listen

“Many of us prefer listening to a pastor or a speaker rather than training ourselves to sit in quiet and listen to God.”


Jan Johnson

I wonder why this is? I think, for me, it is because listening to someone else speak is, for the most part, a passive activity. There is the ‘active’ piece of paying attention but because their voice is verbal and audible, we can take it in.

When I listen to God, it becomes more active even though I am silent and listening. It takes so much more of my resolve to listen to that ‘still small voice’. I not only need to be in silence and solitude, I need to bring something to this time. I bring the work of surrender. I need to abandon myself to the work of God and sit quietly and let Him ‘speak to me’. It is not audible but it comes in pieces through the days and weeks to come. It is a mosaic…a beautiful puzzle that I can begin to see parts of through circumstances, relationships, readings, movies, sermons and other surprises that come in all different ways.

Do not neglect listening to those who are in a position to speak truth into your life…but I invite you to not substitute it for listening to the One who created truth.

Grace and peace,
Deb
PS: This is the beginning of the end - for this blog. The last post will be this coming Saturday. For over a month I have been running identical posts on both blogger and on my website and beginning Monday, April, find me at Kavanna House at www.kavannahouse.com

eternity

Eternity is not something that begins after you're dead. It is going on all the time. We are in it now.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I have been thinking about this for awhile. I am not sure why it never occurred to me before (maybe all of you have already had this revelation and I am just wwwway slow!). I always thought of eternity as something ‘out there’ or beyond now. But it really is ‘now’. I am in the midst of eternity. I am in a certain place in time within eternity.

I am also aware of how much I am caught up in time. Wikipedia, the ‘expert ‘source on everything, says that time is: "a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future." The part of that sentence that stands out to me is, ‘from the past through the present to the future’. That is time….that is eternity.

I am wondering how I might live if I were consciously aware that I am already living in eternity? How might it change my view of dying? Or of losing those I love?
Just thought I would share my musings with you.

Grace and peace,
Deb

shhhhhhhh

“Some of the most reverent people I know decline to call themselves religious. For them, religion connotes belief. It means being able to say what you mean about God and why. It also means being able to hold your own in a debate with someone who believes otherwise. They, meanwhile, are not sure what they believe. They do not want to debate anyone. The longer they stand before the holy of holies, the less adequate their formulations of faith seems to them. Angels reach down and shut their mouths.”

Barbara Brown Taylor
An Altar in the World

This quote is out of the first chapter, The Practice of Paying Attention. This is what my life feels like now. I have less and less desire to debate theological issues. I am less able to articulate what I know about God and why. There are some things I believe to my core – the truth about who Jesus is and that I need Him. The truth that God loves me more than I can ever comprehend. The truth that I am both an exquisite creature made in the image of God and a reckless sinner who lives under the curse of the Fall. The truth that tells me to love God and love others. The rest is mystery to me. Mystery I cannot figure out. Mystery that I do not feel the need to figure out.

It feels as if the closer I get to God the less I know. I do not feel I can adequately know what He is, who He is, how He moves. So, I try to just lean into what I do know. The rest I am content to leave up to those who enjoy the debate.

Some ask me why I do not talk as much as I used to…could it be that angels have come down and shut my mouth? I am not sure if that is the explanation but it sounds good to me.

Grace and peace,
Deb

sing

My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentations;
I hear the real though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I am clinging;
while love is Lord o’er heaven and earth how can I keep from singing?

Tradition Quaker Hymn

prayer

A Prayer in ‘the Middle Years’ of Opportunity

Lord, help me now to unclutter my life,
to organize myself in the direction of simplicity.
Lord, teach me to listen to my heart;
teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it.
Lord, I give you these stirrings inside of me,
I give you my discontent,
I give you my restlessness,
I give you my doubt,
I give you my despair,
I give you all the longing I hold inside.
Help me to listen to these signs of change, of growth;
to listen seriously and follow where they lead
through the breathtaking empty space of an open door.

Celtic Daily Prayer;
Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community

desire

Do you really want to live your lives,
every moment of your lives, in His Presence?
Do you long for Him? Crave Him?
Do you love His Presence?
Does every drop of blood in your body love Him?
Does every breathe you draw breathe a prayer, a praise to Him?
Do you sing and dance within yourselves, as you glory in His love?
Have you set yourselves to be His, and only His,
walking every moment in Holy obedience?

Thomas Kelly
A Testament of Devotion



How can one possibly live like this? For me, it isn’t a lack of desire. I so desire an intimate relationship with God. I know that I don’t ‘breathe a prayer’ every time I draw a breath (at least not consciously). I have ‘gloried’ in His love, at times, but I definitely don’t walk in obedience every waking moment. So, reading something like this can be discouraging.

But, I don’t think God wants us to be discouraged by these words. In fact, I think He wants us to be very encouraged as this is what we can aspire to. I used to give up after a day or two of trying to live up to words like these. In the last several years, I began to sense that God was only asking me to have the desire to live this way. He knows that, because I live in this fallen world, I will continue to struggle with brokenness and sin.

What I’ve noticed is that the more I desire intimacy with Him and set my intention on that, the more I realize I am living closer to the way He wants me to. Less effort, more change. It’s the Holy Sprit working in and through me…it is not because of my own efforts. Not that I don’t need to be open and cooperate with this work but it is so much less work when I let God take the lead.

I invite you to think about asking God to stir that deep desire in you for more intimacy with Him. It will be the beginning of a new season in your spiritual life. If you already have the desire for more, enjoy it and move with it as it takes you into a deeper place of being with Him.
Peace,Deb

salvation

“Although the word “salvation” has come to mean “eternal life” in most religious circles. It is helpful to return to the word’s Latin root salvus, meaning “whole”, “sound”, “healed”, “safe”, “well”, or “unharmed”, as a way to understand the spirituality of salvation. Salvation and spirituality and self are related – spirituality connects to us to the whole, allows us a glimpse into our place within God and God’s world, giving a new sense of health and well-being in our situations and identities. The idea of salvation need not be rejected; rather it needs to be brought back to a truer rendering of its root meaning. We need to come to an authentic sense of personhood, stitching together what was unraveled into a new whole. From a biblical perspective, that involves connecting to human well-being by asking “Who am I?” in relation to “I AM”. And that might be our salvation.”

Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion

Salvation, many times, gets boiled down to a few words we say in response to a message or an invitation from a pastor. But, I love this definition; that salvation is more than a moment in time that decides our eternal fate but it is a process in the here and now of ‘becoming’….becoming more whole, more sound, more healed, more safe, more well.

Jesus did not come only to offer you an eternity with him – he came to offer you a rich and textured life, full of joy, pain, beauty, difficulty, laughter and tears. If you remember to ask, “Who am I, in this moment, in relation to I AM?”, you will begin to see that He is ever present in each and every situation, and that his desire is to weave salvation into each and every moment.

Grace and peace,
Deb
PS - I would highly recommend this book.