guidelines which help us not only dismantle our hard-wiring we’ve acquired through culture, church and family, but they help us really see how happiness is cultivated in our lives.In our Sabbatical, Gwen and I have come, face to face, with these statements--these beatitudes. Let me share one here: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The Message jolts us to our core and says it this way, “You’re blessed when you are at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”Blessing and happiness come by our emptying ourselves and having to rely on God in a complete and resolved kind of way. It’s when we are so vulnerable; so power-less; so weak and so empty that there is room for God to do his work. Our poverty is exchanged for his blessing. On our own, some of us try to out work and out wit God.We live as Parker Palmer has aptly coined it: functional atheism. We say believe in God and trust God, yet we live in a manic pace, stripping our souls and running our lives on empty. I had to come face-to-face with this humbling realization in our sabbatical--yet, again. We live as if our life, our work and our relationships are totally up to us. We, the, “functional atheist” of the 21st century, have soul work to do. We’d never admit it but we are more functional atheist than experiencing a faith with sustains, nurtures and shows us how to live with resilience . We live and function as if we are the ones having to push the proverbial boulder up another hill—yet again.Poverty in soul, for me meant that I had to accept let go of my grip on my work--and get out of its grip on me, my ministry and my staff. This acceptance--this consent is my daily work--my daily job. This letting go was a relinquishment of power and control. It required me confessing that I find my satisfaction in work--and not in God is not a good thing for me or anyone else around me. It is a shift towards poverty of soul for me. At times during sabbatical, I was anxious that Potter’s Inn might fail; fall apart or even die. We feel so fragile due to raising our support. Our helplessness actually fostered a deep sense of well-being---why? Because it meant letting go. Poverty of spirit meant a handing over to God all that I simply could not do and should not do.God works in us is to foster, nourish and grow a sense of contentment, inner-serenity and shalom that we live with the awareness that simply says this: No matter what my circumstances; no matter how hard this particular time is in my life; no matter how powerless I feel right now, 'All is well in my life and all will be well around me'. True contentment, my friends, is an Inside Job. In sabbatical, I left my work but I had to do my inside job.It is NOT up to me. I relinquish my efforts to be God—to be everywhere at once and to do multiple things that have stripped my soul bear and left me so empty inside. The great work of God is more than planting churches; more than sharing the Gospel; more than teaching. The great work awaiting each one of us the work of our inside job. God truly does desire our well-being. Sit with that thought for a moment and see where it might take you. What if you took a moment today and sat in your emptiness and weakness—feeling depleted and truly at the end of your rope and experienced the hands of God doing one thing: holding you. That’s it—just let yourself be held for a quiet moment. To sit, rather than DO something is an act of submission--and act of letting go--an act of well-being. Hey, I'm all for action, but even action must have it's seasons, right?In the beginning of our time “off” we felt like we truly were at the end of our rope. We were tired, worn out and experiencing some degree of burn out. So many years of pioneering and work had depleted us. A poverty within is what we had to face. As we faced our own spiritual poverty and admitted it and also confessed it—finally—we were brought low to a place of inner desperation and longing. “God, I don’t feel like I can go on. I can’t retire financially. But I’m at the end. Please God, do something. I let go now. It's time for you to do the thing that you must love to do--transform me and people like me."In that kind of confession, it seemed to have ushered us both into a journey of renewal.

Welcoming Myself Back to Work

Never have I found a more appropriate prayer for my first day back to work after a long sabbatical than the Welcome Prayer by Father Thomas Keating. At the first reading, you might be tempted to say, "What a nice prayer." And then move on. But Gwen and I have sat with this prayer on an intentional basis for the past few months. We have attempted to excavate the meaning and suck the marrow out of each phrase and sentence.It is rich. It is deep and it is transformational.Here it is:The Welcoming Prayer (by Father Thomas Keating)Welcome, welcome, welcome.I welcome everything that comes to me todaybecause I know it's for my healing.I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,situations, and conditions.I let go of my desire for power and control.I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,approval and pleasure.I let go of my desire for survival and security.I let go of my desire to change any situation,condition, person or myself.I open to the love and presence of God andGod's action within. Amen.To Welcome this day, our first day back to work means to enter this with no regret, apprehension or fear. It, the first day, the first week and the first season is for me. It is for my good. It is not for my demise.For my healing... returning to my work is also a part of my healing and transformation as much as our season of rest has been. Now, I can live out of the fruit of what has been gathered. I can also begin to integrate these precious truths into my work--not just my time off.The Welcoming of all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations and conditions---means for me, that I believe in a God that is good and is not ought to bring me down or to step back and watch my life spin out of control. God is vested in the process of everyday encounters.I let go--much of my work over sabbatical has been right here. To learn how to let go and to release things, people, my past and my future into the hands of God. Knowing that I cannot control these things helps me to learn to loosen my grip. The three sentences in the prayer that speak of "letting go" really are the three temptations of Jesus: the temptation for power; the temptation for approval; the temptation for security. I, too, will work through these temptations as I work--and being tempted to lean into each of these areas to find love, approval and security. To let go--is my daily business.I open myself---believing in a God who is good and who loves me allows me to become open. I open myself to the love and goodness of God. It is my intention to live each day in this posture and I consent to my participation of the work of my transformation.I posted this book on Facebook recently and got many "likes." Now, I regret doing it. I don't think this prayer or perhaps any prayer can simply be liked. The Welcome Prayer undoes us. I truly believe that this prayer can't be just read and put down. It will mess with you. It has with me. And isn't this, perhaps, the greatest purpose of prayer?

Read the Directions

 A few days into my Sabbatical I got the worst cold I have ever had. The physical aches, pains and down right misery that a bad cold makes you feel, were the obvious outlets for the long accumulated and residual stress stored in my hidden, way down deep soul place. I was living proof that we are all intricately woven together by our Creator…everything is connected. As awful as I felt, there was this companioning gratitude that sabbatical was giving me time and space, that is definitely not the norm, to be as sick as I was and take as long as I needed to heal. I had never experienced a holy misery like this before and wasn’t so sure how to navigate it.Nothing gave me the soothing care that you need when your head feels the size of a watermelon, like keeping a steaming hot mug of tea in my hands, holding it up close to my face and sipping now and then. I unwrapped what seemed to be the millionth teabag and couldn’t help but laugh at what I saw. The name of the tea was Breathe Deep and on the little white tag attached to the teabag were the words: “Socialize with compassion, kindness and grace.”I know it’s sounds superficial and silly but I didn’t dismissively roll my eyes for some reason. Instead I felt a tug, a curiosity to read it again. What if I actually did what it said? No one else was around so I couldn’t pass it off in jest with someone else. I took the challenge. First of all, “Breathe Deep” was the name of the tea so I stood there and took several long deep breaths. Breathing is obviously essential to life yet is so dismissed ,as if there is no worth paying it any attention. Our very breath can actually be a simple reminder of the gift of live we so take for granted. It can be the very thing within us that can remind us of the Spirit of God with in us. It was a powerful and comforting reminder for me that day. God is as close as my breath. He isn’t way out there waiting to be beckoned. Taking deep breaths can be a true spiritual exercise to help honor the God designed connection between our body and soul. It can be so revealing of the stress we kept pent up inside and it is the provision of something so simple to relieve the stress that is so damaging to our body and soul. It’s body care to breathe. It’s soul care to breathe.   Awareness of God isn’t as complicated as we make it sometimes. Deep breaths gave me a sacred awareness of God right there in the kitchen with me. His name, after all is Immanuel, God with us.The little tag read “socialize with compassion”. Compassion means ‘to suffer with’. God is Compassion. He knows suffering and is with us in our suffering. I want to socialize, to be in that kind of company. I want to be a person who suffers with others, to show up and tell them that I am sorry they are suffering whether I can help relieve their suffering or not. The tag also read “Socialize with kindness and grace”. God is always expressing his kindness to me. His amazing grace is, to me, more than just the words to a favorite hymn. He is kind to give me a life filled with so much that I am undeserving of. I was stirred by my desire to socialize, interact with and be acquainted with this unconditional grace and kindness. I want it to be more than my theology; I want to be kindness and grace with skin on.Surprised by an encounter with God through a teabag, as silly as that may be, is an encounter that continues to inspire me to breath in, to keep company with, to socialize with God’s compassion, kindness and grace. It always helps to read the directions and this is especially true when making tea and caring for one's soul. 

Shedding Old Skin

My problem with our sabbatical being over is that I’m not ready for it to be over. Things have not jelled. I need more time to process some things. I’ve not read all I want to read. I’ve not had the time (believe it or not) to think about some things and get them in concrete. I wish we would have taken longer. Perhaps I needed two more months for things to jell in my soul.John Climacus wrote in the 7th century, “A snake can shed its old skin only if it crawls into a tight hole.” Sabbatical has given me a tight hole in which I've been able to shed some things, find some things and experience some things. It's been rich and rewarding. But here's the deal: I still have old skin on me and in me. Despite my best efforts and intents, I want to come out of this sabbatical time: clean, new and different.With just a few days remaining on Sabbatical, I now know I’m going to walk with a limp. I’m going to still struggle. I’m going to disappoint many of you and my family cause one would think: You should be different given this time!Illusions of being different are born in the waters of baptism. We long to be more than we are. We want to become different than how we see ourselves. We think it's a whole new world when we start out on the spiritual journey. But on the journey we find we carry with us a lot of stuff in our suitcases that never seems to get unpacked and cleaned out. Call it snake skin, graveclothes, habits or addictions--there are some things that just seem like we struggle with--perhaps till we die. Sabbatical has been a time of stripping down my own suitcase and throwing off and away that which simply does not work anymore. Carrying baggage can be so tiring. I’ve found not much dies in those waters of baptism. Demons breathe underwater despite our best efforts to get rid of them. That’s how I feel about re-entry. Not all my demons have died--despite my best efforts to drown them.I’m 60 years old for crying out loud. I thought I’d be done with some stuff by now. Will I still wrestle with the demons of drivenness; performance and pleasing others? Would I not really be better off by doing this…or doing that?One of my grandchildren is almost ready to be potty trained. Being potty trained is all the talk now when we Skype. I can understand my grandson's dilemma. Something has just got to give and change. I’m “almost” ready for a new phase of life myself but somehow when I look down, I feel all messy. It’s not clean. I need someone to help me.Before we even started our sabbatical, we scheduled a re-entry retreat. It begins tonight. So, I'll be able to have some great conversations with a sage like saint whom I've grown to trust. This person, in so many ways is my pastor, my soul friend, my companion but just a head of me a bit--or a lot--depending on what day it is.So, this week, we are leaning into the wisdom of my spiritual director (someone older, wiser and more potty trained than I am). We begin this final act of transition. I want to explore what is for me in my sabbatical and what is for our team. What is for my family. What needs to remain private. Who knows, maybe after my third day with my spiritual director I will have shed my old skin once and for all.

The Need for Solace in Today's Wired World

One of the downfalls of all of our technological progress in the 21st century is this: we have forgotten and neglected the role of nature in the care of the soul. When we work in cube-ville under false lights; when we become so dependent on our iphones and iclouds for information; when our busy lives make going outside a luxury rather than a necessity, we have forgotten what the human soul really needs to thrive and experience resilience. In our forgetting this truth, we put our souls in danger.Sadly counseling, therapy and analysis in many arenas and rooms have down-played, if not minimized and neglected how healing creation is. I’m so glad to help develop a proper place of creation in the care of the soul that actually partners with God in what I would call Divine Therapy. In our work with people, we partner with God through nature, not as an after-thought but core and central to everyone's health and vitality. Every time we pause to walk outside, watch a sunrise or listen to a bird sing, something larger than we can ever really comprehend is happening inside of us. The feedback and results in our work have altered the way we work and given us great fodder to the fire in our understanding of how to practice the care of the soul.Sabbatical, however, was our own time to focus on our care and our much needed resurrection. We needed to practice what we preached and we did just that.John Muir wrote, “I went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found was really going in.” Jesus knew what Muir was attempting to say very well. Most of his teachings, insights and parables were rooted in the teaching points of dirt, seed, animals and landscapes. He used the outside world to reveal the interior makeup of a person’s inner world. When we forget, ignore and disregard this spiritual truth and reality, we then confine ourselves into counseling rooms with closed doors; auditoriums more wired than inspiring and wisdom that his more horizontal than transcendent.Made from clay, the soul requires a clay-like experience to keep us grounded and from thinking too much of ourselves. I’ve never felt more small than when hiking in the Colorado mountains or on the shore of a beach and a powerful lighting storms hits. Stars, lightning and storms seems to put everything into perspective. Nature is a tool to help us become small and humble. This seems to work every time we view a vista, stare at waves or feel the force of a changing tide.One of the greatest mistakes of modern churches is to close up their windows to make room for darkened auditoriums where lights and Powerpoint have center stage. In my understanding of the care of the soul, one of the tremendous weaknesses and inefficiencies of counseling and psychotherapy is this: it all takes place indoors. To care for the soul is to understand that the soul needs to soak in the healing power of sunshine; the cleansing effect of rain, the calming sensation of beauty and power of nature on the outside to reveal what is going on in the inside.This distinguishing hallmark of soul care is so needed in our wired world we are attempting to navigate. Without putting ourselves outside, we are left to ourselves and that limiting and dangerous.While on sabbatical, I made a promise to be outside more than I had been able to in the past year. We sought the solace of fierce landscapes and it made all the difference in us and to us. Because our own need was so great, this past year we moved further out, away from a town and city to continue our own life and work. As I have grown older and perhaps more tired, I needed the balm of God’s love that comes to me through nature.In the first days and weeks of our Sabbatical, I was de-toxing from work, busyness and calendars. I decided to unplug from my wired world by going dark on all forms of social media and email communication. These were necessary steps to help me find my equilibrium which the dizziness of work can cause. I had to work through my fears of unplugging and my need to be needed. I had to withdraw from what was going on around me so that I could find out what was going on inside me. We went to a barrier island for a month; the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona and the pristine peaks of Colorado and we needed each landscape and each perspective we experienced.The care of the soul is more than therapy in that in soul care, one partners with God in and through nature to find restoration and wholeness. Fractured by our busyness, we can and should seek the sacred balm of nature for our well-being. I think it is toxic to be too wired; too "on" and too 24/7. When I choose to go into nature, I honestly believe, I am choosing life--with every step I take. I can feel myself coming back.I believe I am choosing life over death. In my work with busy people, I see this happen to them as well.I have had some time in sabbatical to sit with the lyrics of some of Christendom’s finest songs which use the images of nature to help us understand the world around us and the world within us.As I felt myself coming back to life—to experience a resurrection like that of Lazarus, I turned often to hymns to help me say what I could not find words to say. Here , I simply want to invite you to read the lyrics of but some of these great attempts to articulate the World we live in. By reminding myself of these insights, I found permission to be more out than in. It helped me and I trust by recounting these hymns, you, too will find yourself being ministered to in the upcoming season of enjoying more and more the great outdoors. I’ve added my own note in italics. Perhaps use this slowly and throughout your upcoming time off. Use one of these a day or week and see where this might take you in your soul care:Fairest, Lord JesusFair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,Robed in the blooming garb of spring;Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,Who makes the woeful heart to sing.Fair is the sunshine,Fairer still the moonlight,And all the twinkling starry host;Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purerThan all the angels heaven can boast.Note how the author uses the images of nature to help us understand the Sacred Splendor.How Great Thou Art (Stuart K. Hine)O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonderConsider all the worlds Thy hands have madeI see the stars, I hear the rolling thunderThy power throughout the universe displayed.RefrainThen sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;How great Thou art, how great Thou art!Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;How great Thou art, how great Thou art!Second StanzaWhen through the woods and forest glades I wanderAnd hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze.Then sings my soul….In this familiar hymn, the author uses beautiful images of creation to help us understand God’s greatness and majesty.Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee (Henry Van Dyke)All Thy works with joy surround Thee, Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays,Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise.Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flowery meadow, flashing sea,Chanting bird and flowing fountain, Call us to rejoice in Thee.Here we see that nature is a sacred invitation to praise and worship.This is My Father’s WorldThis is my Father’s world, and to my listening earsAll nature sings, and round me rings The music of the spheres.This is my Father’s world; I rest me in the thoughtOf rocks and trees, of skies and seas, His hand the wonders wrought.This is my Father’s world, The birds their carols raise,The morning light, the lily white, Declare their Maker’s praise.This is my Father’s world; He shines in all that’s fair;In the rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.The solace of God’s creation is an agent of rest and peace.I Sing The Mighty Power Of God (Isaac Watts)I sing the mighty power of God, That made the mountains rise;That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies.I sing the wisdom that ordained The sun to rule the day;The moon shines full at His command, And all the stars obey.I sing the goodness of the Lord, That filled the earth with food;He formed the creatures with His word, And then pronounced them good.Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed, Wherever I turn my eye;If I survey the ground I tread, Or gaze upon the sky!There’s not a plant or flower below, But makes Thy glories known;And clouds arise, and tempests blow, By order from the throne.While all that borrows life from Thee Is ever in Thy care,And everywhere that man can be, Thou, God, art present there.Nature here is a tool that helps construct a theology that is true. Every plant and flower is a tool we can use that helps us know and experience God.Morning Has Broken (Traditional Gaelic melody, Text by Eleanor Farjeon)(Note that all other verses have the theme of creation as aide to praise)Morning has broken Like the first morning,Blackbird has spoken Like the first bird.Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!Praise for them springing Fresh from the Word!In this lovely hymn we are reminded that all of creation has it’s genesis in God—and his Word.All Creatures Of Our God And King (Francis of Assisi)(Note that all five verses have specific reference to creation as aide to praise)All creatures of our God and King, Lift up your voice and with us singAlleluia, Alleluia!Thou burning sun with golden beam, Thou silver moon with softer gleam,O praise Him, O praise Him, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!Writers from all generations have attempted to find words to describe the Indescribable.What is your own experience with finding the solace of fierce landscapes?

Planting a Tree: A Ritual for Life

 To mark a special day for our grandson's life, we had a small back yard dedication of Caleb's life. A few friends and family gathered in Blake and Katie's backyard in Fayettville, NC. I gathered some soil from their yard and I shared that we will plant a tree for Caleb at Potter's Inn at Aspen Ridge in Divide, CO.  Blake's career will see him move many times in the future and having a permanent place for Caleb's tree to be planted seemed logical to have it at the retreat.So in the midst of the furry of life, we will go and plant an evergreen tree--a symbol of life--a symbol for Caleb to come and find shade in one day as both he and the tree grow and mature.Trees, in the Bible are the symbol for life. Psalm 1 describes the life of a godly man as a tree that flourishes in various seasons. I like that word for Caleb and I like the meaning for all of us. The Psalmist said:He is like a treeplanted by streams of waterthat yields its fruit in its season,and its leaf does not wither.In all that he does, he prospers.(Psalm 1:3 ESV)We're all moving so very fast. We need to sit in the shadow of a tree and take note. Caleb will survive many seasons in his life. Some he will thrive in; some he will endure but all he will witness and experience. When someone comes and sees this tree or perhaps any tree, we can pause and ask:Did someone plant this tree?How old is the tree?What history has this tree witnessed? Caleb's tree will soon be planted in a hole I will will dig. I will pour the rich earth from North Carolina into the crusted granite from Colorado and I will tend it. Every living thing needs care. Caleb's tree needs care. It will need water. It will need tending to--just as Caleb's life will.  I can envision one day, Caleb playing near this tree. Perhaps climbing it for a fantastic view it will offer among the branches which will become the stair steps up towards heaven.  Caleb's tree will give shade to those who come to see it.  One day he and I may picnic under it's branches. One day he may sit and ponder his own life. One day he may take his wife to this tree that was planted for his honor.  The tree will ground and anchor his life with meaning. His tree will become our tree to enjoy and to witness the growth and changes through the seasons.So, this week, I will dig the hole; buy the tree and plant it in the soil from North Carolina!