Month: March 2017

Adventures, Beauty of Nature, Hope

Chasing Butterflies

Rev Kathy

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🦋  I have a childhood memory of chasing butterflies, trying to catch even one of those stunning winged creatures in a net. It seemed easy enough. Butterflies aren’t extremely fast flyers. Rather, they flutter around flowers and pause frequently in front of a bloom.

Try as I might, I never caught a single butterfly. As a child, I lamented my failure, but as an adult, I actually see the joy in the chase rather than the failure of the catch. Richie Singh has the right idea about the butterfly-chasing experience.

The joy about chasing butterflies is not the satisfaction that comes at the end, but the path that takes you there;

The irony about chasing butterflies is that sometimes you’ll get so lost in the chase, you won’t realize that you’re left chasing thin air;

But the agony about chasing butterflies is that sometimes you will keep on chasing, hoping, that a butterfly would materialize out of thin air.

― Richie Singh

Still, it’s not so bad to hope. As long as I chase with hope, it’s worth my time. I may never catch a butterfly in a net, but along the way, I’ll enjoy the chase and the hope.

Spiritual growth

Toward Resurrection: Never Rest

Rev Kathy

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A Meditation for Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Forty days! That seems like a very long time to reflect and repent. It’s not about giving up some material thing or some personal vice. It’s much more about giving up yourself, being willing to die to self and hoping that there really is a resurrection on the other side.

Lent is scary in a very real way because it is a journey we take alone, looking inside to see what is in our spirit, in our heart. We hope beyond hope that after the dry wilderness there will be living water. We hope beyond hope that after death, there will be resurrection.

Still, we stay on the journey, and if it means anything at all to us, we will have moments of fear, despair, shame, stubbornness, hopelessness, contrition, and finally exhilaration. We will not stop. We will not shrink back from the journey. We will not rest.

A.W. Tozer wrote, “We must never rest until everything inside us worships God.”

Artist of souls,
you sculpted a people for yourself
out of the rocks of wilderness and fasting.
Help us as we take up your invitation to prayer and simplicity,
that the discipline of these forty days
may sharpen our hunger for the feast of your holy friendship,
and whet our thirst for the living water you offer
through Jesus Christ. Amen.

– From the Revised Common Lectionary

Hope, Spiritual growth

Resurrection: The Holy Miracle

Rev Kathy

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Ash Wednesday 2017

Ashes on my forehead remind me of the need for renewal of my spirit. The ashes remind me of my longing to push past the deathly places within me and to re-experience a resurrection. One author has described Ash Wednesday as a time for smudges on the soul. Deeper than the sign of the cross imposed with ashes on my forehead is the smudge on my soul, a smudge that almost hurts in its reminder of my need for renewed and refreshed faith.

The Prophet Joel expresses it best:

Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.

– Joel 2:12-13, NRSV

“Rend your hearts and not your garments,” the prophet said. Open up your soul to the ashes of repentance. Experience Ash Wednesday deeply and personally. For the gift of this day is a season of confession and change, hope for a fresh start.

So today we begin the arduous Lenten journey from shadow to light, from hopelessness to hope, from unfaith to faith, from emptiness to wholeness, from death to resurrection. The Prophet Joel prophesied that the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon all people through the Savior of the world (Joel 2:28-32). At the end of this journey, may each of us experience the lavish, gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the holy miracle of resurrection.

God of life,
On this journey we pass from the shadow of death
to the light of the resurrection.
Remain with us and give us hope
that, rejoicing in the gift of the Spirit
who gives life to our mortal flesh,
we may be clothed with the garment of immortality,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

– From the Revised Common Lectionary