Contrary

God looks on me with love
I look away
God loves me tenderly
I abruptly turn my back
God extends a hand of help
I play the stubborn 4 year old and declare,
"I can do it myself!"
God provides everything and everyone I need
I continue to yearn for something and someone else
God knows every bit of me
I pretend to hide away
God presses in on me

I pull away

God wins
I surrender all

Playtime

Creative work is play. That means when one is doing this work, it's serious fun. There is nothing frivolous about it, but it has freedom and joy and unexpected pleasure.
Free speculation - like the wondering questions of Godly Play. What is your favorite part of this story? What do you think this part of the story means? What part of the story could you take away and still have all the story you need?

Using the materials of one's chosen form - words, actions, dance, visuals, light, fabric, drama - a limitless range of materials with which to proclaim the word of God. Godself expanded the forms by sending the Word made flesh, dwelling among us. This is the heart of our speculation. Speculation has sort of a negative connotation in our vocabular these days. It implies that we don't KNOW what will happen with the use of these creative materials, but that we're just speculating, experimenting, playing and stepping back to allow the mystery of meaning to take over. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

For the mystics, the play-ers, and the creatives in this world, to speculate is often enough. There is no need for an answer, a truth, conclusive evidence or facts beyond a shadow of a doubt. The speculators are happy to keep such matters in court rooms and laboratories. There certainly is no need to put such proofing in our sanctuaries, chapels, or prayer gardens. Speculators are an odd bunch, even among our religious kindred. Our human friends want evidence, we want freedom. We say, "don't muddy the beauty with formulas and steps to follow. God is not there. God is between the lines, the spaces, the cracks, the crevices, the rests, the carved out stone, the before and after taste, and on and on. God is not so much the flame, but the air that moves and dances and flickers the flame, and God is the dimness that gives way to the light. God is not the answer to our prayer so much as God is the faith, despair and hope that calls out for an answer.

Perhaps you would say this limits God, but I say it makes God more real. Who can believe? Who can create? The one who waits is the one who sees and knows God. What have we missed when we think we already know God or have a picture or image of who God is? We miss the waiting, the wondering, the hoping, the expectancy. We cannot be among the found if we do not believe we are lost. May we always find ourselves hidden but waiting for God to seek us. Waiting for God to say, "Ready or not, here I am/come."

NOTHINGNESS

Have you learned the art of doing nothing so that "something" can emerge? I do believe over time that I have learned this lesson from time to time. I am not flawlessly skilled at it, but I am more aware of the potential and much more anticipatory of the fruit that can come from dormancy, lying fallow in the deep, peaty moss of a dark, cool nothingness.....soaking in the rsidual moisture and resting in the earth that will produce an environment for growth. I can feel myself desiring such conditions, even now. I am not certain that many of my colleagues understand the power of nothing. Most are far too nervous about their position, their popularity or their productivity. We all strive because we believe our key to living well is to be needed. But the simply truth is, no one needs us. We fool ourselves. And if there is one who has need of us, it is usually not the one we choose to serve. The need comes from those who can give us nothing in return. So, do nothing or do something because nothing or no one requires it of you. Then, watch the miraculous being born!

Silent Explosion

A reflection from Aug. 14
"Silent explosion....the phrase leaps into my conscience with all sorts of images. A deafening quiet. A still, small voice. The sound of sheer against sheer. Barely audible yet loud with meaning. So soft that most don't even know to listen for it or hear its cries. How does one tune one's ears for the quiet bomb of expression or the muted blast of messages? How does one quiet one's self? Noise begets noise. Anxiety breeds more of the same. A body in motion stays in motion, a body at rest stays at rest.
Be still. Start at the toes and work your way up. Quiety every fiber of your being. Then be ready for an infusion of peace that passes understanding and knowing. Risk yourself to the combusion of the Wholly Spirit. Your very being is made of things that do not speak or scream or make noise - cells, water, blood, breath - al of them just are. Why, then, when these are combined do they create such nervous, anxious, frenetic, product-driven, busy body creatures? Afraid of the silence, fearful they have no worth unless they are scurrying around filling voids with over-scheduled calendars, endless to-do lists and resumes of accomplishments. Be still. Shhhh. No one is benefitting from your pace. You do not add to your life by putting more agendas on like Mrs. Winchester added rooms to her house. STOP. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Remeber what it was to be free. There are si! lent ex plosions of possibility all around and within you. The noise of the world would seek to drown out the silence. But you deserve the quiet.
God is speaking. God is whispering. God is silently exploding in your heart.

Sunday Sunday

From time to time I think about changing my day off from Monday to another day, that is until I preach on Sunday. By the time of day I am so deeply grateful to have Monday off. I'm wiped out, exhausted, spent and ready for my own Sabbath. I drift into bed and dream of a slow lazy morning with my journal, a cup of Peets and my big easy chair. All of that dreaming is before I realize I need to work out, do the laundry, run errands for the girls, plan the night's dinner, and start planning the sermon for next Sunday! Alas, my dreaming is short lived.

First Entry

How does one begin a blog? To blog or not to blog, this is the question. Blog scmog. Blog blog bo bog, banana fana fo fog, fe fi mo mog, blo-og. To whom do I blog? When you say the word blog it sounds like you meant to say something else but your nose was stuffed up. What would Jesus blog? I have friends who believe that I have important and interesting things to say, and that I should have my own blog. I have resisted this for a long time. I'm sure most of you can see why now. I promise to begin to write something more meaningful very soon. Well, I probably should not make such promises, but I really will try.