Sleeping in on Sunday

So I slept in on another Sunday. Two Sunday's in a row and I have heard the alarm, rolled over and gone back to sleep. Sleeping in on Sunday is unusual for a pastor. We have not had regular worship at church due crazy winter weather that has made me forget what color my house used to be other than white. What I have realized is yes, it's nice to be able to sleep an hour longer on Sunday, but Sunday has lost it's "specialness." I like the way Sunday seems to stand out and be set apart from the other days of the week. I feel refreshed, renewed, rejuvenated when I have participated in meaningful worship. I feel centered and ready to face the world anew when I have sung praises to the Lord within the community of believers. Now, I know, church is not perfect. I know there are times when an ugly comment may reach your ears, or your tummy rumbles through the whole sermon, or your questions are not answered. It is the regular routine of worship, adoration, confession and praise that fills my cup. Some Sunday's it may be a quarter of a cup and others my cup overflows. It is not about how much God gives me, but how ready I am to give myself to God. Sunday reminds me that this world is not about me, it is about us and how we give back the love that is given to us. So, I am going to spend some time in the Word today, I will light a candle and pray, and I will recall all the times my voice as joined with yours in prayer and praise. I hope to be with you next Sunday, whether it be in body or only in Spirit.

Doing a whole lot of nothing

Have you ever had so much to do that you don't know where to start, so you don't do anything? I am stuck in neutral. I have so many things I want to get done. But I do not feel like I can prioritize the list. I know I am totally over thinking of this. I have been told I do this all the time. I have organized my day planner. I can hear you clapping but stop it really was just a procrastination tool. I also cleaned out my purse, neither that nor the organizer were on the to-do list. I really want to scrub my house clean but first I need to put away all of the Christmas decorations. I can hear you saying, "What! you still have your decorations up?" I feel the shame. I know the neighbors are talking about me but, I need to get the boxes down from the attic, but it is really cold and dark in the attic, so I turned on the fire place and made a hot cocoa. Then I thought maybe I could clean the bookshelves, but then I looked down and saw the dog was taking a nap on my lap, and how could I move? I mean she needed a lap for her nap. So, now I am blogging, that is doing something, right?

Nor'Easter moment

This picture I took in my back yard is a perfect visual for the Easter moment that has unfolded over the past few days. I had all of these great plans for this week. I had all my lists made and ready to be checked off. I was ready to spread Christmas cheer far and near. And then I learned a new word, Nor'easter, it has nothing to do with the resurrection for most people, but it does for me. A nor'easter is a lot of snow fall. This massive snow fall, for the part of the country I live in, literally stopped everything. It has been quite discombobulating this feeling of not knowing what to do next. At first I enjoyed the snow, the beautiful blanket of white that covered the land. Each snowflake is so small and fragile, but with millions of icy friends they proved to make mountains out of molehills. As I felt myself losing control of my plans, I was angry, I was sad, I was bored, and then I had what I am calling a "nor' Easter moment." God sent millions of little snowflakes to show me who is really in control. God showed me that I do not need to leave my house to experience Christmas. Our church's worship service was cancelled due to the weather, so God taught me that I need more than an hour on Sunday morning to worship my Lord. My DH and I found the quietest place in the house, the guest room, we sat on the floor and we opened our Bibles, we read the Word to each other. We experienced the presence of Emmanuel (God with us). We were not wearing our Sunday best, we were wearing our Saturday worst, we did not sit in a church pew, we worshiped on the floor. It was not fancy, but it was real and we re-committed our steps to follow our Creator. The Lord God Almighty, who can stop the world with millions of tiny snowflakes, who can change the world with a baby in a manger and a well positioned star, who can warm my over-committed heart with his Word, who can even make my to-do list obsolete, is patiently waiting for your time. I pray that you also receive a "Nor'Easter moment" this Christmas.

Warm and Cozy Christmas

My holiday spirits are up this year. We have fully decked the halls at our house. The village is up and all of the minute people are going about their Christmas preparations through a blanket of felt snow and glistening glitter. The lights are up outside twinkling and illuminating the land with green, white and red light. The DH and the dog are warm and snug under a blanket and their cuteness is beyond description.(I have added a poor pic here) Two dear friends joined me last night and I was able to share my tidings of great joy and Christmas cheer with them. We had hot chili, warm spiced cider, roasted marshmallows over a crackling fire, and got cozy and watched A Muppet Christmas carol. A much needed, and much appreciated sabbath rest. This weekend I have realized that when the weather is frightful it is really delightful to just stay home and take time to enjoy my blessings.

Kairos vs. Chronos

The leaves sway and crackle in the wind, a dog barks, a truck goes by, a lawn mower sucks and crunches leaves and I sit and listen. This is peaceful. Not because there is no noise, but because there is no hurry. This is Sabbath, a rest. Peaceful to me is carving out precious time from the routine and hub bub. Chronos time is the minute to minute time that passes on the clock. The time we use to set the alarm clock, to schedule appointments, dinner, work. Peaceful to me is ignoring chronos time and intentionally experiencing kairos (God's time) the day planner is not opened, the calendar is not consulted, there is no agenda other than what God brings to my mind this is peaceful. It doesn't mean I sit under a tree and do nothing. I may read that book a friend gave me months ago, or watch a movie I have passed by a hundred times, or take a little cat nap. This is when I take time to listen. I listen to my heart beat, listen to my breath, listen to the trees sway and the squirrels scurry. In these moments, this time I have carved out I remember what it feels like to be fully alive, fully present in the moment.

It is not easy to carve out this time, sometimes it is forced, by sickness, the flu, sometimes by shear exhaustion, but that is not the best way. There is a finite amount of time in a day. If we were to divide our time into a pie chart, much of our 24 hours is given to others, to work, to children, this is not bad, unless it is in excess. Jesus said, the greatest commandment, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind and Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:37-38) In The Message it is paraphrased as, "Love others as well as you love yourself" Jesus wants us to love ourselves, to love who we are, to love being alive and to love our Creator. But most people I know, including myself, don't love themselves enough. In our culture it is not popular to love yourself, you are labelled as conceited, vain, or worse, selfish. To me, selfishness is loving yourself to excess. Jesus tells us to love ourselves because when we love who we are we can find our purpose and thereby better love God and our neighbor.

So take a kairos holiday, it doesn't have to be a whole day; take a little time to listen to yourself breathe and thank God for that breath, or listen to the leaves and thank God for Autumn, or sit on your couch and be grateful you have a place to live. All of these little moments, these stolen minutes, help you love yourself. These are the moments when you step out of the routine of life and into kairos (God's time). When you learn to carve out kairos time for yourself, you will also be better able to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and guess what? When all you soul is taken care of you can better take care of the rest of that pie, your children, your spouse, your work. So, have you had a kairos moment today? What did you do or not do?

Life is about the attempts not the successes

A little boy in a bright blue shirt is trying to catch the sparrows. He sees one, and darts in that direction. He sees another and darts in that direction. But two steps before he pounces on his prey, the sparrow flies away. A man at a table, watching the attempts says in his deep big boy voice, “I don’t think you’re gonna catch em!” The boy in the bright blue shirt glances at the man, then chases after another little brown sparrow. Grandma looks at the scene, a smile on her perfectly painted lips. Her eye’s big, for a moment remembering the wonderment of her own childhood. Here eyes, lost in the past as she gazes at the future. Her round, dark, eyes peer through the shade of a ball cap. A cap that covers the place where her hair used to be, hair gone from chemotherapy. A day at the mall with her grandson, the boy in the bright blue shirt. They road the train. A grown woman in a child’s train. She twisted and arched her grown body into the little blue train car, but today she does not worry about what her body can do, today is for the healing of her spirit. A grown woman in a child’s train, the conductor pulls the bell, “ding, ding” and a grown woman is a little girl again sitting next to a little boy who wants to be big. A little boy, in a bright blue shirt, darting here and there trying to surprise a sparrow. “I don’t think you’re gonna catch em!” said the big boy with the deep voice. Ahh, big boy, don’t you remember when you used to chase bird's, can't you see it in grandma’s eyes, can’t you hear it in the boy with the bright blue shirt's laughter, it is not about catching the sparrows, it’s all about chasing them.

My first lesson on compassion

My bed did not have time to get cold as I leapt out of it on that Christmas morning and bounded up the stairs to our family room. As I rounded the corner I could see it, the shiny chrome, the deep dark black of the rubber, the red and blue streamers cascading from the handlebars, and the banana seat that had all the colors of the rainbow. My first bicycle was a thing of beauty. That bicycle was the ticket to a new world for me. I had plans and visions of new adventures in store. It was another milestone, I was old enough to leave my mother’s line of vision, the only barrier between me and freedom was to learn how to control those two wheels. I had no fear, and no patience, I was ready to jump on that banana seat and head off in whatever direction my heart desired.

My mind was lost in daydreams of long paved sidewalks and wild packs of ten years olds on their bicycles roaming the neighborhood with me in the lead. I do not remember any other presents I opened on that Christmas morning, I certainly did not care about my sister’s presents which I am sure she was opening at a snail’s pace, as she always did, to prolong my agony. I do not remember breakfast, although I am sure Mom made egg’s benedict like she does every Christmas morning. What I do remember is finally that afternoon,sitting on the banana seat, at the end of my driveway. My dad was giving me all sorts of instructions on how to brake, how to balance, how to steer, and I was not listening to a word. Finally, my dad gave me a push, I started to peddle as fast as I could, and in less than a minute, crash! I was on the ground, crying and bleeding, this was not how my adventure was supposed to start, it was not supposed to be this hard, the excitement was gone and the fear had descended on me like a shroud.

My father picked me up and carried me in his his arms into the house, he offered me words of comfort and assurance and reminded me of his unfailing love for me. He cleaned me up and put a band-aid on my skinned knee. But he could not fix my battered and broken spirit. He asked me if I was ready to take another try, and I was not! Fear had taken hold of me, now I had experienced the pain that could happen from failure, it took a few days of my mother and father, encouraging and cajoling me, nursing my broken spirit, before I mounted that banana seat again. This time with the feeling of fear in my mind and the band-aid on my knee a visual reminder of my recent failure I once again climbed onto the bicycle. This time... I had elicited assurances from my father that he would not let go and from my mother who stood by with a make-shift first aid kit, in case I fell again. I did fall again, and I have fallen many times over the years, sometimes my parents have picked me up, other times friends, and even occasionally doctors have patched my wounds with various band-aids. But I have learned a band-aid does not bring healing to the physical, spiritual and emotional wounds of our lives. We need much more, we need our Lord, who abounds with grace and is infinitely compassionate.