Here are some sketchnotes I’ve put together as a kind of overview of some of the things I’ve tried to focus on as I was reading, studying and preaching through this difficult book. You can find the rest of the posts here.
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Bafflement
During the retreat I was on last weekend with other young leaders led by Parker Palmer and Marcy Jackson, Parker mentioned that he never writes books about things he knows, he only writes on things that baffle him.
You know the difference?
You never google the stuff you are sure of, it’s only the stuff where there is a little bit of a question or uncertainty that prompts you to look something up. But it’s more than that too: I think he means that those things that come easy for you. The things that you could do in your sleep. Aren’t they often the things that have little life in them? The easy stuff doesn’t really energize us.
It’s the challenging stuff that wakes you up and leaves us laying in bed all night mulling them over. Those things that baffle you, that confuse you, that you can’t quite get a grip on, there’s life in that. It might sometimes feel stressful, it might not always be clear the solution, but I have found at least for myself that it is usually in this bafflement that I come alive.
In her book Journey Inward, Journey Outward, Elizabeth O’Connor says of the importance of self-reflection: “We must be engaged with ourselves, if we are going to find out where are, and where it is we want to go.”
One of the ways that we know where we are, and where we are going is by landmarks and signposts. This is true in the natural world as much as it is in the spiritual one.
Spiritual signposts are often favorite stories we tell about your our life, pivotal moments where we have encountered God. Like a regular signpost or landmark, these spiritual counterparts are meant to mark our directions and remind us of where God is leading us. They help us in our journey towards wholeness. Continue Reading…
This is a message I gave a couple years ago and coming across it today I feel it’s worth sharing again. We in the church have a paradoxical relationship with the bible. Many inside and outside the church have misgivings about certain texts or whole swaths of texts, while other texts serve as basic idioms and metaphors in our culture so much so that we don’t even notice it anymore. Is the Bible still a relevant book for us? I contend yes, but not in the ways we’ve often been taught. I argue that there is a Quaker way of reading the bible that bypasses at least some of our modern hang-ups, and I suggest that the Bible really is the people’s book. It is a collection of stories that give witness to God’s liberating work throughout human history. Seen in this light, we can find ways to enter into the story as our own and become participants in God’s transformation of ourselves and the world.
Friends Committee on National Legislation started a campaign to cut the pentagon’s budget – in 2011 it was a staggering $664.84 billion, which is 60% of the overall federal budget – so that we do not have to make drastic cuts on important services like education, healthcare, nutrition assistance and housing that keep our communities thriving. Since 2011 the price-tag for defense has sky-rocketed from 287 billion to where we are today, no wonder our country is broke (Link). As a Christian and Quaker preacher, I want to see us invest in eliminating poverty in our country.
FCNL has asked individuals to post their image with their name and an area that they feel our government could do better at putting our money into rather than in Defense. This is mine.
My friends Ashley Wilcox and Jon Watts were the ones who tipped me off to this.
Make yours here.
Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
who you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love,
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
-Fr. Pedro Arrupe via Shelly F.
Magnificat
Magnificat
For most of us, our experience of the announcement of a Child’s birth is cause for excitement. Even mores with Mary – the birth of Jesus, foretold by Gabriel is shocking news that causes the Singer song-writer in Mary to break out into a powerful number.
Just like her belly pregnant with the Son of God, she says her soul is growing, getting bigger because of what God has chosen to do through her. Continue Reading…
This is the message I gave today at Camas Friends during meeting for worship. It is based on Luke 3:1-6.
The Parking Lots
When I was in high school I did what many people my age have done for generations and that was work as a grocery store carry-out: a bag-boy as we called it back then. I have many fond memories from that first job, not least of which was my promotion to working in the dairy department where my colleagues and I would eat ice-cream from damaged cartons, and have the bakery bake us up frozen pizza’s that we’d “accidentally” sliced through while stocking them in the freezers.
As a bag-boy there were two main areas that I conducted my job: the end of the register where I bagged groceries, and the parking lot where I traversed the sea of cars next to the customer I was serving on many blistery Ohio nights in the rain, sleet and slushy snow.
Of these two locations, the parking lot was where I had some of the most profound experiences of my life as a bag-boy. As a young and very earnest Christian, I took every opportunity to talk to people about my faith, the worship band I was playing on, and even offer to pray with my customers. I remember many times in that 2-5 min. walk to a customer’s car having the opportunity to catch-up with my regulars, listen to someone who had just learned bad news, or hear of family troubles at home. More than once did I offer to pray for them whether right there standing by their car, or later on my own. I never had anyone turn me down. I used what little space was given carefully, I was never pushy, I didn’t always talk about faith, but you’d be surprised how many times in that parking in Alliance Ohio, I had an opportunity to be a listening and compassionate presence.
O God, we thank you for this earth, our home;
For the wide sky and the blessed sun,
For the salt sea and the running water,
For the everlasting hills
And the never-resting winds,
For trees and the common grass underfoot.
We thank you for our senses
By which we hear the songs of birds,
And see the splendor of the summer fields,
And taste of the autumn fruits,
And rejoice in the feel of the snow,
And smell the breath of the spring.
Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty;
And save our souls from being so blind
That we pass unseeing
When even the common thornbush
Is aflame with your glory,
O God our creator,
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Gratitude … goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint…The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious. Henry Nouwen in Memories, Hopes and Conversations by Mark Lau Branson.
