Spiritual Practices

Prayers for the Stillborn

One year ago today my niece, Lily René, was born sleeping (stillborn). I have always been one to turn to the prayers of the church for comfort and guidance, and so to cope and as a way to offer pastoral care to my family I put together a prayer book for my niece. On the first anniversary of Lily’s birth I would like to offer her prayer book as a resource to all who have lost children in stillbirth and miscarriage. These prayers have been most helpful to me and my family in the last year. At the end of this post I have included a .pdf of Lily’s prayer book for download. Lily René, may light perpetual shine upon you. + … [Read more...]

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St. Teresa of Avila: image of life of prayer

When we get serious about our spiritual journeys, we expend a great deal of effort. We are obsessed with trying harder. Teresa imagined a field that needed watering (our spiritual state in need of nurture). In the first stage of spiritual growth, it is as if we are dragging a heavy oaken bucket, dipping it into a well, hauling the water up, bucket by bucket, and watering the field. This represents the condition where we try desperately to please God, to obey the rules, to get it right for God. In the second stage, our prayer and progress lead us to notice a stream running beside the field. All we have to do is drag the oaken bucket through the water and haul it to the field and water it. A little easier, but we still control the pace through our own efforts. That is, we decide what tasks and projects we will undertake, what the content of our prayer will be, how we will nurture our spiritual lives and be pleasing to God. In the third stage, we become aware of a gate at the end of the field that opens to an irrigation system. All we have to do is fling the gate open, and the water comes pouring into water the field. It seems that God meets us with grace so nurturing and powerful that we have only to open ourselves to it. Our faith journey becomes not so much what we can do for God, but what God can do through us, for us, in us. In the final stage, we merely stand in the rain. When I first internalized the image of standing in a cleansing rain, immersed in the saving love of God through no effort of my own, I was overcome with the realization that Divine Love didn’t require my effort. It was not dependent on my deserving. It was truly, profoundly, eternally unconditional. (as summarized by Linda Douty) … [Read more...]

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Lenten Gardening

One of my key activities in early spring is the cleaning out of my flowerbeds and the flowerpots in my deck garden. I cut back dead plants and clear out dead leaves on my perennials. I clear out the areas that will need to be replanted removing dead plants and beginning the preparation of the soil to receive new plants and flowers. I prune rose bushes, the butterfly bush and shrubs to make room for new growth. Spring is a time of preparation and dreaming about what is to come. It is my favorite time of year in my garden! This year it has been extra cold here in Texas. We had close to a foot of snow a week ago, so my yearly gardening rituals have been delayed. As often is the case, the delay has heightened the yearning to begin this activity. The garden is calling me! Come on spring! I was reminded during Ash Wednesday worship this week that if you take the word 'Lent' back to its roots it means simply 'spring'. I know spring! Clearing, cleaning, pruning, and hauling off debris. Hard work, yes, but work full of promise, buoyed by the occasional glimpse of the first signs of the emergence of new growth. Growth indiscernible, until you are on your knees and carefully removing last years’ dead and decaying growth. It struck me that as much as I love the Lenten work of my garden, I have never been a big fan of Lent in my faith journey. It is just something I tend to pass through on my way to Holy Week. Truthfully, I am more of an Advent pondering and waiting person. Lent on the other hard is work! Yes, Lent is spring time in our lives of faith – it is a time of clearing dead and rotting parts of our lives: dreams that have withered and no longer fit, half hearted spiritual practices, angers and resentments that slowly eat away the life in us, laying aside disappointments, etc. Lent is a reality check on any saccharine sweet notions of the faith that we may be harboring. Lent is not for the faint of heart. At its most effective, Lent requires us to … [Read more...]

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Waiting!

Advent Reflection by Mary Earle @explorefaith … [Read more...]

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Active Waiting

In Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit, Henri Nouwen, the late spiritual guide, writes: Most of us consider waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? We cannot do anything about it, so we have to sit there and just wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when somebody says, “Just wait.” Words like that push us into passivity. But there is none of this passivity in Scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. Right here is a secret for us about waiting. If we wait in the conviction that a seed has been planted and that something has already begun, it changes the way we wait. Active waiting implies being fully present to the moment with the conviction that something is happening where we are and that we want to be present to it. … [Read more...]

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