Grace, healing

Mountaintop Moments

Rev Kathy

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Mountaintop experiences . . . so few and far between. They are the special times we long for, those times when we experience God in fresh, new ways. We travel along life’s dusty roads hoping for just one mountaintop moment. And on occasion, we do find ourselves with God on a high mountain. It’s worth the long wait.

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.

(Matthew 17:1-2, New International Version)
We meet you on the mountaintop, O God, hoping for a glimpse of your glory. Hoping for a moment sacred and holy. We meet you, having ascended from a mundane existence. We meet you, hoping that your usual silence with us will turn into hearing you speak to us of greater times. We meet you hoping to transcend the ordinary and to find, in your presence, a holier moment of grace.

We linger on the holy mountain, O God, waiting for your transfigured presence, and hoping beyond hope that you will change us, if only for this moment in time. And then we descend into our world, the ordinary place we live, but we are not the same. We are no longer ordinary, because we have experienced you, heart and soul, in a fresh, new way.

We give you thanks, O God, for mountaintop moments.

Amen.

Family, Home, simple joys

Simple Pleasures

Rev Kathy

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Today will be a quiet day, a day to recuperate from our 12 hour trip from Little Rock. We had rain, stormy rain, and traffic delays at every turn. The trip was exhausting. But we spent an exhilarating week with family, good friends, and our three grandchildren.

We were so tired we slept late this morning, our bodies moving toward normal through extra rest. Our emotional and spiritual selves will need their own special kind of re-creation. That part of us took a hit because we had to say goodbye to our grandchildren and our son. So today we will spend a day close to home.

We need rest and peace. We need the simple pleasures of home.

After all, I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.  ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Courage, Family, God's Faithfulness, Grace, Home, Uncategorized

The Coming of the Dawn

Rev Kathy

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It’s a brand new morning filled with possibility. It’s also the day we leave our Little Rock home to go back home to Macon. So there is emotion involved, bittersweet feelings that remind me that we are once again leaving behind our son, our grandchildren, and a host of lifelong friends. We cannot straddle two states very well. We cannot cure the sadness of distance with FaceTime or Skype. This situation simply is what it is, and we will have to navigate the emotions of having family far from us.

I have no doubt that when night falls on us tonight in Georgia, we will feel at home and content. We will nurse a little sadness, yes. We will work with melancholy feelings for a while. But we will be in our home, our safe place and our place of rest and peace. I will be glad to see my garden and marvel at how it has grown in a week. I will be very glad for my own bed. Night will find me in my place.

Once again, Bishop Steven Charleston describes my emotions in his eloquent writing.

“It is quiet now. All the cares of this long day are drifting away. There is peace in the house, and in the garden, and over the fence into the wide world beyond, a peace that passes beneath the trees and through the fences, circling the moon in a spiral of silver light, following the night air, going into places where lonely hearts hide, searching for the wounded among us, comforting the dreams of the innocent. It is quiet now, for the love of God walks this night, as every night, gently seeking, seeking those who need love the most, as they wait, wait for the coming of the dawn.”

Missing my grandchildren, I will “need love the most.” But I know that the words are real and true: “. . . the love of God walks this night, as every night, gently seeking, seeking those who need love the most, as they wait, wait for the coming of the dawn.”

Courage, Inspiration, simple joys

What Is Holy Is Not Tame

Rev Kathy

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“So tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

I love that question! And even at my age, I love being able to answer it. Even with a serious illness hanging over me, I have plans for my one wild and precious life. The passing years, in fact, make life even more precious. My goal for life is not only to make it precious, but to also make it wild . . . one last wild ride that takes in the magnificent world around me!

My goal is to have experiences that can be described with words similar to the words of Bishop Charleston:

I have seen the Spirit moving behind the gathering clouds, with wings the color of rainbows. I have watched the light of creation split the sky, as angels pound the drums of heaven. What is holy is not what is tame, what is divine is as wild as a desert rain. Love is not a timid breeze, but a storm of change, sweeping the comfortable before it like leaves, blowing the dust off our ordered lives, challenging us to dare the elements of our own vision. What is holy is not what is tame, so when you stand to pray, stand facing the wind.

I agree that what is holy is not tame at all. So blow through my life, refreshing breeze. Rearrange me, storm of change. I am standing facing the wind with great anticipation!

healing, Hope, Uncategorized

Healing Waters

Rev Kathy

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I have spent the past two years healing from end stage kidney disease. That does not mean I’m cured. But it does mean that I’m healed enough to have regained my strength and a semblance of normalcy in my life. My dialysis takes eight hours each day, but it has become an accepted part of my “new normal.”

Do I wish I had healthy, functioning kidneys? Of course I do. But I have embraced healing that is my reality, and it’s not a bad life. I have learned that beyond any doubt that the physical, emotional and spiritual parts of me are inextricably interconnected. Genuine healing occurs when all three are well balanced. This kind of healing has its way with the illness, and in very significant ways, thwarts the disease process. I am blessed to experience healing. It is as if God is leading me into healing waters that begin a process of being made well, in the Spitit, the soul, the mind and the body. Healing is not a noun, it is a verb, and it is a continual process within me.

Until God completes that miracle process, I rest on these words:

“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls my life.” – Akshay Dubey

Faith, Family, Inspiration, Love

My Weight in Their Hands

Rev Kathy

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I worshipped at my home church yesterday. What a blessing it was to be with the people that prayed and nursed me through the most serious days of my illness! In many ways, they played a role in my eventual return to health. And it is such a blessing to know that they will also pray me through my eventual kidney transplant.

They are what Christ’s Community is all about. New Millennium Church became a true faith community for me during my darkest days. They prayed. They brought meals. They stayed in close touch. They believed in my healing. They were as Toni Morrison describes in this passage:

“They encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely it was, they studied your scars and tribulations…”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

And so, with my weight in their hands, I began to get myself back, physically, emotionally and spiritually. They were, for me, the reality of miracle. Today, I am healthy enough to be considered a candidate for a kidney transplant. Through that process, I know that New Millennium will pray.

“I give thanks to God upon every remembrance of you.” – Philippians 1:1

Faith, Love

Immeasurably More

Rev Kathy

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My life is immeasurably more than I ever imagined. Yes, I have a serious illness. Yes, retirement income is dismal. Yes, making ends meet is difficult. Yes, waiting on a kidney transplant is challenging. Yet the blessings that I receive from God every day that I live is immeasurably more than I deserve.

I often think of the scripture that talks about Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith. It is part of a beautiful passage in the third chapter of Ephesians. I am constantly amazed that Christ dwells in my heart through faith. It is a miracle of God that enables Christ to dwell in my heart, to be literally inside me, to make all the difference in my life. That profound thought leaves me without words of my own. Instead, I leave you with the rest of the passage in Ephesians:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. – Ephesians 3:17-21

Family, simple joys

Simple Joys

Rev Kathy

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Life is full of joys! Little joys and big ones! Complex joys and simple joys! Last night, I watched three of my grandchildren play on the floor . . . tickling, rolling, scooting, laughing, throwing a mini basketball. The experience was a simple joy.

I lifted a Bible verse gently out of context this morning because it expresses the kind of joy I enjoyed yesterday with my grandchildren. No doubt about it, they “refreshed my heart.”

“Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.”  Philemon 1:7

Life has its way of burdening our hearts with all sorts of “bad news.” Reading a newspaper or reading the world news online each day confirms it. So we need brief times of heart refreshing, the time to engage in simple joys that nurture our souls.

I can definitely give you an example of a simple joy this morning: surprising my granddaughter by waiting for her to get off her school bus and watching her reaction when she saw me. I had not seen her in over a year, so when she spotted me down the block from her bus stop, she shouted my name, broke into a run, and landed in my arms.

What a simple joy that was, and a profound one, all at once! I pray tha your world today will be full of simple joys.

Faith, God's Faithfulness, Uncategorized

Resting in God’s Love

Rev Kathy

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Where do I find God? There are times when, for whatever the reason, I feel estranged from God. There are times when, though my faith tells me that God is near, I simply do not feel God’s presence. During those times, my prayer seems empty. I cannot connect to God. I cannot sense God’s love. I feel lost and confused. I cannot make myself believe that God loves me.

Sometimes God speaks to me through the words of others. Bishop Steven Charleston writes these comforting words:

You are not lost. Not to me.
And never will be.
No matter where you may be,
no matter how far or deep or dark
or empty or alone or confusing or new
or complex or tangled
or bad or difficult,
I will find you.
I will find you and I will be with you.
I will come to you and hold you and care for you
and uplift you and protect you
and heal you and save you
and bring you home.
So you never need be afraid.
Never. For you will not be lost, not to me.
I have you. Now and forever.
Be at peace and rest in that peace.
You will never be in a place my love cannot find.
So says our God.

Without fail, I eventually return to peace. I find my way back, every time, and I find myself again resting in God’s love.

Home, Hope, Love

Home of My Heart

Rev Kathy

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I’m on the road today! And I’m celebrating going back home to Little Rock to see friends, church family, and my child and grandchildren. I haven’t seen them in over a year. I have not seen my youngest grandson at all. He turns one today, so if all goes well on the journey, I’ll see him on his birthday.

Home is now far away for me, ten hours by car. My new home is nice enough, and we have made a “sort-of” home here. But Little Rock is the home of my heart, a place that was difficult to leave behind.

I can not help but think of Naomi’s story of leaving home in the first chapter of the book of Ruth.

In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

It must have been traumatic to leave home for her, and when her husband and sons died, she must have languished terribly. The story goes on to tell us that Naomi survived and built a new home.

That’s what we do. We build home wherever we go. We put our heart into every new place, and eventually the heart makes it home. I will do that in Macon. I have already made some progress. I have a dear and loving family here, and we so enjoy one another. But for today, I am celebrating going back home! To the place of my heart! To the people of my heart!

Faith, God's Faithfulness, Inspiration, Love

Love Has the Last Word

Rev Kathy

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My last blog post spoke of being unable to escape adversity. And it is true that we will not get through this life without adversity, no matter how hard we try. The path we walk is steep and winding, leading us forward through all sorts of dangers, toils and snares. The road can be frightening. It can be challenging.

We navigate in a world that is sometimes filled with terror and hate. But the best news for us comes from Bishop Steven Charleston.

The final word to our lives will not be terror or hate. Even if they seem overwhelming now, they will not define us or control us. Other forces are at work, deep forces that move silently among us, drawing us closer against the storm. Whenever human beings face disaster together, whatever that peril may be, our ancient instinct for compassion rises up to unite us in common cause. We do not shatter beneath the blows. We only grow stronger. No, fear and hate will never have the last word. Love will.

There is no better news than that!

I love the hymn Amazing Love. How Can it Be. The words of the fourth stanza give me new and fresh hope.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Amazing love, how can it be that Thou, my God, should die for me?

Love has the last word.

Courage, Faith, Fear, God's Faithfulness, Grace, Uncategorized

The Heart to Conquer Pain

Rev Kathy

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No way to escape hardships! It’s inevitable that life will bring us sadness, loss, grief, fear, and all manner of trial. This is a dangerous world, and danger is a part of life. This is a world where pain sometimes strikes us, and there is no way to avoid it.

I recall a terribly dark time in my life when I felt betrayed and abandoned, as if I alone had to face the troubles that had descended upon me. I felt disheartened and despondent. I felt frightened and, most of all, I felt totally alone. It was not a good feeling. It left me bereft of comfort for weeks on end. I could not change the circumstance, and I could not shake the emotional angst.

Prayer was my companion, but I would be lying if I said that prayer worked an instant miracle. Prayer was constant and so was the pain. I was not delivered from it by a prayer or a Bible passage. I simply endured the pain until it began to ease.

Was God present with me during this time? Did God hear my cries? Did God even care that I was going through the valley’s shadow?

My experience was that God was very silent. I knew God’s presence only by faith. I knew God’s compassion only by past experience. I knew I would survive only because I had survived so many difficulties in the past.

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.

– Rabindranath Tagore

Courage, Faith, God's Faithfulness, Grace, Uncategorized

Remade!

Rev Kathy

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I am in awe of God’s presence in all things. It is not just that God is near us. God is also within us and beside us in every created thing. I have learned that, even in the most difficult times, God is within me. In fact, God is perhaps nearer in the hard times.

How narrow a pathway those hard times bring! There is nothing to be seen on the left or on the right. It is a feeling of being trapped in one’s own sadness, wondering if the narrow path will ever end, wondering if the world will ever open up again. It is as if I am being forced to look within myself because the path is too narrow to see anything else. The sunlight is hidden. The light of stars and moon doesn’t show itself. There are no mountains or forests or valleys or seashores. There is just the narrow tunneled path and the will and the courage to keep moving through it. And even there in that tight, restrictive space, I sense God’s presence.

I can rest on the promises of this quote by Jan Richardson from her book on reflection and prayer, In the Sanctuary of Women.

The mystics invite us to remember what we all too often forget: God is everywhere present in the world, suffusing creation with the being of God. Once in a while, if we keep our eyes open, if we look closely enough, something amid the familiar reveals itself, offers itself to us in a new way. What we know, what we have learned, is taken apart. Is remade. Remakes us.

So many times in this life, I have been remade. It’s by the grace of a loving, ever-present God.

Courage, Faith, God's Faithfulness, Hope, Inspiration, Life storms

On to the Land of Promise

Rev Kathy

 

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Richland Creek Wilderness

Have you ever wandered in a wilderness? I have certainly felt at times as if I was wandering in a wilderness . . . abandoned, confused, disoriented.

The Bible tells the story of the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness for a very long time. We find one reference to that story in Numbers 32:13.

The LORD’s anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone.

Certainly no wilderness wandering that I have experienced has been that long and grueling. Yet I do know about a personal wilderness journey. I know how lonely it feels, how forsaken. I know that it seems to go on forever with no end in sight. I know that such wilderness journeys can happen when one is ill, isolated, disheartened, grieving or simply feeling empty.

Numbers concludes with the Israelites coming to the end of the long, hard journey. They are now standing on the Plains of Moab, just across the river from the promised land. This is where Moses gives his final commission to the people. And in the next book, Deuteronomy, the end of the wandering in the wilderness becomes a reality.

Look, he has placed the land in front of you! Go up, take possession of it, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, said to do. Do not be afraid or discouraged!”  – Deuteronomy 1:21

And that’s the good word we need to hear. Our wandering is over. God has walked beside us through whatever wilderness we travelled. We are free to move into our own land of promise where life is no longer filled with fear and discouragement. The magic, though, is this: coming out of the wilderness is our choice. God has the land of promise ready for us. We need only to walk into it with courage and fresh hope.

 

God's Faithfulness, Grace, Hope, Love

Healed of Sad Memory

Rev Kathy

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The anniversary of my brother’s death was in late March. I did not allow myself to emotionally mark the actual date, and that was probably a mistake. The loss has hovered over me since the day I chose to largely ignore it. And there is a cloud of sadness over my head. Pete was our baby brother, and he certainly did not leave us in the right order. He was the youngest, so he should have outlived his two older siblings. But that was the thing about Pete. He didn’t follow rules and expected practices.

I survived his death emotionally. My brother and my cousin also survived it. His young wife and his two beautiful daughters did too. But there was a special kind of love that made it possible to survive. Pete loved lavishly and graciously. It is that kind of love that still watches over us and heals us of the sad memory. It is God’s love that carries us beyond the sadness and brings us into the light of hope. The words of Steven Charleston describe it perfectly.

What gracious love is this, that watches over us without ceasing, that allows for our frailty, that lifts us up when we have stumbled, never wavering in hope for us, never despairing at our shortcomings, but believing in us, defending us, calling forth our better nature, until we are healed of sad memory, restored to live in the fullness of our life, set free from the snares of what can harm us, to be who we were made to be, long ago, by this same gracious heart, the one that formed us before the first dawn, and that will carry us safely beyond the golden light.

This blog post is for Pete, and is dedicated to Shelli, Kristen and Kaitlyn.

Life storms, Love

Love Like that Makes the Planet Breathe

Rev Kathy

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An old Beatles song reminds us of something very important in life:

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

Indeed, it is a great message, and one that is so appropriate in a world that often seems to be filled with hate. I wish I had never heard the voices of the presidential candidates speaking of hatred toward Muslims, Mexicans, persons who are immigrants, and basically, anyone who does not fit into their social boxes.

Why so much hate when all we need is love? The wise words of Bishop Steven Charleston move me to a better place. I hope they will uplift you as well.

Love all that you can today, as far as you can, as widely and wildly as you can, without boundaries or borders, giving out your love for all that you see in beauty and nature around you,

loving unrestrained the simple life that lives forever around you,

the flowers in a field,

the sparrows darting by,

the sky and the wind as surely as if they were your own,

loving every passing person, not stopping to count the reasons, but loving as if your loving made the whole planet breathe.

Love all that you can today, for in such love is the secret beginning of what will never end.

God's Faithfulness, Hope, Uncategorized

Hope!

Rev Kathy

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I don’t usually pay much attention to quotes printed on signs, but today I saw this one that hit me right between the eyes.

God is saying to you today, “Everything will work out. I’m in complete control. I know what the medical report says. I know what the financial situation looks like . . . I know how big your dreams are, and hear me clearly; I will not fail you.”

So to extrapolate this message for me . . . “I know what the strain of dialysis is like. I know you miss your grandchildren,. I know you endure a lot of pain. I know what the future holds for you. I know where your kidney is.”

And that works for me. The promise is in Hebrews 13:5.

” . . . for God has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support.”

What a word of hope!

Uncategorized

Only a Shard of Light

Rev Kathy

 

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Sometimes we have only a shard of light, one narrow beam that gives us a slight hint of which way to go. I have never walked a fully lighted path on this journey. It has always been dark and dim just ahead, making me second guess my forward progress.

I think, though, that life is like that. I think it’s a normal thing to walk on dimly lit roads, always wondering what’s ahead. I never dreamed that I would be in this place, waiting on a kidney transplant, hoping that my life will have a bit more normalcy, hoping to be able to give up daily dialysis.

I never dreamed that I would be hundreds of miles from my child and my grandchildren. I never dreamed I would leave Little Rock and end up in Macon, Georgia.

On the lighter side, I also never dreamed that I would live almost directly on the Georgia Gnat Line. Much like the seven wonders of the world, the Gnat Line is just one of many wonders of the Deep South. Technically speaking, the Gnat Line refers to a geographic fall line that geologists or archaeologists believe may have been a prehistoric beach or shoreline.

The point of all that trivia is that the gnats are relentlessly pesky, attacking eyes, ears, face and mouth. So I never dreamed that my life path would lead me into swarms of gnats.

But back to the narrow beam of light. It’s enough. It may not be as bright as I would want, but it has been enough to be a pretty good guiding light for me. I know it is sent by a protecting and caring God, so I trust it to lead me on.

Courage, Faith

Carried by the Wind

Rev Kathy

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No, we cannot know what the future holds. We do not even know where we’re going on this unpredictable journey called life. We can respond to this in a couple of ways. One response could be fear, feeling paralyzed by the unknown way ahead. Another response is to embrace trust in the God who carries us through life. We can choose a fearful, cocoon-like existence or we can stand on a hilltop and spread our wings.

I would prefer to choose the latter. I hope that the words of C. JoyBell C. describe my outlook on living. Here is what she says:

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.”

May the winds carry you!

God's Faithfulness, Grace

It Lights the Whole Sky

Rev Kathy

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The sunrise each morning reminds me that God loves me like the brilliance of the sunlight. In fact, God loves us in so many ways, through so many gifts — the evening sky, the starlight, a gentle rain, a cooling breeze, the brilliant sunlight. In so many ways, God says, “I love you.” And God’s miracles, large and small, enlighten our path.

The longer I live, the more grateful I am for God’s love and care. The more I marvel at God’s graces. The more I give thanks for God’s protection. Every fresh new morning gifts me with the faithfulness of God. Every sunrise fills my spirit with bright new hope. Every day, without failure, the sun rises to bring light to my day.

In the words of the poet, Hāfez, that kind of love “lights the whole sky.”

And still, after all this time,
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.

― Hāfez