Keep an Eye on God

One of the things I love about being a pastor is the opportunity to minister to children. One of the great joys about children and youth is the many ways they minister to us. Children have a way of helping us think outside the box. Personally, I think it is the creative God within each child that enables children to minister to us this way. I think the God within each child thinks outside the box, don’t you? Think about it. God surprises us with the extraordinary, with the unexpected, with the unexplainable. We call this mystery.

Think for example about the lizard. Who can explain a God who creates such a creature? I wonder about things like this. Recently I wondered what it would be like to be one of those little lizards, chameleons, that dart across my path every morning when I go out to the curb to bring in the morning paper. Oh, I don’t mean that I gave any serious or lengthy thought to the physical aspects of being a lizard. Though sometimes we humans do dart around here and there, racing through our days, like the devil was behind us! In Samuel Hahn’s Learning from the Lizard, I learned something about this creature that intrigued me.

Lizards have a very fascinating trait. Their eyes move independently of one another! With one eye on where they are going and one eye on an enemy, they are able to scoot out of danger in the nick of time. Even if that danger is no more than a bedroom slipper making its way to the newspaper. What an awesome and creative God we have! Lizards with eyes that move independently!

As I wondered about God’s wisdom in creating the lizard this way, I began to wonder also about how God has created the human spirit with just such a fascinating trait. I began to value the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that allows us to keep one eye on God while we keep another eye on everything else around us, especially during these days filled with so much activity.

When we spend time in thanksgiving and praise, when we spend time daily in prayer and Bible study, when we gather together as the worshipping Body of Christ, when we keep our spiritual eyes on God, we are better able to move through our day escaping the many enemies that threaten to rob us of the joy and power of life lived in the spirit. Psalm 141 is a wonderful prayer for preservation from just such things. Verse eight: My eyes are turned toward, you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; do not leave me defenseless, is a prayer for “lizard eyes,” eyes that look to God while maneuvering through days filled with activity, distractions, and risks. God, give us grace to keep an eye on you.

Sometimes I am sad when I should be happy. Sometimes I am down when I ought to be up. I wonder if you, too, struggle with your feelings not living up to what you or what others expect. The holidays especially can be an emotional roller coaster. When my daughter Dayna died our whole world changed, and especially the holidays. She was full of such love and fun and life. Nothing was ever the same again. That’s when I first knew that holidays aren’t always happy times for everyone.

Fredrick Buechner in his book, Listening to Your Life, reflects on the funeral of the twelve-year-old daughter of a man named Jairus (Mark 5:35-43). If you know the story you know that Jesus shows up in the middle of the funeral, takes the little girl’s hand, and tells her to “get up,” and she does! What Buechner writes that struck me so very personally was that it’s okay to weep all the tears that are in us when we suffer loss, because something precious and irreplaceable has come to an end and something in us has come to an end with it. Yet, he goes on to write that death is no more permanent than sleep and that while death is the closing of one door, it is the opening of another. Buechner wants us to hear Jesus saying to us, “Get up.” Buechner wants us  to take the hand that Jesus extends to us through the many people and graces in our lives, so that we can get up.

As the holidays approach, I give myself permission to feel whatever I am feeling. I let myself remember and feel. The holidays I have treasured from my past are precious and irreplaceable. Yet, other new and equally precious doors open to me every day. There is a time to mourn and there is a time to celebrate, and sometimes our feelings don’t correspond with the season of the year.

On Saturday, December 17, at 7:00 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church you are invited to gather with us for a Service of Lights to remember those we love who have died by the lighting of candles on the altar. Through scripture and prayer, through the companionship of others we will rekindle the light of hope. The sanctuary will be lit by candle light and the walks by luminaries. Following the service we will walk to the parish house to enjoy our annual lighting of the Christmas Tree. This year music will be provided by our youth Red Door Band and refreshments will be served in the hall.

If like me you are remembering those persons or season in your life that are no longer with you, I offer this prayer from a Hebrew Book of Prayers:

We Remember Them with Love

In the rising of the sun and its going down, we remember them.

In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.

In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.

In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.

In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we remember them.

In the beginning of every succeeding year and when it ends, we remember them.

When we are weary and in need of strength, we remember them.

When we have joys and celebrations we yearn to share, we remember them.

So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us,

as we remember them with love. Amen.

Sunday Worship at St. Stephen’s Church includes the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion. We believe that in the mystery of receiving the sacrament of Christ’s most precious Body and Blood, in the Bread and the Wine, we are transformed. After receiving communion we leave different from when we arrived. Something has changed. Often in the days that following our Sunday Eucharist, I will hear from someone about an amazing change in their lives after receiving communion. The Eucharist is a sweet, sweet mystery!

 Why would anyone miss the Sunday Eucharist!

 The Eucharist is the only action we take as a worshipping community which our Lord commanded us to do in remembrance of him. It is a sweet obligation, one we welcome, because through the Eucharist we are fed spiritual food that nourishes every area of our lives and draws us into a deeper, richer relationship with God.

Why would anyone miss the Sunday Eucharist!

 In Sunday morning Eucharist we begin to make sense of everything else in our lives. The Eucharist enables us to see things not immediately apparent in the crush of every day life.  We are reminded of our Baptisms, we acknowledge our sins and receive absolution, we hear with the ears of our spirits the very Word of God meant for us at this particular time and in this particular place. Words of Grace and comfort that make us strong, that help us cope. We offer to God our prayers and ourselves, the gifts of our lives and labors, the bread and wine God has created and human hands have made. Our gifts are transformed by God’s Holy Spirit and returned to us as spiritual nourishment and new life.  The service ends with the challenge to go forth into the everyday experience of life in the world as new people, changed, ready to meet friends, neighbors, workers, strangers with the very love of Christ. Why would anyone miss the Sunday Eucharist!

 Don’t sleep in Sunday morning! Join us and bring another with you! Nothing is as sweet as one of our Sundays!

 Blessings and Love,

Pastor Pati Mary

 I remember on my first day when we were all seated in the church. A little four yr old boy, stood up, walked out of his pew and stood directly in front of where I was sitting.  He gave me a quick smile and then gave me the sweetest, biggest hug.   This spontaneous welcome and greeting took me by surprise.  His endearing hug was completely unsolicited.  We had not even been introduced yet. I hadn’t even told the children my name. Upon reflection I pondered this question: Wasn’t his hug similar to the way God greets us?  When we are far off in our own little world, not really paying attention, God is always willing and ready to meet us in prayer before we’ve even said a word, or told God our name.

   I then proceeded to introduce myself and asked them to guess how many children that my husband and I have.  A lot of hands went in the air, and I praised them for having such wonderful manners.  I was expecting them to all shout out numbers like “2″ or “3″. Yet, this did not happen.   I called on a sweet little girl in pink, who proudly stood up, and said,” I know how many children you  have!” and beginning with herself, she began to count each child in the room. I was quiet when she patiently counted each child. ” ….10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15!  You have 15 children!!”

The preschool teachers and I glanced at each other and smiled. “Yes, you are right”

 I said “in God’s family I do have all of you!”

   When thinking about this later on, I was reminded of the interconnectedness of living in Christian community.  While I was looking for a number (four to be exact, as my husband and I have four children) God was tapping me on the shoulder and reminding me of how we all belong to one another though a triune God.  All of this happened by spending twenty minutes with a preschool class.  Out of the mouths of babes….

 We are now in the season of Lent at St. Stephens Church in Catlett, VA and I am serving them as Sabbatical Supply Priest until their beloved rector, The Rev. Pati Mary Andrews returns in July.  We are reminded in the Gospel lesson in Matthew that Jesus was driven by the Spirit to the desert.  Of all places to be driven by the Spirit, why was he driven to the desert?  The desert, with all of its barrenness, cracked places, dryness and lack of food and water, does not seem like a very nice place for the Spirit to be driving folks to. 

 In our world today, we constantly are surrounded by cracked barren places where people are in tremendous physical and emotional pain.  The news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan is devastating.  Every news channel on the television and internet has stories of massive destruction, imminent danger from radioactivity and the deaths of thousands of people. If you add the communal grief and anxiety that the whole world is experiencing to the grief and anxiety we already have in our own lives, we can sometimes get overwhelmed by all of the sadness, pain and anxiety. When we are overwhelmed, we might believe that we are unable to cope or unable to help with the world’s pain and it causes us to shut down.  This might not be a bad thing, time to turn off the television and focus a bit on our relationship with God so that we might be renewed or “swaddled by the Spirit” who comforts us in all of those cracked barren places.

 I found this poem, Let Your God Love You by Edwina Gateley a few years ago that has helped me when I feel anxious and overwhelmed.  I have prayed it while physically wrapping myself in a blanket, like Linus from the Peanuts gang, and my own daughter as an infant, and this time of prayer has been my oasis, a place to be refreshed and renewed by God in the midst of suffering. 

 Let Your God Love You

By Edwina Gateley

Be silent

Be still

Alone

Empty

Before your God

Say nothing

Ask nothing

Be silent

Be still

Let your God look upon you

That is all

God knows

God understands

With enormous love

And only wants you to look upon you

With that love.

Quiet,

Be still,

Be.

Let your God

Love you.

 Perhaps letting ourselves be “swaddled by the Spirit,” will enable us to get to a place where we are served by Angels, when we are feeling shut down and overwhelmed.  We can only actively help those who are hurting, not by attempting to fix everything, but by being open and present to God. God, who understands all of our losses, anxiety’s and burdens of our hearts. God desires to look upon us and fill us with tremendous love.

 It has never bothered me that shops and malls are full of folks doing Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving.  I think of these folks as ones who are passionate about gift giving.

 One morning some years ago, my phone rang early.  My twin sister was calling to give me a gift.  Because she knew I was struggling through a time of grief she called to give me the gift of encouragement.  After a time of listening and simply being present, she gave me the gift of these words from Holy Scripture: “You were tired out by the length of your road, yet you did not say, ‘it is hopeless.’  You found renewed strength, therefore, you did not faint.”  [Isaiah 57:10]

  Her timely gift of scripture renewed my strength.  Before the day was out I gave those same words away to a woman recovering from cancer.  Our gifts become treasures when we give away the gift of Spirit that we received from another.

 Someone once told me, “I pray for you every day.”  Every day!  She never stops praying for me.  I was astonished at such an unexpected gift.

 Saint Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, “…I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.  I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you…wisdom and revelation.”  Paul never stopped praying for them.  He kept asking God to give them all they needed to live full and abundant lives.

 Not only did Paul continually pray for them but he wrote and told them exactly what he was praying.  His letters are full of the words of his prayers.  Have you thought of giving someone the gift of your daily prayers and telling them so?  Make that phone call, write that letter, mail that card you have been meaning to send.  Give the gift of the Spirit.

 Have you thought about giving a total stranger the gift of encouragement, the gift of prayer, the gift of blessing?  One prayer practice I am fascinated by is the practice of blessing others.  Try blessing the first ten people you see each morning: your partner, your child, the school bus driver, teller at the bank, waitress behind the counter, driver of the truck in front of you, your co-worker.  Add the animals you encounter: the family pet, your horses, the cows in the fields you pass.  Each day give a total stranger a blessing.  Bless them with a silent prayer or by simply smiling and saying, “God bless you,” instead of “Hello.”  People don’t have to sneeze to receive a blessing from you!  Give the gift of the Spirit.

 Today give someone the gifts of prayer, encouraging words, and blessing.  Wrap them beautifully in a letter, a card, a phone call, or a smile.  If your gift is creative and unique, how wonderful.  If your gift is unexpected, all the better.

 What a joy it will be when our lives are just as full of the gifts of the Spirit as our shops and malls are full of passionate shoppers.  This year give the gift of Spirit!

 When my children were growing up my husband and I looked for ways to make Thanksgiving Day a special and unique tradition in our home.  We set the table in the dining room with starched linens, fresh flowers, and our best china and crystal.  We served our favorite foods, offered a special prayer of thanks before eating, and spent the entire day together.  When the children were very young we came to the table wearing feathers and pilgrim hats we had made out of construction paper, glue, and glitter.

 What made our family Thanksgiving dinner unique is that while eating we played a game I had made up—the Thanks Giving Game.  Each of us began by naming one thing about ourselves for which we are thankful and then naming three things about each other for which we were thankful.  It is so healing to recognize and be able to name and own our own giftedness.  It is so affirming to hear others name the things they value about us.

 I remember one Thanks Giving Game in particular.  Two of my teenage children were at odds with one another, and the tension at the table was thicker than the gravy on the potatoes!  Each of them struggled to come up with even one thing they appreciated about the other.  In the long silences and stuttering and finally in their humorous responses, we were all able to laugh.  Acceptance and reconciliation began for them with thanks giving. 

 Yet, there are some things in life for which I find it nearly impossible to give thanks.  It is not easy to give thanks when so many in the world do not experience the joy and abundance we do.  It is not easy to give thanks in the face of grief, loss, brokenness, disease, fear, disappointment, and failure.  “In all things give thanks,” Saint Paul wrote to the little church in Thessalonica.  In ALL things… Really?  All things?  Without God’s help it is impossible to always give thanks.

 I find help through some lines from a prayer in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer: “…We thank you, [Lord], for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.  We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.  We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.  Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ… Grant us the gift of your spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things.  Amen.”

 The gift of family and friends, the loving care of others, and God’s own spirit within us enable us to give thanks in the midst of dark, disappointing, and difficult times.  The paradox is that it is in giving thanks that healing begins.  How wonderful to set aside an entire day, indeed to take time each and every day, for thanks giving.

 Look at Lance Armstrong, a champion cyclist and cancer survivor who founded a nonprofit charitable organization for cancer research.  Maybe, like me, you have worn the bright yellow (the color of the lead rider’s jersey in the Tour de France) bracelet stamped with the phrase, “Live Strong,” the foundation’s motto.  Not only have the sale of wristbands raised millions of dollars for cancer research, but they are an outward, visible sign that we can overcome any obstacle and live strong, courageous lives.

 Look at Brett Favre and his wife, Deanna.  While quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, Brett’s father died.  Soon after, Deanna’s brother died in a tragic accident and eight days later Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer.  At the time I followed the Washington Post articles by Leonard Shapiro, and was impressed that despite a series of tragedies, Favre played his best football.  What is that?

 This year, there have been countless personal stories of survival amidst the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti.  Now we are witnessing the tenacity of the human spirit in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill catastrophe.  Ordinary people are living with extraordinary suffering and loss, not only enduring, but overcoming tragedies of unimaginable proportions. 

 How is it that when we are struck down with a string of afflictions that challenge and perplex us, we are not crushed or driven to despair or destroyed?  Instead, we ride our best race again and again.  Instead, we play our best game again and again.  How is that?  Where does this extraordinary power to live strong come from?

 Saint Paul writes to the Church in Corinth these words:  “We have [a] treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…”  (II Corinthians 4:7f)

 The power to live strong comes from God, not from us.  We have a treasure within us.  That treasure is the life of God’s own Spirit.  The ordinary people we live with everyday are like fragile clay jars filled with the extraordinary power of God.  We are like fragile clay jars capable of being broken and crushed.  Yet we live strong, courageous lives because God lives with us, never leaves us, and is indeed in us.

I didn’t share my children’s passion for swimming in the surf.  When I watched a wave rising higher and higher as it came closer and closer, I knew it could knock me over, pull me down, and leave my nose and eyes salty and stinging.  As a child playing in the surf, my mom and dad would be on either side of me, holding my hands and lifting me above the waves.  As I got older I learned to dive headfirst into the wave before it could break.  I learned to swim out beyond where the waves break, where the water is calmer.

Living with grief is like swimming in the ocean when the surf is up.  Any loss can throw us into grief:  the death of a loved one, chronic illness, a broken relationship or failing marriage, the loss of a job or any opportunity.  Sometimes the end of a day that was not what we hoped it would be can throw us into grief.  Grief comes in waves, crashing down, knocking us off our feet, pulling us down and under.  Some days the best we can do is dive headfirst into grief and get through it.  For me, diving into grief means spending some part of each day writing in my journal, reflecting on scripture, talking to my spiritual director, calling a friend with whom I can cry.

Some days the best we can do is swim out beyond the waves to a place of calm.  I find calm serenity through silent prayer, walking, gardening, sitting in the sunshine.

This prayer from the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer is a daily reminder to me that God takes my hands and lifts me above the waves into His quiet presence:  “Oh God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength:  By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence where we may be still and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Someone has said, “Don’t dread the waves of grief; instead embrace the Lord in them.”  Every day we can discover ourselves being held on each side by a God who lifts us above the grief to a place of strength.  Sometimes we can’t swim out beyond the surf or dive headfirst into it.  Sometimes the best we can do is hold on to God who is holding on to us.