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...
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"Live in me, make your home in me."
John 15
Fall
one by one
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*
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"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
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"Yes, because God's your refuge, the High God your very own home, Evil can't get close to you."
Psalm 91
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"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.
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