Nature's Glory

This week, I escaped the cold, brownness of Cleveland's weather by visiting the Orchid Show at the Botanical Gardens with a friend. What a glorious feast of colour!

Whimsical flowers in luscious shades stood tall or dangled from above.

The colour combinations and patterns were beautiful.

I think Orchids are some of the best-dressed flowers in Nature!

Sue

Five Minute Friday - Home

Home is one of those emotive words that has 50 shades of meaning depending on who is speaking it.

When I am speaking it, I think of a place where I am loved and allowed to be myself. Loved unconditionally, and accepted for all my idiosyncrasies. Hmmm, writing that has given me pause. I need to remember that when our young adult daughter is home. I have realized that, unconsciously, I have been trying to make her in my mold, and she is not. She is a unique creation.

Anyway, back to the topic ... home for me is all about who I am with and the community I am planted in. In the last 25 years my husband and I have lived in 9 different houses in 4 states, and oh yes, we emigrated here from England 25 years ago. 

So, needless to say, that I have fond memories of us being in those very different homes. But the thread running through them all, that makes them each a home for that time, is love.

Just recently I went on Google Earth and traveled down every street that I have lived on. I took a virtual tour of my life and looked at every place I have called 'home.' It was so interesting to see how the various houses had stayed the same, or changed, or the area had grown. Fleeting glimpses of my life flickered in my mind as I 'stood' outside each place.

It made me feel like a nomad, a hermit crab, a wanderer. 

But I realized that everything I need to feel at home is in the people around me: love, acceptance, laughter, church, and hope.

Stop.

Click on the button to see other blogs in the link up!

 

Leaving My Comfort Zone

(This post also appears today on our church blog on Fasting)

Lent is not an easy journey to take. If we've been fasting, whether from food or from Face Book, then we've experienced a self-denial in some form. So practicing Lent gives us pause, and takes us out of our comfort zone.

Joshua Davis

Wikipedia defines 'comfort zone' as, "a behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk."

Well, according to that definition, who would want to leave an 'anxiety-neutral' state? Who would want to choose 'risk' over 'no risk'? Who would want to step out of a culture that encourages self-absorption, concern with the frivolous, and avoidance of the needs of others?

In a very interesting article  Pau Vidal, a new priest working with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Kenya, talks about the three people Pope Benedict mentioned in his Ash Wednesday remarks. All three people were folks who stepped out of their comfort zones: Pavel Florensky, a brilliant Russian scientist who became an Orthodox priest and was eventually executed by the Russian State, Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who was killed in Auschwitz, and Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Vidal states, "these three provide a radical testimony of what it means to leave our comfort zones and let ourselves be transformed by the Spirit."

And, as Methodists, who better a role model of leaving our comfort zone than John Wesley himself. Wesley, an Anglican priest, had a good friend from college, George Whitfield. Whitfield was an evangelist who preached to the poor in England and America. After some persuasion, Wesley decided to join Whitfield preaching to coal miners, in the open, in Bristol. 

Wesley recounts,"I could scarce reconcile myself to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he [Whitefield] set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life till very lately so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church." (James M. Buckley, A History of Methodism in the United States, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898), 88-89.)

It has to be noted that, "coal mining was the most undesirable job available to anybody in 18th century England. They and their families lived in abject poverty. They were considered dirty and dishonest and violent. They were not welcomed in respectable Anglican churches. 
George Whitfield preached to the coal miners in an open field in Bristol. Good respectable Anglicans considered this an embarrassingly tacky thing to do" (http://www.foundryumc.org/sermons/9_21_2003.pdf.)

http://tinyurl.com/a6axkk5

But from this point on Wesley's spiritual life takes a sharp turn. Once he stepped out of his comfort zone (preaching to the clean, decorous congregants in beautiful churches) and took to open fields to bring God to the unchurched, outcast, dirty coal-miners, things changed for him. “Up to this point (in his spiritual life) the story is full of anxiety, insecurity, futility. Hereafter, the instances of spiritual disturbances drop off sharply and rarely recur, even in the full records of a very candid man” (Albert Outler, Editor, “John Wesley” (Oxford University Press), p. 17.) Preaching as he did to the miners led to the demise of his career as an Anglican priest, but it led to a spiritual awakening for him and he began to experience what salvation, forgiveness, grace and peace truly mean.

So, again, why would we want to leave our comfort zone? It seems that when we do, the Holy Spirit can work in us, transform us, and great things happen in the Kingdom of God. Wesley found himself preaching to groups as large as 3,000, made up of people who would never have been welcomed in a church. He brought God, education and hope to many who had been overlooked and discounted as unworthy by the ruling classes, and even the church.

Certainly there are risks to this. Wesley was considered a traitor to his class, Anglican priests reviled and resisted him, violent mobs broke up meetings and attacked the preachers.

Will fasting this Lent bring risks for us? Will turning to God and opening up ourselves to the Holy Spirit by leaving our comfort zone change us? 

What would leaving your comfort zone look like?



This post is linked to Spiritual Sundays.

This Lent - Fasting in My Christian Community

At Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights where our family worships, the theme for the church year is Hunger. So for Lent we are reading as a community, "A Place at the Table" by Chris Seay. 

In this book Chris teaches about fasting, not only as a prayer practice or an act of sacrifice, but also as a sign of solidarity with the poor. He suggests living for 40 days as the poor do. It may be through eating rice and beans every day as many people who live in Central and South America do. It may be by living on the equivalent of Food Stamps, as many single parent families do. It may be by cutting down the amount of food we eat and stopping snacking. It may be by forgoing a meal once a week.

Chris suggests that whatever money we save by our method of fasting, we donate it to a charity serving the poor. At our church we will be packing meals through Feed My Starving Children and hope to pack enough for 100,000 meals!

We are 10 days into Lent and it has been interesting to hear people talk about their experience thus far.  A few of my friends in our Bible study group commented on how they had been feeling hungry some days, and how that had been something they hadn't felt in a long while.

One friend, whose family is eating rice and beans for their main meal, shared that her teenage son jumped into the car after school and said, "What are we having for... oh, I guess I know already!"

Another friend told how she wasn't having to buy as much food because she had cut down on portions, and noticed not only how much money she was saving, but also how much better she felt physically.

What we are all noticing is the ABUNDANCE most of us have, and how we take it for GRANTED. We have access to so much variety, we use in excess, and we are wasteful in many of our eating habits.

This is aside from the spiritual effect that living sacrificially has on our soul and our walk with God.

Our church is using a blog COTS Fasts and Feasts to share experiences, recipes (lots of rice and beans!), resources and prayers in order to encourage each other on this journey. Feel free to join us and comment on fasting experiences that you have had. Today's prayer is by Sir Francis Drake and sums up for me what God might be doing in our lives this Lenten season.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Sir Francis Drake

God Didn't Wait

The last couple of weeks have been filled with senseless loss. Thank goodness God didn't wait until 

we were ready to receive Him, until we were perfectly behaved, until there was no violence and 

conflict. This beautiful poem by Madeleine L'Engle says it all.

First Coming

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace
He came when the Heavens were unsteady
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He died with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
He came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! 

Snow on Snow ...

It's snowing in Cleveland with a winter storm warning, white-out conditions yesterday, and snow flurries forecast for Christmas Eve. Which brings to mind one of my favorite Christmas Carols. The beautiful words are a poem by Christina Rossetti.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, 

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; 

snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, 
In the bleak midwinter, long ago 

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain; 

heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign. 

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed 

the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. 

Angels and archangels may have gathered there, 

cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; 

but his mother only, in her maiden bliss, 

worshiped the beloved with a kiss. 

What can I give him, poor as I am?.

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; 



if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; 

yet what I can I give him:  give my heart.







Have a Blessed Christmas!

Giving it All Away

A young man came and asked Jesus about life, the universe and everything. They chatted and Jesus told him that if he followed what God said, the young man would obtain eternal life.

But, obviously this guy was a type A personality, and he persisted in quizzing Jesus, "I've kept all the commandments, so what else is there for me to do?"

"Well," said Jesus, "if you want to be perfect ...?"  Yes, the young man eagerly nods his head.

"Then sell all you have, give the money to those who are in need, and follow me."

Now it turns out that this man was very wealthy, so not only would selling all he had be hard for him to do, but it would involve a complete change in his life. He would have to give up his life-style, give up any inheritance to pass on to children, indeed he may have to give up the chance to have a family.

Would his desire to be perfect be able to overcome the cost entailed? All we know is that when he left Jesus he was sad.

But we do know someone whose desire to know God in such a way caused him to part with his great wealth to the benefit of those in need. In fact we celebrate him today, on the anniversary of his death - December 6, 343 AD.  His name is St. Nicholas. Born into a wealthy family, his parents died when he was young. However they had raised him to be a strong Christian, and he dedicated his life to serving the poor by providing for them.

I particularly love the story of how he saved three young sisters from slavery. Their father was very poor. In the those days for a girl to get married she had to have a dowry. The more money her family had for a dowry, the better the husband she could have. But a poor family with three daughters - no way they had any hopes of a dowry. But the family could not support them if they remained single, so their father would have to sell them into slavery.

However, they did not end up as slaves because a bag of gold was tossed through their window on three separate occasions, landing in socks that were drying by the fire. The mysterious giver of this money that meant they were able to marry was, of course, Nicholas.

St. Nicholas, known for his generosity to the poor, his love of children, and his concern for sailors and ships, is who we emulate at Christmas in our gift-giving. He, according to Jesus, was perfect - he sold all he had, gave to the poor, and followed Jesus.