Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
"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.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
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.
Friday, August 07, 2009
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.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
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.
Monday, July 27, 2009
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
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