"Instead of" Box... Teaching our children the Gospel Message of giving

Our "Instead of Box" was made out of an old ice cream cone carton.

It came to me one day after reading a story in Mother Teresa's book "No Greater Love" . It was about a little Indian girl who after recieving the first bar of chocolate she had ever had gave it all to Mother Teresa asking simply that she share it amoungst the poorest of children in her orphanage.

I thought of all the sweets, chocolates and ice creams my girls have throughout the year...
Recycling the ice cream cone box seemed a fitting way of helping my children think about the contrast between their lifestyle and those of their neighbours in developing nations. Children who sre raised in orphanages like the ones Mother Teresa and her community of sisters cared for.

We glued pictures from the Gospel for Asia magazine onto the box and prayed for the children and people in the pictures.
Every time we put a coin in the box we would make sure we'd remember those souls, seemingly a world away, yet our God given neighbours in need.

So this weekend..... "Instead of " a train ride at the adventure playground we put our pennies in the box.
"Instead of " lollipops on a visit to the local shop we put our pennies in the box.

And it's not just the girls.... Their are many small things that I can exchange... A latte, for a child's smile, another new pair of boots, for a satisfied belly, one of our late night take outs, for an old woman's uninterrupted sleep on a comfortable bed.

The girls, (and I) have found the "Instead of" Box, to be a real and tangible way of understanding the gospel message of giving.

Sometimes we can get so forgetful about all the "extras" the little bit here and there we spend on ourselves and our children unnecessarily. A small reminder to be thankful, to give a little up for love, is the gift this little box brings...


"Doing small things with great love" was Mother Teresa's motto. Here is a small way of integrating this motto into the heart of our home.



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Just because.... these pictures fill my heart to overflowing \o/

Prayer is a gathering (the pilgrimage of prayer "Walk with Him Wednesday")

Prayer is our daily gathering. It is where we meet Him. Like the woman at the well, we can only offer our empty cup and humbly ask " Give me some of this living water Lord".


I bring the children and we meet with Him in this ordinary place of "spirit and truth" somewhere between both the mountain and the temple. A small, simple wellspring from which to drink, in the middle of a busy day.

I bring the children to the source and we stop, we bring the water to our mouths, sometimes our own tears stream too. And the sweetness dilutes till the saline quenches and it feel like forgivness.

Suddenly we are the same, nothing more or less than a child of God. Both them and I.

And all those further out.
The borders to this place are not closed. They touch the ends of the earth. They embrace all they touch.


Prayer is a leveler. On the soil of prayer each of us can only fall to their knees before Him.
There may have been tussles only moments before, an argument, a sore word, discord in a heart. Yet this silence gathers hands, each as empty as the other, cupped and lifted for the water to pour, we are drawn beyond our own horizon lines, our own territories. In this unmarked ground we are His.


Yet takes a small step to make a giant leap.
At times the untidy noise of unwashed dishes rattles in my mind, or I catch myself on the irritation of restless bodies swarming like bees while my mind breezes past the time of an appointment this afternoon, mentally noting how I will fit lunch and naptimes around it's fixed point in the atmosphere of my mind.

And I ask myself, is this what I am orbiting around?

Only the silence of His gaze reorientates me. Changes my possibilities, opens new doors that I had not noticed before.
And on the tips of my outstretched fingers, a warm breath leaves it's vapour.
Like dew.
Manna.
Residues of falling flakes...

*

"Live in me, make your home in me."
John 15

Fall
one by one
*
*
*

"God it seems you've been our home forever; long before the mountains were born,
Long before you brought earth itself to birth,"
Psalm 90

*

"Yes, because God's your refuge, the High God your very own home, Evil can't get close to you."
Psalm 91

*

"Your beauty and Love chase after me every day of my life. I'm back home, in the house of God, for the rest of my life."
Psalm 23

"There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink."
John 4:7

When we come to draw, He asks, he waits for us and asks.
The cup is a shared one.
Prayer is a gathering at the well.
Neither on the mountain nor the temple but in Spirit and Truth we will meet Him here.
In the silence of prayer we draw from the well.
In the drinking we know we are home.

Mother Teresa No Greater Love (A Meditation on Prayer)

I am reading a truly wonderful book at the moment called "No Greater Love" by Mother Teresa or as she is known now... Blessed Teresa of Calcutta :)
There are twelve chapters in all and I hope to share a little on each one over the next couple of weeks.
The first chapter in on Prayer.

"Prayer is in all gestures."
Mother Teresa


Often we think of prayer as being a few words we gather together at the beginning and end of the day, or to the table before we eat. Prayer is given an allotted time in our busy schedule.
Mother Teresa had a very different view than this. She saw that the prayer of our life is itself present in the eating, the living, the giving, the waking and even the times of rest and sleep. Prayer for her was integral to life, "being" and "doing" were two sides of the same coin.
A kind of prayer that becomes the shaping of life, the chisel in the carvers hand, the water in the potter's palm; a tool of formation bringing both body and soul to the heart of God.

I love this way of seeing prayer as a busy homeschooling mother of four. Sometimes it can be hard to find the Mary in the Martha yet by finding Mary we can bring prayer, and in doing so, God's hand, to Martha's work. I find that my own prayer has become, very much, a simple "drawing near to" and "reaching out to" my God in a very ordinary but sincere way throughout day to day life with it's ups and downs and routines. Rather than meditate or try to find many words I have found I seek to simply rest in Him more and more, to gaze upon Him. I find He brings me beside "the quiet waters that restore my soul" when I let Him do the leading and speaking.

"After a night of prayer, He changed my life when He sang, "Enjoy Me."
Saint Theresa of Avila

I believe that God wants very much for us to "enjoy Him". He wants to make our everyday "burden light".

Mother Teresa's prayer life seemed to have been something that was integral to all she did. Her prayer was in her movement and her movement was in her prayer.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. ⁵"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

John 15

Prayer is remaining in Jesus in what we do just as much as in what we say or think. It is more than the annunciation of words, it is the Holy Spirit's stirring in the heart and movement in the body. Prayer prunes and cleans the debris away leaving only what is needed, the fruitful living branches that take their life from the roots of the vine.

"Just once, let the love of God take entire and absolute possession of your heart; let it become to your heart like a second nature; let your heart suffer nothing contrary to enter; let it apply itself continually to increase this love of God by seeking to please Him in all things and refusing Him nothing."
Mother Teresa

I admit I stumbled a little after reading the last words in this quote, the "refusing Him nothing"part.
Truthfully I know that every day I refuse God much of what He asks of me. The things that I refuse Him seem small and mundane yet they are "the small things done in great Love" Mother Teresa often spoke of. From the most mundane detail to the most difficult of work, cleaning, caring for and loving the most desperate in their time of dying, Mother Theresa kept giving, she was a well spring of God's love, that seemed could give only more with the giving.
Prayer, as she said was her foundation. And her close communion with God through prayer infused her actions with the fruits of prayer, compassion, patience, endurance.... Love.

So how we can best invite prayer into our own lives?
The most important thing, she says, is silence.

"Listen in silence, because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God."

"Jesus Himself spent forty days in the desert and the mountains, communing for long hours with the Father in the silence of the night. We too are called to withdraw at certain intervals into deeper silence and aloneness with God, together as a community as well as personally. To be alone with Him, not with our books, thoughts, and memories but completely stripped of everything, to dwell lovingly in His presence - silent, empty, expectant, and motionless. We cannot find God in noise or agitation. Nature: trees, flowers, and grass grow in the silence. The stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence. What is essential is not what we say but what God tells us and what He tells others through us."

It may seems impossible to reach this kind of silence in a life which is abundantly full, but I think of Mother Teresa, her life was about as full as it gets. She worked tirelessly, yet she found a deep inner silence which gave a space within her for God to be present.
She kept her life simple. I think this is key. She kept things to what was essential and necessary.
She did not over complicate, or worry but left things in God's hands.
In life worry acts as a distraction, fear needs to be numbed and anger needs to be satiated. God asks us to turn from these things and leave all in His hands.
Mother's form of prayer forsakes all that is not necessary to focus on what is needed.
Prayer brings soul supplies for the journey.

As she says... "This is not complicated, and yet we complicate our lives with so many additions."
God promises to give all that we need so long as we let go of our own control and focus on Him with trust like a child.

Mother Teresa points many times throughout the book to the physical poverty that her community embraces. Having little or only what is necessary gave her community the time and attention to accept God's own grace and strength without barriers. Things, "stuff" possessions can act as barriers between our hearts and God. They can divide our hearts and distract them, use them up till they have no space left for what truly matters in this world and to God, Love, compassion, forgiveness, joy, and peace.

"Why are you sleeping? Wake up, and pray ..."

_ Jesus to the disciples asleep in the garden, Luke 22:46


Next chapter of the book focuses on Love ~

Psalm 23 The Lord is my Shepherd

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

A Living Prayer... "Walk with Him Wednesday "

There have been times when no matter how much I prayed or read the bible the only thing I felt was a longing, an ache, an aridity to the words I spoke.

So often it is easy to forget that the bible is a living word it is not simply a set of syllables to be learnt by rote and kept within ones own heart under lock and key.

So many times just the words, themselves, mysterious, rhythmical, poetic, simple and true as they are breath soft as a summer breeze through my body, a shiver of light and a tremble of truth. Sometimes just a simple phrase or paragraph glints like sunlight through the branches of trees defining with clarity the world around me and all that is within me at the same time.

These moments are beautiful and wondrous but the word cannot remain within the stillness of a page. The ink of the living word seeps into lives, spills over the edges and runs a river of baptism across the dividing lines between body and spirit. It is a stream of freshwater that moves within our hearts.

The word is fluid and omnipotent. It is a moving current that flows towards the ocean, not a stagnant pool that evaporates to nothing under the sun.

The key to releasing the word is the faith to live the word in Love. ”If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.” John 15:10 Putting the word into practice, step by step, moment by moment.

Allowing it to work through our body, transforming us into an instrument of Gods love until our actions may become a living prayer.

A living prayer follows all that is beautiful and good. Allowing the word to envelope and contain a heart, flow within and around it, mould and fashion it, break it and fix it. A prayer that takes our feet and hands to be the feet and hands of Jesus in the world.

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:3-6 A prayer that is more than just a spoken word permeates all actions with the blood of Christ and the love of God.

"lIVING THE wORD" "wALK WITH hIM wEDNESDAY OVER @ hOLY eXPERIENCE Image courtesy of Jupiter im ages

Infused Memory...

A child stands
upon a chair beside me.

Water splashes memory across
linen and white cotton.

As the morning light
infuses sheets upon the line
Bay and rosemary infuse
through muslin nests
of ladeled warmth
upon the stove.

Sunlight ebbs and flows
reflections from copper,
steel, wood and clay.

Raw materials unrefined.
Residues of older days
rebound from the walls of other rooms
once played in, worked in, slept in...

Yet, somehow, we only knew of true content
in the room from which
we ate.

In the place of sharing, praying, drawing
we learned the basics of living.

A table,
hands passing round

those cotton threads
hemming pieces of fabric.

Meaning, memory, childhood
infused within the tastes,
smells and textures.

Here, hands deep in suds,
Balancing
flavours of a memory
still
tiptoed upon
a chair beside me
there is a child
who remembers.

The morning light
of water splashing memory across
transparent, heavenly,
domestic white linen.

All the while

Collecting
peelings for composting.


Photo credit 3rd foundation

A Morning Prayer

Dear Lord,

May we trust in you today. Have complete faith in your works.
Even when things don't look like they are going the right way we know that you hold everything in your hands.

May we be patient loving and kind toward eachother today.
These things are worth more in your eyes than any other accomplishments.
The greatest gift we can give is to love in all we do and have faith that you succeed where we fail.

You search the hearts of men.
May our hearts be with you where you are.

In Jesus's name

Amen.

I will choose to linger...

I will choose to linger
on that little face just a little more tonight.
These moments add up.
They are the brush strokes of a bigger picture.
If I choose to rush along, getting things done and forget to linger on those features. They will change and I will have missed them. The way they are, just for today. Tomorrow, somehow
they will be different.
I will deliberately, stroke your cheek and tell you what you mean to me. Look in your eyes for longer than I normally would
as I lay you in your cot tonight.
Your sweet pixie grin and sparkling eyes. The feet that run about all day, so fast
I can't keep up with them.
I will choose to linger
Elongate the time we have on the evening of the 781st day since my eyes first gazed into yours. That difficult birth. You came out blue and barely breathing, your little hand numb from a damaged nerve.
And now, you have so much joy and spirit and energy.
You dance in the sun, and splash in the puddles. You know how to really live!
So now as I sing you a lullaby, I will choose to wait one minute more, take it to another verse.
Because each and every time I let that moment linger.
Time slows down.
And I get the chance to really know who you are just a little bit more.

Remembering what truly matters... "Post it " notes to myself...

Being right with Jesus before I try to be right with anyone else.

Taking off the shackles of the mind. Sinking down into the still waters dwelling in the heart.

Remembering that peace increases with trust, whatever the outside circumstances

Taking life without the frills. Eating simple. Mind, body and soul.

Reaching out to touch the truth in the kind of beauty which comes unadorned.

Not forgeting that it's the the inside of the cup that needs the most attention.

Welcoming the outsider into my heart. The one who opposes me. The one who threatens me. The one who other's reject. See how the reflection in another's eyes is deep within a part of my own self.

Embrace. Love.

pHOTO : My hand after spending a morning planting, painting and play doughing with the girls.
Real, true, unpretty, but touched with the fabric of the everyday life I love and embrace.
Better than a french manicure.

Counting Blessing,...

With inspiration from the 1ooo gifts list over at Holy Experience...

I'm counting mine everyday...
in faces of joy,
giggles,
sisters becoming best ever friends,
kicking up grass in the garden playing tag,
the laughter (and tears) that come with growing, learning and forgiving one another on a daily basis.
Seraphina's funny faces,
Matilda's funny expressions,
Bujana's sincere heart,
Emmy becoming a beautiful young lady before my eyes, strong, certain of her beliefs yet full of gentleness and compassion for everyone.
Listening to Emmy read chapters of "Little Women" or "Hinds Feet on High Places" or her favourite parts of the Gospels while I sew in the evenings.
Cuddling up in on blankets and cusions in the garden in the afternoon with Bujana reading stories and picture books.
Listening to shrieks of joy as 3 littlest girls splash in the cool of the paddling pool.
Hearing my husband read fairy stories to my youngest girls behind me right now, with gentleness and fun and silliness, giving each character a funny voice, stopping now and again to chat about the pictures... "look Tilda this princess must be you, she's all in pink"
The soft breath of a summer breeze against the curtains.
Lavender oil foot rubs for the girls after a bath time.
The girl's summery, patterned printed dresses blowing on the line in the afternoon.
The prayers and love of true friends who accept me just as I am, flaws and all.
My mother bringing sweet peas from her garden for us today on a surprise visit, as she does, , and when she does never forgetting to bring little treats for the girls in brown paper bags ( jelly babies, raisins, trail mix, white sugar mice or berries)
Emmy's maple and lemon sponge pudding with custard after Sunday dinner.
Chatting with my "little big" girl about this that and everything else, listening to her thoughts.
Sitting out in the garden in the evening with my husband, sharing the day, laughing about silly things and amazing at the blessings God has brought us.

Listening...

God I hear you say...

Love as you have been loved.
Forgive as you have been forgiven.

Suffering brings you closer to me.
Yield to your pain, I AM with you.

Do not put anything before me.
Come to me first to be your healer, counselor, guide, teacher, friend and lover.

Ask yourself does whatever I am doing increase my love?
Or does it distract, confuse and come between us and what is truly nessecary.
Be like Mary, sit at my feet. Learn what is the essential. It lies between us. It rests in the heart, like a pearl, shining love, just love.

Let your voice become small. There is too much talk.
Let yourself fall freely into my arms, rest a while.

Gaze upon me.
See how I love you as a child.

Take off the masks,
Let the masks fall away from others.

Perfection is not a set of rules,
Holiness can only be found in Love.

See how I love you just as you are.
Love other's this way too.

See how I forgive and embrace you just where you are.
Forgive and embrace others where they are too.

Let love be the only motive.

here. now

• Take one moment at a time.
• Dwell in the heart of each moment.
• Still the waters of your mind
• Do not fall beneath their surge.
• Sit with me upon the banks
• do not be absorbed by the currents and swells.
• Take the route I've mapped especially for you
• I will navigate the course.
  

With love for a friend. "The Passion is in the letting go"

The passion is in this letting go.
You will find
yourself again, beautiful, shining
full of life.

A soul grows in the dark
of the earth, giving itself away
piece by piece,

stem, sepal, seed,
Becoming smaller time and time
again, becoming
pollen drifting,

and the gentleness of rain, the warmth
of sunlight in the morning
after a bitter night of frost.

The melting snow, white
petals unfolding,

Opening

Becoming.

True.

Beautiful.

Shining.

Full of life.

When eternity sends an Angel to change our shape....

"What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the angel, who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel,
(who often simply declined the fight),
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

Extract from "The Man Watching"
Rainer Maria Rilke

Memories of my Father in the garden...

My Father has had a hard life. He’s getting old now and age is bearing down.
These days he enjoys simply sitting in our garden watching the children swing and slide and dig and run making the happy sounds that children do. Somehow children always seem to bring a gift of carefree joy to the deep rooted seat of age.


As shadows lengthen and daylight dilutes into sepia, he can still find a quiet spot in a garden to think, murmur on politics, philosophy or random ideas. Occasionally giving advice on which plants would suit the soil conditions best. Last year it was peas and runner beans, they add a lot of nitrogen to the ground apparently.


My father has always been the kind of person you would remember. He is one of life's eccentrics.
But now old age and a weary body take his footsteps along a quieter route, slower, simpler, treading a pace that can't be forced.


And it is a change of season for my Dad, who like a sailor has had a life of extreme weather conditions. He is used to the challenge of the sea!
In his day, he could claim a mountain in a morning, but now the slow, aching, walk upstairs overwhelms.


He lived for some years in the deserts of North Africa learning how to understand the extremes of both the sun and the storm.
Here, beside the window and the potted plants and the dried flowers threaded with spiderwebs on the sill, life seems to have reached a plateau and it is the hardest yet to acclimatise to.


Still a little abandoned corner of life soil, often left neglected and unnoticed. A place to pile uprooted weeds and fallen leaves.... Now sprouts green. And where tear sodden earth was trod underfoot.... Flowers now grow at his feet.
Four small girls blossoming abundant. An unlikely adventure, but maybe the best yet.
Straining tendril from dehydrated earth to quenching light.


My Dad was a horticulturalist, (maybe that explains all these garden metaphors:)
He had a very messy greenhouse, pots everywhere, and a very messy garden too, full of over zealous jungle like plants.
It was not much of an advert for his business , but it’s the way he liked it.


The greatest peace I’ve seen him have is in nature. Times when we walked the dogs and stumbled upon some secret, undiscovered woodland, and he would just look around and pick out the names of the wildflowers in Latin. Or in the garden with a fork digging out potatoes, staring up at the sky for long stretches in-between, hands resting on the wooden handle, boots deep in trenched earth.
Or watching sea birds catch fish along the coast with an ancient pair of binoculars in hand and silence as a companion.
In my mind the muddy boots of hard times stay at the door. Only flowers will grow in the soil of my memories of him.


One of the greatest gifts my Dad has passed on to me is the connection between God and nature. It is something that has made a deep impression on me, like a footprint in the clay of my heart.
Whenever anyone asked him what he did for a living, he would reply, "I paint with a spade"
We used to make fun of "his art" by saying that it must be of the abstract variety.
But growing tender plants in the greenhouse, exploring nature's heights and depths or uttering a quiet prayer in the silence of a church, were all an embracing of God for him.

When I think of my father I see stormy, grey skies falling head over heels across ragged fields of grass. Potatoes cooking in the embers and tasting wonderfully of like mud and charcoal. The chink of a September sun glinting on the sharp edge of blue tide in the distance. Pheasants and hares hanging in the garage door, homemade scrumpy and apple cores in the compost.
Scraping lichen and moss from grey granite....

"These rocks have been here for a million and more years and they'll be around for a million more after we're all long gone."

A well worn expression (one of my Dad's many) 'oft' used in times of reflection.
Always made me feel infinitely small and grounded and afraid and secure all at the same time.

Truly, we can't build anything physically eternal, in this life. Time will fray and unravel the loose strands of our creations one day. But in nature we can always sense the eternal essence of our creator.


He holds the fabric of our lives in his hands. However torn or frayed or mismatched the pieces are He weaves them in to a new garment.

Bodies age and deteriorate, but my Dad's soul somehow stands as an oak set against the setting sun.
Or a sea bird hovering over the granite tides.

Regardless of the toll time takes on tired bones and the memory dug-well of a life lived to the brim... yet somehow only just truly savoured.
It will stand a little quieter, a little softer a little truer. Weathered maybe, but accepting of the seasons. Both the winter frost and the sunlight of summer.


Reaching only further and higher as the days pass.

Tuesdays Unwrapped at "Chatting at the Sky"

Sometimes...

Sometimes I feel an deep ache. It hits me suddenly and without warning. In the middle of washing up, or the moments of quiet, the shade of blue of the sky.
My heart hangs heavy, pangs silently, a sudden outburst of rain fills my eyes.
I feel like mercury pushing the clouds out of the corner of the picture in the Spring time Primavera But I can only chalk blue skies with my mind. My thoughts are a clear meadow, but my heart is a sunken valley where the rain pools.
Yet there is sunlight all around me and flowers in small hands, so many gifts.
It's only the undrawn picture, the unfashioned memory which falters my smile. It is the one small hand I will never touch. The little body I will never hold, the smile I will never see,
and I mourn it.
I grieve for a little child I never knew, yet know more intimatly than any in some ways. Because now she enfolds my soul in the wings of prayer as I once held her little body beneath my heart.