The end or the beginning

I've spent the last ten days at home, mostly, studying, writing, reflecting, working on such things as worship schedules, confirmation classes, talks for a women's retreat in the fall, and in between, doing really ordinary things like auto maintenance, grocery shopping, and doctor appointments. Well, let's be totally honest I also have logged a fair amount of hours watching the Olympics and the finale of So You Think You Can Dance (yea, Joshua!)

Anyway, there is something oddly calming and right about this rhythm. The sacred and the profane. The ordinary and the extraordinary. The miraculous and the explainable. However, sometimes I can't tell which is which.

Breast Cancer Help

Some of you know I'm a frustrated artist....I encourage you to go take a look at this blog and the Pink Doll created by 182 different artists as a fund raiser and to raise awareness for breast cancer:
http://girl-gone-thread-wild.blogspot.com/2008/05/pink-artist-drawing-august-1-october-15.html

I'm back

So, it really has been far too long since I've done this writing thing on a regular basis. Observing, seeing, listening, reflecting, praying, musing, sharing et al. I tend to think I've been too busy pastoring and parenting and wifing (being a wife) and personing (being self), to do this writing thing. Hmmmmm, an excuse, perhaps? Avoidance, definitely! So what is it that holds me back, holds all of us back, from sharing our true selves, the gifts, the passions, the identities, the beliefs, the thoughts, all of it. Why is there so little "real" in the world these days? Instead, we have virtual communication, social networking via computer, online banking, the church of the cyberspace, e-harmony, and on and on it goes.
Don't get me wrong, I love this stuff! It challenges me, keeps me feeling young and in touch. I love the convenience. I can even can feel a bit hip when I recognize that I am more technically savvy than some of my peers (both professional and in age), but the whole techno rave can also make me feel empty, void and like I'm missing something. Something big. Something tangible. Something real. Something like human contact with another human being....live, in front of me, talking to me. Sipping the coffee I bought instead of looking at the picture of it on the Facebook message I just sent them!
There is this really old fashioned idea that I learned from my Midwestern ancestry, when I was growing up, in the day of 8-track tapes, no cell phones and only 3 really good channels on the TV: everything in moderation. My prayer for today is that the next time we spend a lot of time on FB, Myspace, YouTube, Twitter, etc., we might actually pick up a phone, and schedule a real, live, human encounter with a friend or family member.....just for the nostalgia of it all!

where have I been?

That is a very good question...9 months and no posts, what kind of blogger am I? The last time I wrote I was in a different church, doing totally different work, and so much has happened since then. I would love to say I've been away because I've been too busy, doing too many worthwhile things, serving others without fail, and extending myself for noble causes of social justice and equality. However, that would be a far stretch of the truth. A more accurate alibi would be my own reluctance to write and my lack of discipline. It's much harder to be open and transparent about that sort of lacking. So, I'm back and hope to create something worthwhile for anyone who would care to read.

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!