Category: Grace

Adventures, Awareness, Change, Contemplation, Exploration, Grace, Growth, Holy Spirit, Introspection, Life Journeys, Life pathways, Meditation, New Life, Reflection, Spirit wind, Transformation

Uncreated Grace

Rev Kathy

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I have been reflecting on a phrase I read this morning in Father Richard Rohr’s meditation— Uncreated Grace. It is an intriguing phrase and makes me wonder why I received it at this particular time and place on my journey. I have had a very long journey — many miles of life —- and, in fact, there have been many other forks on the path that seem more sacred places to contemplate uncreated grace. But here it is, today, brought to me at this place on my journey.

As I did some processing on this phrase, I thought of one of my dear friends from ages past, seminary days to be exact. Often, he would share his favorite quotes. This was one of them, an intriguing and thought-provoking quote. This quote always stayed in his favorites file. It hints at a long journey we all must take . . .

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.

— T. S. Eliot

We were always left with the question “What do T.S Eliot’s words mean?” Sitting in small groups, the seminarians discussed but never reached an answer, to the question. I imagine that, like me, some of them took the words along with them on their journeys, hoping to discover the meaning at some place of enlightenment on their path.

On my journey, Eliot’s words came to mind many times. Never quite discovering a finite meaning, I did discover infinite applications that touched my life in ways simple and profound. Most always, I came away from reflecting on the words to a better place inside myself and a better space in my world. Still, I wonder why these T.S. Eliot words were brought to my mind today.

The power in these words, I think, is that they are not a directive, not a call to mission, not words of piety, not gleaned from scripture. They are words meant to be understood individually rather than offering a universal message. I identify these words as an invitation, and so today I am left alone with them to intentionally create space for reflection and understanding.

When I do that, I hear many, many other words from different places — from scripture, hymn, poetry, prose and from within myself. It feels like a Spirit encounter, the presence of “another comforter” who will be with us forever, who will, as Jesus promised, “teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

Spirit teaches us and helps us remember. Spirit grounds us so that our circuitous journey will not frighten us. We are free to never “cease from exploration,” because we are comforted to know that we will “arrive where we started . . .”

9889AA3B-16BB-4F9F-9B56-D883A74A49AEAnd know the place for the first time . . .

When the journey leads us back to where we started, how is it that we “know the place for the first time?” I urge you to not take my interpretation as the correct one, because I believe that a “correct” interpretation comes from the soul of each person who chooses to explore. But here is an understanding based on my own musings . . . we can take what comes in our lives, or we can explore places on the journey — our encounters, our joys and sorrows, our events and calamities, our crises and emotions, our disappointments and betrayals, the chance and the wonder.

For me, there is no doubt that exploring all of these life events brings that sense of getting back to the beginning and truly knowing the place for the first time, not necessarily because the beginning place has changed, but that I have changed. The Spirit’s holy breath transformed me with gentleness again and again, transformed by the blowing of Spirit wind into my being.

Father Richard Rohr says that “the Holy Spirit is never created by our actions or behavior. It is naturally indwelling, our inner being with God. In Catholic theology, we called the Holy Spirit “Uncreated Grace.”

How I love those words . . . Uncreated Grace! Perhaps that’s what we all hope for in our explorations on the journey — that in us and through us, there is Uncreated Grace. If we present to the Spirit our selves as uncreated grace, I wonder if Spirit then creates grace within us again and again and again, all along the way. If we never cease from exploration, presenting ourselves as uncreated grace, the Holy Spirit will breathe on us and we will be transformed!

No wonder we know the place where we started for the first time! The place hasn’t changed, we have changed, transformed in our deepest places!

Thanks be to God and to the touch of Spirit breath. Amen

Community, Emotions, Fear, Freedom, Friendship, God's Faithfulness, Grace, healing, Heartbreak, Introspection, Loss, Memories, New Year, Reflection, Rootedness, Stories, Vulnerability, Wholeness

Telling Our Stories

Rev Kathy

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Looking back at the passing year, I am deeply grateful for so many things. Among them is the circle of sisters who listen to my stories so many times and hold me in the light. They are my spiritual community. They “weave invisible nets of love.” They hear my stories with compassion, caring, love and genuine acceptance. They listen, and through their listening, they affirm my soul-place where my stories live.

We are our stories. Our children gain their sense of personhood when they hear their family stories and begin to tell their own. My sense of “me” is entwined with the stories about my parents, grandparents and great grandparents, stories that I have heard over many years and embraced. The stories are origin and memory, history and nostalgia, truth and myth, and as Rachel Held Evans wrote, the stories are a “cautionary tale.” The stories, at least as an adult, have made a place in my soul, teaching me who I am so that now I hold my stories in my heart.

It is sad when we are socialized to keep our stories close to the vest, when we are cautioned not to tell our stories to just anyone. After all, aren’t our stories personal information, meant to be private? That could be our choice, and it is true that telling our stories might make us vulnerable with another person.

But oh, the joy of finding spiritual community and, in community, to find safe and sacred space to share our stories! I have found such communities over the years. Sometimes the community was sharing with just one person. Other communities through the years were made up of a four or five friends. These days, my spiritual community is a cherished circle of caring and loving sisters.

In her final book, “Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again,” Rachel Held Evans wrote this about our origin stories:

The role of origin stories, both in the ancient Near Eastern culture from which the Old Testament emerged and at that familiar kitchen table where you first learned how your grandparents met, is to enlighten the present by recalling the past. Origin stories are rarely straightforward history. Over the years, they morph into a colorful amalgam of truth and myth, nostalgia and cautionary tale, the shades of their significance brought out by the particular light of a particular moment.

In many “particular moments,” I have shared some of my stories with my sisters, watching “the shades of the stories’ significance” emerge within me and with my community. My stories were “brought out by the particular light of a particular moment.” 

8B645361-2CE0-4762-B90F-D317010DA520Sometimes our stories are stories of sheer joy, but sometimes our stories are about loss, pain, heartbreak, fear or the devastating effect a particular traumatic event had on us. That’s when we hold our stories inside, fearing that telling would bring the pain back with a vengeance.

But when we protect our stories, holding them in a private place within us, we miss the healing power of being heard by another person of compassion, caring, acceptance and love. We also miss the pure joy of having been cared for by another person. That experience brings us to our spiritual center, healing old wounds of the soul and spirit; giving us the possibility of experiencing life without the pain of the past. That is God’s gift to us.

There is no better way to end the old year and begin the coming year than to tell our stories of the past, the memories we hold in our hearts, to accept God’s gift of freeing our hearts as we open ourselves to others. That’s a gift worth having! That’s a gift of grace that God wants us to have. That’s a gift that God offers us right now. If we are willing, God is able. Amen.

Acts 42, anxiety, Awareness, Beauty of Nature, Birdsong, Creation, Faith, Fear, Grace, healing, Hope, Humbug, journey, Life Journeys, Light, Mindfulness, Nature, New Year, peace, Quiet, Reflection, Self Awareness, Self care, simple pleasures, Soul

Finding Simple Pleasures

Rev Kathy

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A Saturday of football — what a simple pleasure! I am a fan of certain teams (Roll Tide!), but I am definitely not a football fanatic. And yet, this morning while half-watching Sportscenter, I realized that watching with Fred, not having to focus that much, resting in the ordinary seemed like a simple pleasure.

There are many simple pleasures, of course, far more soulful than watching football — taking a walk in the splendor of nature, listening to birdsong, snuggling with your puppy, looking up at the night’s moon and stars, taking a walk on a labyrinth’s spiritual path . . . There are so many more simple pleasures in life, and most of them do not even require a trip to the grocery store. They cost us nothing, but their worth is priceless.

These are the simple moments that caress the soul, bring peace and calm to the heart and enliven a wounded spirit. These moments, and others like them, are the moments we desperately need, especially in times when we are burdened with the weight of the world, languishing in darkness.

I have learned some things about a wounded spirit: that woundedness happens to all of us; that “dark nights of the soul” happen to everyone at some time in life; that the wounded spirit does not always require sophisticated remedies; that a simple pleasure is sometimes all it takes to begin a healing journey.

The important factor is self-awareness, being mindful of the soul’s health, accepting the reality that healing will require us to self-intervene and that our intervention could begin with entering into a simple pleasure. One worthy New Year’s resolution is to intentionally identify the simple pleasures that feed our souls and then to allow a simple pleasure to enfold us in contemplation.

Normally, I would say “bah humbug” to New Year’s Resolutions that we make, break, and then feel guilty about for an entire year! But a resolution to discover the simple pleasures that give us life is one worthy resolution. So I challenge you to look and listen for the simple pleasures that are “you,” and to hold them near whenever you are experiencing a “dark night of the soul.”

“There comes a time when both body and soul enter into such a vast darkness that one loses light,” wrote Mechtild of Magdeburg. There comes a time when the soul “sinks down into the night.”

Her words are the words of one who knew spiritual journey and seasons of darkness. There is no doubt that at some time throughout your life, you will find yourself traveling the spiritual night. I do know this within my place of deep knowing: when I give myself to spiritual journeying, allowing myself the peace of a simple pleasure that calms my spirit, I realize that God always invites us beyond where we are.

God guides us on the spiritual journey that sometimes means winding through a dark wood. The darkness may frighten us, but it is a necessary part of the trip. When we panic in the darkness, we must try to understand that it’s a holy dark and that the idea is to surrender to it and journey through until we reach God’s light.

And then on to simple pleasures!372C6D47-6761-412E-AACF-420F5B1EE76D

God will be present beside us —- in the light of simple pleasures and in the soul’s dark night.

That is the gift, the grace, that God has freely given to us, and for that we give thanks.

Advent, Angels, Bethlehem’s Star, Christ’s Birth, Christmas, Darkness, Fear, Grace, Hope, life, Mary, merry-go-round, Sacred Worth, Skies, Soul, Stars, struggle

“My Soul Felt Its Worth”

Rev Kathy

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The Twenty-Third Day of Advent
December 23, 2019

I think Advent may be asking me to take stock of my soul. Advent may also be beckoning to me, calling me to listen to my life. The fact is I don’t have to listen so intently these days because my life is shouting at me. Life is urging me to live in sacred space, at least for a few moments every day. Life is challenging me to contemplative prayer and times of meditation that will give me strength — to heal, to thrive, to let go of my worries, to attend to my soul, to rest in my sacred worth, to enjoy a deeper faith and to live into hope.

The thing is: I am not really experiencing Advent very deeply, and I am not listening to my life. I often feel as if I’m on a merry-go-round searching for a way to get off safely and land in a good place. I am completely preoccupied with life things, those overwhelming tasks and thoughts and worries and hopes. I could list them: 

recovery from my kidney transplant

concern about my son’s illness and his hospitalization last night
and the fact that they released him with no solutions

hopes that my grandchildren are growing up healthy and happy
and the pain of living so many miles from them

hoping that the new year will bring good tidings to us all

longing for the world to sing, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all!”
and really mean it.

I wonder what Mary worried about on that dark night in Bethlehem. Was she able to look above while this extraordinary, frightening thing was happening to her? Could she look above while she was in labor, in pain? Did she weep — tears of joy or maybe tears of anxiety? Did she despair of being in a strange place in a cold stable? As a young girl of devout faith, did she manage take a few moments to look up into the starlit darkness and see that brightest star shining on the stable? Did she hear, did she listen, to the singing of the angels? Did she listen to her life?

Listening to one’s life may well be the best thing we could do for ourselves. I have a suspicion that most of us don’t do that kind of deep listening, listening that opens us to holy possibilities. There is a beloved song that we have probably heard every year at Christmas. In its verses we find two very profound lines. The hymn writer wrote unforgettable words that made it seem as if he knew well how hard life can be.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth

—- “O, Holy Night,” Writer, Adolphe Charles Adam, who wrote this Christmas carol Minuit, chrétiens! (1844), later set to different English lyrics and widely sung as “O Holy Night” (1847).

The soul felt its worth! What a thought to aspire to and eventually to know that my soul can feel its worth. I have a feeling that Advent might be calling me to listen to my life, to open myself to the song of angels and the light of Bethlehem’s star, and that in listening, my soul would begin to feel its worth.

Theologian, Fredrick Buechner, says it like this:

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because, in the last analysis, all moments are hidden moments and life itself is grace.

It would indeed be a precious Christmas gift for my heart to know that “life itself is grace,” and that in life’s grace that God gives, I would know beyond all knowing that my soul feels its worth.

Amen.

Advent, Angels, Bethlehem’s Star, Christ’s Birth, Comfort, Despair, Emotions, Fear, God’s Gift of Stars, Grace, grief, healing, Hope, Loss, Love, Mourning, New Normal, Questions, Resilience, struggle, Tears

“Listening for the Rustle of Angels’ Wings”

Rev Kathy

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The Fourth Sunday of Advent
The Advent Sunday of Love
Transplant Day Forty-One
December 22, 2019

 

TO LISTEN, TO LOOK

Is it all sewn up — my life?
Is it at this point so predictable,
so orderly,
so neat,
so arranged,
so right,
that I don’t have time or space
for listening for the rustle of angels’ wings
or running to stables to see a baby?
Could this be what he meant when he said
Listen, those who have ears to hear . . .
Look, those who have eyes to see?
Oh God, give me the humbleness of those shepherds
who saw in the cold December darkness
the Coming of Light,
the Advent of Love!

— Ann Weems

I ask myself those Ann Weems questions often:

Is it all sewn up — my life? Is it so predictable, so orderly, so neat, so arranged, so right,
that I don’t have time or space for listening for the rustle of angels’ wings or running to stables to see a baby?

These are among the most important questions I might sit with for a while, pondering my answers. On this Advent Sunday when we light the Candle of Love, I suddenly realize that Advent is ending, bringing Christmas so abruptly, or so it seems. Am I ready, I wonder? Am I ready for the birth of the Child, “Love’s Pure Light?”486917B0-E862-4C44-895D-D08210690B48

Have I prepared a place in my heart for the “pure unbounded love” we sing about in the beloved hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling?” Was my life so preoccupied that I missed the gentle darkness of the Season of Advent and am now feeling pushed — shoved —into Christmas?

Love in a manger is too holy a gift to take for granted. Love in a manger offers us a gift that we must be prepared to receive, and Advent is our season of preparation. As the season ends, I cannot help but ask myself if I spent these days preparing myself, heart and soul. Did I pray enough? Did I spend enough contemplative time? Did I love my neighbor and care for the persons around me who had so many life needs? Did I create sacred, meditative moments in anticipation, preparing for Emmanuel to come into my life anew?

I’m afraid I must answer, “no.” Yes, I did reflect on Advent now and then as I wrote for my blog, but I definitely did not spend enough time in meditation, preparing myself to receive the Christ Child. I was completely preoccupied with creating my life’s new normal after my kidney transplant. New routines and schedules overwhelmed my mind. I spent virtually all my time adjusting to this new normal. Self-absorbed does not adequately describe me during this Advent.

I haven’t felt much holiness hovering around me. I didn’t have time or space “for listening for the rustle of angels’ wings.” Yet, the transplant itself was a season somewhat like Advent . . . filled with expectation, preparation, anticipation. With Bethlehem’s star shining through the darkest night, and hope — always hope.

And so it was for people waiting for kidneys to renew their lives. Advent offered us a look at journey, a journey that ended in celebration. Celebration came full circle yesterday when I learned that my transplant was a part of a chain of living donors and kidney recipients. The chain included 16 people — donors and recipients — which means eight people got new kidneys. Perhaps that felt to me something like “the rustle of angels’ wings.”

And then it dawned on me that the Christ Child was not born into a world where everything always worked perfectly, where everything was orderly and neat and planned out. The Christ Child was not born into a world where everything was sacred. He was not born into a perfect family, and the people around his manger were not always holy.

Maybe that’s part of what Advent gives us:

the grace to be genuinely who we are — on our holy days and on days we feel not-so-holy. Maybe Advent beckons us to ready ourselves and to prepare our hearts with humbleness so that we can see “in the cold December darkness . . .

the Coming of Light, the Advent of Love!”

 

 

Advent, Angels, Emotions, Faith, Grace, Joy, Mary’s Song, Questions, Sacred Space, Stars

Joy!

Rev Kathy

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The Third Sunday in Advent
The Sunday of Joy
December 15, 2019

How I love the pink candle on this day of joy! We light the purple ones each week until today, and then there is this surprising burst of color — lighter, brighter, pink — that proclaims to us that life for us is joy.  Always! 

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And joy is ever-present within us. No matter the circumstances we face, joy is waiting to emerge from our deep-down place. Joy was a part of the package that entered our lives when we professed our faith in Christ, and joy was there when we received grace, acceptance and God’s abiding presence. And so today we reflect on that joy and, like Mary, we treasure it and ponder it in our hearts. (Luke 2:19)

Now about Mary, God-chosen Mary — her joy must have been overwhelming when the surprise from out of nowhere was delivered by an angel! And yet, other emotions came along with that joy — fear, confusion, bewilderment, concern. And questions! Many questions like “How could this happen?”

I do not need to tell you that questions, fears, concerns are always a part of our lives, but underneath them in our inner soul, joy abides. Consistent, continual joy that hides until we really need it and then bursts upon us to remind us that the troubles of the day are superseded. Then we know the truth of what we heard from the beginning: “Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” (Nehemiah 8:10)

Mary sang of deep joy in her devotion to God —“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.” But there was for her a barrage of other emotions. The poetry of Ann Weems explores that:

MARY, NAZARETH GIRL

Mary,
Nazareth girl:
What did you know of ethereal beings
with messages from God?

What did you know of men
when you found yourself with child?

What did you know of babies,
you, barely out of childhood yourself?

God-chosen girl:
What did you know of God
that brought you to this stable
blessed among women?

Could it be that you had been ready
waiting
listening
for the footsteps
of an angel?

Could it be there are messages for us
if we have the faith to listen?

—Ann Weems

Maybe, just maybe, Mary “had been ready, waiting, listening for the footsteps of an angel?” And in that holy visitation, I imagine that the emotion she felt most deeply in her soul was joy. She was destined to be the mother of the Christ Child, the mother who would lead him and teach him and prepare him.

Emulating the young girl, Mary, let us face the obstacles and surprises that come our way, knowing that our deepest, abiding joy will arise in us when we most need it. D1528A68-0B1C-4D2C-83F9-D0AD87481E1C

Our message for this Sunday of Joy sings to us the words of a beloved carol:

O ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow;
Look now for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.

Today’s good word — and the lighting of the pink candle — urges us to never forget the promise: “Tidings of comfort and joy!”

We probably won’t hear the flutter of angel wings or the footsteps of an angel coming to us when our joy shows up. But with God, who knows?

 

 

Advent, Angels, Belief, Bethlehem’s Star, Challenge, Change, Darkness, Grace, journey, Life Journeys, New Life, New Normal, Stars

In Believing There Is Hope!

Rev Kathy

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The Seventh Day of Advent
Transplant Day Twenty-six
December 7, 2019

CHRISTMAS MIRACLE 

There are those who scoff at miracles.
I don’t know what they make of the birth of the Child.
For that matter,
I don’t know what they make of the birth of any child.

There are those who laugh at dreams.
so they’ve never heard an angel’s voice,
nor seen any unusual light in the night’s sky,
nor felt the yearning to set out in search
of new life.

There are those who do not see the Star.
I wonder where it is they go
when everyone else sets out for Bethlehem.

To those of us who believe,
into every night is born a Star.

— Ann Weems

I do not want to be one of the ones who miss seeing the Star. It’s important, especially when I am so focused on transplant recovery, that I make my way to Bethlehem this Advent. In her poem, Ann Weems writes that some people have never heard an angel’s voice nor seen any unusual light in the night sky. She laments that some people have never felt the yearning to set out in search of new life.

Advent 2019 finds me feeling at least a small yearning to set out in search of new life. Circumstances have left me no choice, really, because ahead of me, a new life is all there is. The old life is over and, with a new kidney to protect, I am facing a new life head-on, like it or not. It won’t be an easy life, but embracing new life seldom is. It is always a change and a challenge, asking for my best effort.

I fear it, as folks most always do when embracing a new life. And I am going to need some help — from my friends, my family and my faith community. I am going to need the singing of angels and the light from Bethlehem’s Star. I am going to need to believe —  really believe — because not believing may leave me stalled on the path to Bethlehem. In believing, there is hope, hope that embraces the longing for new life. Hope that hears the singing of angels. Hope that looks up into the night sky and sees the Star.

There is no doubt about it — in believing, there is hope.

Ann Weems offers the grace of one last promise:
              “To those of us who believe, into every night is born a Star.”C9B596AE-76F4-4215-AF87-B5ED84B119E3

Advent, Angels, Comfort, Dancing, Darkness, Faith, God's Faithfulness, God’s Gift of Stars, Grace, healing, Hope, Kidney Transplant, Sacred Space, Stars

Holding Hope

Rev Kathy

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The Sixth Day of Advent
Transplant Day Twenty-five
December 6, 2019


HOLDING

The Day is here
and we made it to Bethlehem!

The time has come for kneeling
and we’ve seen the Child!

There is singing in the stable
and we want desperately to hold on to it . . .
hold on to the Star!
and the angels!
and the spirit of love!

How do we hold on
to the Christmas spirit?
Why can’t every day be Christmas?

The world mutters “Be realistic,”
and sometimes we church people mutter too.

On our way back from Bethlehem
sometimes we forget
what we’ve been warned about in a dream:
to return another way.

Once we’ve seen the Child,
we’re left holding hearts
wherein angels dance
and stars sing!

Once we’ve been to Bethlehem,
every day is Christmas!

— Ann Weems

I am holding, grasping tightly “the Star and the angels and the spirit of love.” My journey to Bethlehem is Advent’s gift. I walk the path with expectation and hope (even just a wee bit of hope some days), and I imagine the glory of the promised Child.

This year during Advent’s pilgrimage, I also walk the rocky path I call my transplant journey. I do hold on to hope as I travel the rough transplant path, and along the way I see tiny glimpses of hope. But not every day. Minute by minute I navigate symptoms and side effects and, on the worse days, my community holds hope for me when I can’t hold it for myself.

On the path — the path of both Bethlehem and transplant journeys — I see graces along the way: stars, angels, Bethlehem’s brightest star, the Child in a simple manger! It’s enough for me, the images that cry out “Hope!” It is holy ground, sacred space. Hope will get me there, sustaining me along the way, as God’s grace carries me.

And the poet’s words are true:

Once I’ve seen the Child, I’m left holding my heart wherein 04E87215-AC50-4CC9-B2F4-6612E56D0CB9angels dance and stars sing!

Thanks be to God!

 

 

Advent, Angels, Bethlehem’s Star, Darkness, Despair, discouragement, God's presence, Grace, healing, Heartbreak, Hope, Light, Stars

Into This Dark and Silent Night

Rev Kathy

The First Sunday of Advent
December 1, 2019

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INTO THIS SILENT NIGHT

Into this silent night
as we make our weary way
we know not where,
just when the night becomes its darkest
and we cannot see our path,
just then
is when the angels rush in,
their hands full of stars.

— Ann Weems

All of us find ourselves in dark places — when the darkness is thick, when we are immersed in silence, when we try our best to make our weary way but the way ahead is veiled.

How disconcerting it is when the night becomes its darkest and we cannot see our path. I have been in that kind of place, and I imagine you have as well. It’s dark when you lose a loved one; when you relocate to a different, unknown place; when you must be away from those you love and who love you back; when a divorce brings you grief and uncertainty; when your children are in trouble; when you suffer an illness or endure a major surgery or treatment. The list of dark seasons of life is endless, personal, hiding in the depths of our wounded places.

We feel a deep kind of despair that does not seem to lift. We hold inside us invisible wounds of the soul and spirit that cannot be healed quickly or easily. Healing of the soul is a long, slow process but it does happen as time brings healing grace. Still, we experience the darkness at a time when the world around us is trying to rush us ever so quickly into Christmas. It is to our benefit if we can hold back and let the darkness call us to places we have never been. Gayle Boss expresses it like this:

Advent, to the Church Fathers, was the right naming of the season when light and life are fading. They urged the faithful to set aside four weeks to fast, give, and pray — all ways to strip down, to let the bared soul recall what it knows beneath its fear of the dark, to know what Jesus called “the one thing necessary”: that there is One who is the source of all life, One who comes to be with us and in us, even, especially, in darkness and death. One who brings a new beginning.

I wonder if in this Advent season I can let my “bared soul recall what it knows beneath its fear of the dark?” I wonder for all of us, will we let Advent be a time of waiting, a time of hoping without knowing, a time of emptying so that we can be filled with God’s Presence? Will we take time to allow the Advent darkness to do its work in us? Because the beautiful hope of Advent is that while we are waiting, lingering in its darkness, just when we realize we cannot see our path “is when angels rush in, their hands full of stars.

Amen.

Bible, Comfort, Daybreak, Despair, discouragement, Faith, Fear, God's Faithfulness, God's presence, Grace, Hope, Kidney Transplant, Matthew 10, Music, Singing, Sorrow, Suffering

My Constant Friend

Rev Kathy

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Transplant Day Nineteen
November 30, 2019

Sleep would not come easily last night. It occurred to me that I would probably struggle all night to get to sleep, and I began to hope for the coming of daybreak. As I drifted slowly into sleep, I did what I often do on sleepless nights. I began to sing a hymn, under my breath of course, careful not to disturb Fred’s sleep. I began to sing a Gospel hymn Fred and I used to sing many years ago. In our church, or in concert at other churches, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” was one of the favorites every time we sang it. It was certainly one of my favorites and last night while experiencing a little pain, it came to mind that God was indeed watching over me and, as the hymn says, “Jesus is my portion, my constant friend . . .”

Of course, I also began whispering the Scripture text that inspired this hymn.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

— Matthew 10:29-31 New International Version (NIV)

And then the hymn:

Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart feel lonely and long for heaven and home?
When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is he.
His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.
His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.

I sing because I’m happy.
I sing because I’m free.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw still closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy.
I sing because I’m free.
For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I love learning the stories behind the hymns we sing. This is the writer’s story behind “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”

Civilla Martin was born in Nova Scotia in 1866. Her husband was an evangelist who traveled all over the United States. She accompanied him and they worked together on most of the musical arrangements.

In 1904 Civilla was visiting a very ill friend. Although discouraged and sick, her friend remembered that God was watching over each sparrow and would certainly watch over  her. She shared with Civilla the words in Matthew 10: ” . . . don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Civilla was a poet and thought this would be a perfect idea for a poem. She jotted down the idea and by the end of the day, had completed “His Eye is On The Sparrow.” The entire poem was sent to a well-known composer of that day, Charles Gabriel. His lovely music has carried it all around the world in small churches and great crusades.

And then there is my story behind this hymn: that I learned it decades ago and sang it often; that it spoke comfort to me back then, just as it did last night when sleep would not come; that God has given me the gift I call hymn memory so that every time I need encouragement, the text of a hymn — usually every word of the hymn — comes to mind to comfort me.

For this gift, I give thanks to God. Daybreak did come this morning, but before that I was led by the message of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” into a restorative night of sleep. And I know this truth in all my deep places: “Jesus is my portion, my constant friend.”

I hope you will take a moment to enjoy this video of the hymn.

Challenge, Compassion, Complaints, Courage, Faith, God's Faithfulness, God’s promises, Grace, healing, Hope, Joy, Kidney Transplant, Mayo Clinic, Patience, Praise, Prayer, Psalms, Wholeness

Itchy! Shaky! Puffy!*

Rev Kathy

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Transplant Day Sixteen
November 27, 2019

An endearing Physician’s Assistant, Melanie, listened carefully to my symptoms, complaints, concerns and pains, taking very seriously every snippet of information I gave her. She responded with a well thought out remedy for each of my concerns. She was thorough in explaining how we would address every problem and she did so with humor and compassion. Melanie was obviously highly trained and impeccably qualified to treat transplant patients. She had many years of experience and could explain every symptom and prescribe a plan to address it. Her encouragement that the unpleasantness would pass over time was a boost to my courage. Her gift to me was increased patience and a renewal of my hope.

At the end of our session, Melanie offered a summary of the visit, a very descriptive, professional and astute summary. “You’re just having a rough patch right now,” she said, “Itchy, shaky and puffy!”

All of a sudden, I knew her words would be the title of my next blog post. “Itchy, shaky and puffy!” Perfect! Simple descriptive words — not just sterile clinical jargon — but extremely real and true. And that’s what my family and friends want most to know. What are you really feeling?

The truth is that, from the transplant itself, I am recovering well, and now with very little pain. But the effects of my high-powered immunosuppressant medications are playing havoc on my body and all its systems.

Itchy — enough to keep me awake through the night.

Shaky — along with weakness makes it hard to walk and even feed myself.

Puffy — I can’t even describe the pressure in my legs that feels like a balloon about to burst. Two times their normal size is not an exaggeration!

There you have it — a very real, true and human description of how I am faring post transplant. It is pure grace to be able to counter the simple description of my ailments with the simple words of encouragement from the Gospel of Luke:

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

— Luke 12:6-7 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

When all is said and done, I am beginning to believe that I really will emerge from this transplant with a stronger faith and an everlasting hope, having learned how to trust God more fully and know in my heart of God’s healing mercies. Most of all, I want to get past this transplant with words of praise to God on my lips, like the Psalmist, declaring that my mourning has turned to dancing:

Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me;
Lord, be my helper!”
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,
To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

— From Psalm 30


* With thanks to Melanie.

Bravery, Challenge, Change, Courage, Emotions, Faith, Grace, grief, Loss, Music, Pain, Soul, Tears, Weeping

“I Can Do This Hard Thing!”

Rev Kathy
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From https://contemplativemonk.com/about/

I can do this hard thing, this recovery from a kidney transplant. But sometimes I need to shed some tears about it all. Tears do not come out of weakness. In fact, tears are the mark of power. Called “the soap of the soul,” tears can help diminish the angst my soul clings to so tightly. Unfortunately, I tend to fight back tears as if they will hurt as they slip down my cheeks. I also nurse the irrational desire to not let anyone see my tears. After all, someone might consider them a sign of my weakness.

Yet, God has another thought about our tears. God counts our tears, keeps up with them, gathers them up and stores them in a bottle. I can imagine the scene of a loving God gently catching every tear and preserving it as a precious elixir worth saving.

Still I avoid weeping at all costs, portraying a false, less-than-honest strength — especially if someone might see.

Today, I am so aware that if I could just cry, the hard time I am going through would feel easier. If I could cry, my tears would cleanse my heart and help minimize my physical, emotional and spiritual pain. If I could just let my tears fall, I would be reclaiming my power.

The truth is that I did not fully understand how hard it would be to endure a kidney transplant and the very, very difficult aftercare regimen. Nor could I have ever imagined the range of emotions I would experience. This is one of life’s hard things.

Last night though, a dear friend sent me a video of a song she chose just for me, just for this moment of my life. I had never heard the song before, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. A mesmerizing tune and simple lyrics written and performed by Carrie Newcomer, “You Can Do This Hard Thing” brought me to tears, tears that really needed to flow.

You can do this hard thing.
You can do this hard thing.
It’s not easy I know,
But I believe that its so.
You can do this hard thing.

My faith tells me that I really can do this hard thing, although most of the time I don’t feel that I can. The friends and family who surround me with love remind me that I can. My heart tells me I can do this, but my rational mind tries to convince me that I cannot. I am reminded by the hymn writer that grace for this hard thing comes from God . . .

God giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater;
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

So perhaps it does require our tears, our lament that humbles us before our God of grace. The writer of the Book of James seems to suggest that grieving and weeping brings God near and that our mourning actually strengthens us to live through hard things.

God gives all the more grace . . .
Submit yourselves therefore to God . . .
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you . . .
Lament and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.

— From James 4 (NRSV)

It doesn’t make much sense that mourning is a good thing, that flowing tears actually cleanse the soul. But I need to see things this way: Life brings changes — hard changes sometimes. Along with the miracle of my kidney transplant comes the end of one season of life and the advent of a new season of life. While I do celebrate the transplant and the ways it will be life-giving for me, I must also grieve the loss of my previous life that had become so comfortable, so easy.

I will call out to my buried tears. I will open up my heart’s pain, grieve my losses and let my tears fall freely down my cheeks. It seems to be the best way to make sure I can do this hard thing.

anxiety, Comfort, Despair, Exhaustion, Faith, God's presence, Grace, healing, Hope, Illness, Kidney Transplant, Mayo Clinic, Music, Pain, Soul, Suffering

An Ever Present Help on Troubled Days

Rev Kathy

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Transplant Day Six
November 18, 2019

Today Is a troubled day for me. I need to know God as “my ever present help in time of trouble” on this day of  kidney transplant aftercare that began early this morning. Being in the Mayo Clinic lab by 6:30 is not so gentle a way to treat a person with a huge, painful incision! On the way to Mayo Clinic, bumps and potholes in the road caused sharp pain. Walking the hallways at Mayo Clinic required far more energy than I currently have. I am weak and shaky, struggling with significant pain, and suffering from the side effects of very potent medications.

The medical visits will end around 2:00 pm today. We hoped to be able to rest until the next medical appointments on Wednesday. But the transplant doctors need to repeat my blood tests early tomorrow. They made some significant changes to my medications to try to address some concerns they have about my kidney function, excessive incision pain, blood sugar and fluid retention.

It occurred to me today, that in some ways, all of the inflexible after surgery care and the daunting medication regimen seems as if it is not at all about me; it’s about the kidney! It’s all about the kidney!

I can live with that if I can remember that God cares for me, for every part of me, and of course, for the new kidney. But my hope rests on the grace-giving God who also cares for the whole of me — what’s going on with me physically, emotionally and spiritually.

A comforting hymn text about God’s care has lifted me up into hope at various times in my life. “Day by Day, and with Each Passing Moment” was written by a young Swedish woman, Carolina Sandell Berg. Like the Psalmist, Berg learned early in life to trust in God’s strength to help her overcome times of suffering. She learned that when pain and tragedy strike, God may use that experience to deepen our faith.

When Carolina was 26-years old, she experienced a tragedy which profoundly affected her life. As she and her father crossed a Swedish lake, the ship suddenly lurched, and before her eyes, her father was thrown overboard and drowned. Like the Psalmist who gave us a strong affirmation with these words, “God is my refuge, an ever present help in time of trouble,” Carolina Berg found hope in God day by day. 

Although my present situation is very different from her tragedy, I am learning all over again about how hope and faith work for me. This is my paraphrase of Carolina Sandell Berg’s wonderful hymn:

Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in God’s kind and wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

God whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what She deems best —
Lovingly, it’s part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Every day the God of love is near me
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares God’s love will bear, and cheer me,
God whose name is Counselor and Power.

The protection of God’s child and treasure
Is a charge that on Herself She laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”
This the pledge to me She made.

Help me then in every tribulation
So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation
Offered me within Thy holy Word.

Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,
Ever take, as from a mother’s hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,
‘Till I reach the promised land.

On days like this one when I feel weary and weak, when I experience pain and need an extra measure of compassionate care, I know I can look to God who is “my ever present help in time of trouble.” And I know that God, who is both father and mother to me, will walk beside me day by day, every day, through every passing moment.

 

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On another note, please pray for me as I recover from my kidney transplant at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. I am so grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening and is now a very difficult recovery. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. Your donations through the Georgia Transplant Foundation have helped us get very close to our goal. The Foundation will match donations dollar for dollar up to $10,000, and you have already helped us raise $9,015. If you are able, please help us get to the $10,000 matched amount. We are almost there. If you can contribute or if you would like to read more of the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is also set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, uncovered medications and medical equipment, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

anxiety, Comfort, Darkness, God's Faithfulness, Grace, Hope, Kidney Transplant, Light, Pain, Rest, Sacred Art, Suffering

Light Pierces Through

Rev Kathy
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“Light Pierces Through” by artist Lisle Gwynn Garrity; Available at https://sanctifiedart.org/original-art/light-pierces-through

Transplant Day Five
November 17, 2019

Today is not such a good day for me. I am enduring a great deal of discomfort, and what seemed like light for me a week ago has diminished, at least for now. Pain can certainly bring darkness into the soul, and suffering, which is much deeper than physical pain, also assaults the psyche. One can wonder whether or not the light will ever return, whether pain and suffering will subside.

I must admit I am wondering that today, with my faith and hope feeling a bit shaky. Yet, quite often I stumble upon grace-filled truth just when I need it most. Today grace-filled truth seemed to come out of nowhere to teach me a fresh lesson about pain and suffering, light and darkness.

From the Facebook page, “A Sanctified Art” I found this nugget of comforting truth.

Light can travel endlessly through a vacuum. Light waves won’t diminish no matter how far they have to travel. Can you imagine that? Perhaps that’s God’s nature and constant posture — endlessly traveling through time and space just to reach us.

For this day it is such a blessing to know that light pierces through the darkness and that, no matter how far light travels, it does not diminish.

Thanks be to God.

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On another note, please pray for me as I recover from my kidney transplant at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. I am so grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to rea the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

 

anxiety, Awareness, Bravery, Comfort, Courage, Energy, Faith, Friends, Friendship, Grace, healing, Hope, Illness, Inspiration, journey, Kidney Transplant, Pain, Prayer, Wholeness

Transplant Day Four

Rev Kathy

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Transplant Day Four
November 16, 2019

Transplant Day Four was a blur. There are no words to adequately describe the volume of information we had to digest just to know how to protect this new kidney. So with all the education we had to learn, both Fred and I are on overload. The pain continues, and hopefully the healing.

But hovering over all the physical and emotional pain are the prayers of the people — my people — my dear friends and family members who are holding hope up high so I can see it. Their love and their compassionate concern is grace for me.

I have few words of my own today, but this prayer shared by Joanna Harader speaks exactly what I need God to hear from me today.

Holy One,

This day may I know
Your health in my body;
Your enlightenment in my mind;
Your grace in my missteps;
Your patience in my frustrations;
Your inspiration where I am stuck
And your tranquility where I need to slow down and rest.

This day may I
Breathe each breath with gratitude,
See each color with wonder,
Hear the hum of the Divine beneath the noise,
Feel your solid presence with each step I take.
Let me live out of your joy
And within your power.

Amen.

Rev. Joanna Harader serves as pastor of Peace Mennonite Church in Lawrence, KS, and blogs at SpaciousFaith.com.

Comfort, Grace, Hope, Sacred Space, Skies, Stars, Twilight

Welcoming Twilight

Rev Kathy

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November 12, 2019 — the day of my kidney transplant

I’m welcoming twilight today, that space created for me by a gifted anesthesiologist. 

It is, I imagine, a magical thing that gathers all the worries, fears, disappointments of illness and tucks them neatly into a glittering silver pouch. 

The twilight is a good feeling, a sense of new well-being in the all places where my feelings and emotions live. 

It is a comfort and a grace.

It is a relief, a blessed sense that all is well.

It is an alchemist holding the silver pouch in her hands and flinging it into the heavens, each fear and worry joining the stars in the night sky.

And as dawn breaks — a new dawn — I welcome a new life, a different life, a gift of life that feels like hope.

 

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On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant today at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. I am so grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to rea the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

Community, Division, Friendship, Grace, Kindness, Nature, Prayer, Reflection, Relationship, Respect, Transformation

“Always Stay Humble and Kind”

Rev Kathy

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Even the earth’s creatures find ways to get along. Refusing to follow the lovely example of the giraffe and the butterfly, we seem to be having a big problem with getting along. Now we have to admit that the giraffe and the butterfly could not be more different from each other, but somehow the butterfly lands safely on the giraffe’s snout. It’s a reminder of the image we have loved for so long — the lion lying down with the lamb — a symbol of peaceful times.

We do not typically have that kind of peaceful relationship with those who are not like us, and in these days, we do not enjoy peaceful times. It’s nothing new, really, but we are infinitely aware that our country is polarized along partisan lines. Neither side trusts the other. Respect for one another is flagging. Kindness is in short supply. 

But this is not a commentary on current politics. Instead, I want to talk about being humble and kind to one another. One of my favorite singers, Tim McGraw, sings the song “Humble and Kind,” a gentle, sweet song written by Lori McKenna. The song’s simple lyrics remind me that kindness still exists.

Hold the door, say please, say thank you;
Don’t steal, don’t cheat, and don’t lie;
I know you got mountains to climb but
Always stay humble and kind.

When those dreams you’re dreamin’ come to you,
When the work you put in is realized,
Let yourself feel the pride but
Always stay humble and kind.

Go to church ’cause your momma says to,
Visit grandpa every chance that you can,
It won’t be a waste of time,
Always stay humble and kind.

Don’t take for granted the love this life gives you
When you get where you’re going.
Don’t forget turn back around,
Help the next one in line,
Always stay humble and kind.

I have to ask myself what I must change about my life in order to be more humble and kind. What must happen within me to enable me to offer unconditional grace to others? I almost feel ashamed that I need to ask myself such questions, but the truth is that any person can be socialized by her environment. If I constantly watch on my television the cynical, disrespectful actions of one person towards another, that exposure might well affect the way I relate to others. I’m sad to admit that the toxic political environment we live in has definitely harmed my relationship with several friends. and I find that unacceptable. 

Where was my sense of loyalty to my friends? Was there no way to maintain respectful relationships and friendships? Could I not have offered grace to my friends? Didn’t my friends mean more to me than my ideology?

I have wrestled with such questions for months. I have concluded a few realities: that I did not have the power to change the toxicity of my environment; that I could not control the emotions and actions of my friends; that I could not force communication with friends who stood steadfastly, even stubbornly, on their own beliefs.

What I could have done was pray more, spend more contemplative time with God and focus on the respectful and kind relationships I can see all around me. In short, I could have immersed myself in all things good, in the peaceful beauty of God’s creation and in the miraculous movement of the universe to unite all things in love.

I did not do that, but after months of experiencing all manner of rancor, I think it’s time for me to find in myself transformative grace through spiritual immersion, the kind of spiritual contemplation that changes everything. And by the way, I have it on good authority that always being humble and kind can be spiritually transforming. 

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

— Romans 12:2 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

 

 

 

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On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant on November 15th. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

http://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

 

 

 

 

Awakening, Awareness, Contemplation, Creation, Daybreak, Epiphany, God, Grace, Light, Mindfulness, Reflection, Spiritual awakening, Spirituality or Religion?, Transformation

Spiritual Awakenings

Rev Kathy
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In God we live and move and have our being.    Acts 17:28

In years past, I would often hear talk of spiritual awakening. From pulpits around the world, there were proclamations of real and true spiritual awakening. But spiritual awakening never seemed to happen in my church. Yet some group somewhere in the world, or even some person, was always having one. To my great disappointment, I didn’t seem to be able to. I prayed. I studied the Bible. I listened to sacred music. I studied spiritual awakenings in history. I went to church a lot. I looked for a sunrise in my soul. I longed for the dawn to break in on my life with the brilliance of the rising sun.

But my spiritual awakening never came. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting to happen so that I would know I had experienced a spiritual awakening. Would it fall upon me? Would it happen inside me? Would it be grand and glorious or quiet and holy? I really wasn’t as naive a Christian as it seems, but spiritual awakening was truly a religious mystery to me. And then I stumbled upon a very weird offer on the internet.

Click here to get your free MP3. In the first time in over 4 years, it [the spiritual awakening] is happening again (it’s even bigger this time around) and you can participate in this (click here now!) special quantum energy experiment too. Registration for this experiment includes a complimentary MP3 gift, called the Bliss Bath™ that is designed to start dissolving low vibrations (like worry, fear, and doubt) and start unblocking miracles in your life in just 7 minutes! This gift could open the doorway to miraculous shifts in your life and bathe you in the same energy of the quantum field.

Who knew that a real spiritual awakening could happen after just 7 short minutes of watching a video of low vibrations! I read more and learned that 4 years ago, experts carried out what they claimed to be “one of the largest global spiritual awakening experiments in the world.” Their experiment included a faculty of teachers, healers, scientists, inventors, and energy healing pioneers. They used ‘quantum energy’ on tens of thousands of people and included breathing techniques and mindfulness exercises to heighten the volunteer’s awareness; both spiritually and physically. After several weeks of daily consciousness work, thousands of people reported many ‘common’ and often ‘strange’ signs of a personal spiritual awakening! 

An astonishing 94.2% of them claimed that their lives had been made better. In fact, respondents reported a wide variety of effects, from turning on psychic powers to even “feeling surrounded by miracles.” And then the respondents compiled a list of the top ten positive outcomes they experienced:

  1. You have increased empathy and intuition.
  2. You feel drawn to nature.
  3. You have an aversion to negative people or behaviors.
  4. You desire a united community.
  5. You believe that all life is sacred.
  6. Your consciousness feels renewed.
  7. You begin living in “The Moment.“
  8. Your inner peace is increased
  9. Compassion and positivity surges through you.
  10. You feel enhanced authenticity.

Enough of that! Far too much information on something that actually happens in secret, in the soul, in sacred moments spent alone with God. That’s about the best description I know of “spiritual awakening.” Truth is, in those days I was searching for something real, an anointing from God, a transfiguration. I wanted my life to be transformed.

In the years since my first quest for spiritual awakening, I have learned some important things. One is that spiritual awakenings have come to me many times, in moments of glorious splendor and in moments of gentle transformation I hardly noticed. The important part is not striving for a personal awakening; the important part is waiting for it expectantly and desiring it deeply.

“Contemplative Monk,” a group focusing on intentional spirituality, offers a Facebook community that encourages one another on a spiritual journey toward a more contemplative life. The group posts daily thoughts designed to help create spiritual focus. Interestingly, today Contemplative Monk offered a piece entitled “Twelve Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening.” They are infinitely instructive, so I include them here:

1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
2. Frequent attacks of smiling.
3. Feelings of being connected with other and nature.
4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
5. Acting spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.
6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy every moment.
7. A loss of ability to worry
8. A loss of interest in conflict.
9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
10. A lost of interest in judging others.
11. A loss of interest in judging self.
12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

When I look at these twelve symptoms, I can’t help but measure myself by each one. I find that I am profoundly grateful when I discover that I have even one of these symptoms, that I notice even a small inching towards smiling or enjoying every moment or finding myself free of worry. I know so much more about spiritual awakening than I did in years past because I know I have experienced it many times in ways big and small. What I have learned most assuredly about spiritual awakening is that it comes from God as a gift of grace to God’s children.

I recall the time in Scripture when the Apostle Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and instructed the Athenians on the true meaning of spiritual awakening as opposed to religious idolatry.

I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being” . . .

— Acts 17:22-28 (NRSV)

Therein lies the secret, the mystery of a spiritual awakening so real and true in us that we can say “in God we live and move and have our being.”

May God make it so.

 

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On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant on November 15th. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

http://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

Change, Grace, Memories, Pricks, Rebirth, Spiritual growth, St. Francis, Transformation

Pricked

Rev Kathy

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In years past I remember hearing, in sermon and scripture, a rather provocative phrase that always got my attention. As a child, I was mesmerized whenever someone would speak about “the heart being pricked” and I was pretty sure I did not want any heart pricking to happen to me.

Grabbing hold of a prickly stem always results in immediately letting it go and coming up with another plan. God may well be using the pricks of uncomfortable instances in our lives to change our direction. He did this in Paul’s life, as the unsaved, but religious, man traveled on the Damascus road:

And he said, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for you to kick against the pricks.

— Acts 9:5 (paraphrased)

We also read in Acts about being pricked in the heart happening when the Holy Spirit was poured out from heaven. Just as Jesus had promised His disciples, the Holy Spirit came in a mighty way on Pentecost Sunday, and Acts 2 tells us that many wondrous things happened that day. One of the great wonders of that day is described like this:

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts, and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do?”

— Acts 2:36-37 (paraphrased)

And in Psalm 73:

When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant.

—Psalm 73:21-22 (ESV)

There you have it: two examples of the disconcerting messages I heard about heart and soul pricking. Obviously, I had no idea what it all meant, so I was safe and content in my ignorance. I did not intend to put myself anywhere near a heart-pricking situation. So all was well in my spiritual world.

Until I got a few years on me, and a few pricking life experiences.

“Putting away childish things” as the years passed resulted in maturity in my understanding and in my spirituality. I would know many times over the pricking of the heart, even the pricking of my soul. It was never comfortable, never welcomed, but it was a necessary part of living.

Hard times, sickness, failures, broken relationships, aggravating situations, disasters, loss of many kinds: all pricking events that change one’s life, turn a life around really. I experienced most all of them, and in those experiences, I learned what comes after the pricking.

I was reminded this morning of the life of St. Francis as told by the Dominican friar, Augustine Thompson from Richard Rohr’s daily meditation. He writes this:

[His] encounter with lepers would always be for Francis the core of his religious conversion. . . . Wherever the leprosarium was, Francis lodged there with the residents and earned his keep caring for them. . . . It was a dramatic personal reorientation that brought forth spiritual fruit. As Francis showed mercy to these outcasts, he came to experience God’s own gift of mercy to himself. As he cleaned the lepers’ bodies, dressed their wounds, and treated them as human beings, not as refuse to be fled from in horror, his perceptions changed. What before was ugly and repulsive now caused him delight and joy, not only spiritually, but also viscerally and physically.

Francis’s aesthetic sense, so central to his personality, had been transformed, even inverted. [He] sensed himself, by God’s grace and no power of his own, remade into a different man. Just as suddenly, the sins which had been tormenting him seemed to melt away, and Francis experienced a kind of spiritual rebirth and healing. Not long after this encounter, later accounts tell us, perhaps in allegory, that Francis was walking down a road and met one of these same lepers. He embraced the man in his arms and kissed him. Francis’s spiritual nightmare was over; he had found peace.

In the pricks we experience, we may well find peace. We may experience inner healing, a spiritual rebirth, a transformation of life. In any event, we will become immersed in a transformative dance through which we find ourselves being made new. God invites us to such a dance, many times through pricks of the heart and soul, but always covered in the grace of forgiveness and restoration.

When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant.

—Psalm 73:21-22 (ESV)

Let’s not stop there. Let’s read the next part of the Psalm, which does not end with the heart being pricked. Instead it ends like this:

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

—Psalm 73:23-26 (ESV)

Thanks be to God for the pricks and afterwards, the transformation. Amen. 

*******************************************************

On another note, please pray for me as I await a life-saving kidney transplant. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often feels so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

http://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

 

Bible, Birthday parties, Celebration, Contemplation, Creation, Friends, Grace, Gratitude, Lectio Divina, Prayer, Reflection, Surprise, Women

Surprised!

Rev Kathy

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I always write in the moment — what I’m feeling or experiencing, what fills me with joy or what brings forth tears of sadness. That’s my blog. It’s not about me really. It’s more about what exists before me, behind me, around me, within me . . . in the moment. This morning’s moment is all about sweet memories of being surprised. Completely surprised by the surprise birthday party planned and executed by my wonderful Sunday School class.

Last night was a night to remember for me. It was indeed a surprise —an unexpected, shocking, out-of-the-blue, lavish, wonderfully loving surprise. This morning I am giving thanks for the grace gift of that group of women. And I am enjoying one of the gifts they gave me — a beautiful Lectio Divina prayer bible. 

I began my reading this morning at the beginning — Genesis 1: 1-19 — with the intention of reading the passage as if it were my first time. I read it using the pattern of reflective bible reading that included the following steps of Lectio Divina:

  1. A slow, thoughtful reading of the Biblical text
  2. Reflection on the meaning of the text
  3. Prayer
  4. A decision on what I should do in my life as a result of my contemplative experience

In other words, how does action and contemplation meet for me in this time, in this place?

Gathering all the parts of me into a quiet place, I read the first part of the creation story. I took it in as a story fresh and new, and within seconds I was struck by these words:

When God began to create the heavens and the earth — the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters — God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared.

God’s wind swept over the waters . . . I could visualize it. I could hear its sound. I could feel the wind sweeping over me gently, but surely. It was fresh and new, as if I was reading it for the first time. Funny how sacred Scripture can do that “fresh and new” magic!

Today’s life lesson? It’s all about gracious gifts from a loving God . . . Wind and water, sea and sky, light and darkness, and friends of the heart who offer acts of love. 8A5E3A3F-C6E4-47B2-9F75-245B231ADA55Like a birthday party full of meaning beyond the hats and the food and the gifts and the cake.

At the back of the prayer bible, there is a collection of classic Christian prayers. This one — “A Prayer to the Holy Spirit” — is a Native American Traditional prayer that expresses wonderfully the thoughts of my life lesson for today.

O Great Spirit, 
whose breath gives life to the world,
and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze:

 

We need your strength and wisdom.
Cause us to walk in beauty. Give us eyes
ever to behold the red and purple sunset.
Make us wise so that we may understand
what you have taught us.
Help us learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
Make us always ready to come to you
with clean hands and steady eyes,
so when life fades, like the fading sunset,
our spirits may come to you without shame. Amen.

May God — the Mother of all created things, the Father of life itself — make it so.

I am deeply grateful on this day for:

  • Quiet moments of reflection
  • The story of God’s hand in all created things
  • The ability to pray
  • The will to point my life toward actions inspired by faith
  • The gift of friends of the heart (who throw spectacular, startling, and
    completely surprising birthday parties!)

Thanks be to God.

 

***************************************

On another note, please pray for me as I await a life-saving kidney transplant. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often feels so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

http://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj