Where To?

Every time I get in my van, I look up and see the question on my GPS system:  WHERE TO?   Right next to that question on this GPS monitor is:  VIEW MAP.  It is the perfect reminder to ask God, Where to?  Where would you have me go today?  What would you have me do?  How do you need to use me to make a difference in another life?  Our GPS system is there to get us from one place to another.  We use it to find a place we've never been to.  Its purpose is to give us direction, a path, and a clear route to follow.  All we have to do is type in our address, and then watch the hour glass turning as it searches for our destination.  When it has located the most direct path, you simply press GO, and you are off to get to the place you want to be.  This GPS system literally tells you verbally when to turn and what lane to be in. It will show you how many miles your trip is and how long it will take to get there. You can literally watch street after street come up on your monitor, the speed limit and the speed you are driving at. It can show you where the next gas station, ATM, and restaurant is on your route.  For someone who  struggles with reading maps, this GPS is good news, completely revolutionizing traveling... at least for me.

We are just coming up on Holy Week, and for the entire season of Lent, and even before that, going back into Advent, we have been following the original "GPS system" whose name was Jesus.  He "showed us the way" to God.  He was the living, breathing GOOD NEWS! His life was all about asking God WHERE TO? He demonstrated that you don't have to struggle to know how to get to God.  He showed us by the way he lived, acted, prayed, taught, loved and listened, that we have an inner GPS system already in place.  God's Perfect Supply is constantly at our disposal.  But we have to activate it, and we activate it through prayer and listening to God.   We go to God asking WHERE TO? and then God provides the prompt: VIEW MAP. God says:  This is the direction I want to take you.  You are here at point A and if you follow this exactly as I prompt you to do, you will get to point B.  The beautiful thing about GPS is that even if you mess up and take a wrong exit  or make a wrong turn, it gets busy re-calculating and then directs you again from where you are.  You can be a little lost and never really be lost!  It doesn't ever let you get so lost that you can't find your way back.  I love the image of the GPS, not only for our own individual lives, but for the collective heart of the church approaching the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

As many of us take a seat in a pew to witness what happened to Jesus, to identify with where his GPS system led him, the entire church, the body of Christ, must tune in to its own GPS promptings. Many of us are going to notice the age of who is in our pews, that there  may be less and less people in our church pews, and especially less younger people in our pews.  The question the people in our churches need to ask of our GPS system is WHERE TO?  We are "punching in" the same address, the same place to be, and expecting a different destination to "pop up" on the screen, but instead we are constantly driving the same path, the same way, and wondering why we are ending up in the same spot.  The route we take is familiar, comfortable, easy to follow, no surprises, less chance of detours, predictable, and you can literally drive it "in your sleep".  You know the saying The car could drive itself... it knows the way!  If you attend a church service over holy week and wonder where the rest of the "drivers" are, this is why.  We are being driven by a path we are so comfortable with, we don't dare try a new path to a new destination.  We are being driven by traditions, doctrines, dogmas, music, apathy, irrelevancy, ego, pride, invalid beliefs, and ritual empty of meaning,   and lack of just about everything from:  people to creativity to money, to energy, to time, to mission and purpose.  We have been lulled to sleep at the wheel by tuning in to the same station on our religious radio playing from  top ten tunes like:  We've Always Done it This Way,  We've Tried That and it Didn't Work,  We Could Never Raise the Money or Find the People to Do That,  There Just Isn't Enough Interested People,  I Might Look Like a Fool, We Can't Possibly Do That With the Few Children We Do Have, and an oldie, but goodie, We Might Fail, Then What?  

In light of Holy Week,  I can't imagine Jesus asleep at the wheel.  I am so thankful he tried something different with his life so that we might have a chance to live differently too.  I'm so thankful he didn't care if he looked like a fool, that he turned over the money tables in the temple, that he wasn't willing to settle for doing things the way they've always been done, and that he kept trying and trying again until people realized that he was going to change the way the Sabbath worked, looked, and felt.  I'm so glad that he didn't wait for people to get interested in forgiveness so that he could heal them, show them mercy and kindness, and love them.  Thank God he put energy into loving children, allowing them to come to him... one child at a time.  He  was never put off by their noise, their curiosity, the messiness, or the "energy" it took to make them feel loved and wanted.  Thank God he could see that building the future kingdom begins with loving, welcoming,  teaching, and protecting our children.  Jesus was once a child himself, who needed to be protected, nurtured, taught, inspired, cherished, prayed for, and baptized. Where did his mom and dad find him? In the temple.  How many of us find our children in a church or temple outside of Sunday School because they absolutely loved it, and just had to be there.  Even Jesus couldn't baptize himself!

As a woman and mother, who dearly loves all that religious practices, rituals, and tradition has provided me in the past, I see who is in the pews now, and even more importantly, I see who isn't there. Fear and guilt aren't bringing them to the doors and keeping them once they do arrive.  Doctrine, dogma, theology, and tradition, while needed for structure, guidance, and forming the tenets of faith and what we believe, aren't bringing new generations into the doors of our churches either.  Not only are we witnessing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, our Savior, in the coming two weeks, you are asleep at the wheel, if you don't recognize that we are also witnessing the death of religious institutions as we know them now.   Jesus was very radical for his time.  What he thought, said, and did, was radically different.  Our GPS system is crying out for us to drive a radically different path to a brand new destination.  We can drive down the same old path, and still hold out hope to arrive at something different, but unless we are willing to be led down a path that is more relevant to the seekers of inner transformation,  we are going to wind up with the same result, the same destination, the same "point B" on the map.  If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it. Luke 17:33  If you cling to routine thinking, the status quo, lifeless traditions, and invalid beliefs, and make them your God, you will lose it, and if you release what doesn't serve you any longer, you will save what you really need... what you really love, and what you really long for. In the end,  You will save Love because Love has saved you.

We are going to have to drive with our eyes wide open, alert to new promptings, and a willingness to see new scenery, stop at different rest stops, gas up at new stations, and dine at different restaurant tables.  We are going to have to be willing to feel lost, vulnerable, wondering when we will get "there".  We are going to have to rely on our GPS for every last mile until we here those famous words "ARRIVAL AT DESTINATION".  Our minds are going to have to think, be involved, and engaged in our travels.  We aren't going to be able to go on "automatic pilot".  We are going to have to listen to the voice that is prompting us and trust that the signals our GPS systems are receiving are correct and accurate.  There will be limits on the speed with which we travel, maybe some new costs to traveling a new route, the risk of accidents, detours, and break-downs.  But there will also be new discoveries, new joys, fresh beauty, inspired conversations, and deepened companionship, connection, and friendship along the way.  We will learn to trust God like we've never trusted God before!  Dependency upon divine power will flourish!   Our inner world will become stronger than the circumstances of our outer world.  Our imaginations and the use of our creativity will be the source of the miracles that we need because we will recognize that God creates what we need through the intentions of our minds and hearts.  Gratitude and love for what God will do through us will be the cornerstone of the church's future instead of  money, numbers, and the past. 

Jesus died for  love, community, connection, service, and mission. He did not die for a certain type of music, a certain time to have a worship service,  a certain amount of money to be spent, or traditional or contemporary services. He died for love's sake.  He came to serve, not to be served.  If you walk into a church in the next two weeks, walk in to serve, not to be served.  Walk in to love people, not to love traditions, that are no longer serving a purpose or make sense.  Walk in those doors to build community, not to build walls up to keep people out that don't look like you, think like you, pray like you,  sing like you, or believe like you.  Too many people are walking into church and they don't love it.  They don't love what they hear there, what they do there, what they see there, or what they don't see there.  But we are all too afraid to say that we don't love it.  People go where they feel loved and they want to do something, be a part of something  they love.  People aren't coming to church because they don't love what is there, what it offers, and what they feel when they are there.  Traditions, routines, habits, and the past are put ahead of loving people and being faithful to the gospel message.   People leave what they don't love - just look at the number of divorces, the number of suicides, excellent teachers who leave their profession, and so on.  Look at the number of people who don't go to church. Even the new pope isn't wearing the traditional red Prada shoes. Even he has set aside the tradition of saying Holy Thursday mass at the Vatican and is planning on saying mass at a juvenile detention center. 

Where do we start?   What "address" do we punch in on our GPS?  Just what is our destination?  Our "point B"?  Until we can name what we don't love about our churches with brutal, radical honesty, openness, and non-judgment , we can't begin to put in an "address".  We are going to have to grieve, give thanks for the past and what it was, what it gave us, and how it grew us and nourished us, and then we have to look toward the future.  We are going to have to ask ourselves what purpose religion and attending church serve in this day and age?  And we are going to have to come to grips with the fact that we are going to have to make changes, some little and some quite radical. We are going to have to stop sweating the small stuff. Business as usual isn't going to cut it anymore. We are going to need to listen to the prophets of the 21st century, the ideas, thoughts, and creativity of the younger generations, and the voices that we have tried to drown out with our excuses.  We are going to have to support clergy like we've never supported them before.  We are going to have to work like we've never worked before. We will have to go the extra mile.  And we are going to have to trust like we've never trusted before.  Churches will either evolve or die.  The statistics are out there, and unless we turn to Jesus, and his willingness to be and do something different, in order to see something different in a hurting world....something based on love instead of fear,  our future as  church as it is, will die out.  If there is one thing Holy Week is about, it is about dying so that we might live.  Nothing can be resurrected until it is willing to die to what was, in  order that it might come fully into the resurrection of its highest potential. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. John 12: 24-25.  We are going to find ourselves alone in our beloved churches if we do not allow certain patterns of thinking and believing to fall to the ground and  die.  If anything, the address we have to punch in on our GPS system is "death". There are some things we do as church that just might have to die so that new life can come through. As hard as it might be, this is our "point A"......  Our "point B" is resurrection.

Just today,  Olivia begged me to get out my wedding dress.  She has spent the better part of today planning her future "wedding" and I wondered if it would be held in a church.  She drew a picture of her dress and the bridesmaid dresses, planned the food, the dance floor, and the dessert - banana splits for everyone!  I finally went into the closet and dug out my dress.  I didn't have it preserved in a box, and after today, I'm glad I didn't.  We got it out, hung it up by its hanger, on the edge of the doorway, and she loved touching it, feeling the beading, and playing with the train.  This afternoon, she asked me to try it on.  THAT.....was painful.  Three kids after the age of 35 does not make for a perfect fit.  But I did manage to squeeze into it.....barely, half-way zipped. (Boy there's inspiration to get back to the gym).  We stood back and admired the dress.  I remembered how I felt in it and all the beautiful memories I have of that day!  This dress, although beautiful, no longer serves the purpose it once did.  Now it is something to be admired, a visible, tangible part of a very special tradition that changed my life over 13 years ago.  It no longer "fits" me. As beautiful as it is, it is no longer changing my life for the better.  I have changed.  My body has changed.  I can squeeze into it, but it is uncomfortable, clumsy, and I don't feel the same way as I did 13 years ago in it.  Although, I treasure it, it will reside in my closet.  Olivia said she wants to wear it someday, but she wants to change it.  She wants to take off the sleeves, add a lot more "sparkles" and wear different shoes.  As hard as it might be to change it for her, if she loves it and it serves her needs on her wedding day, I will add more "sparkle", remove the sleeves, and alter it so that she feels beautiful and full of love.  The dress won't look the same, but it will have been transformed into the perfect dress for Olivia.  They say that your outside world reflects what is happening on the inside of you.  How appropriate that my wedding dress made an appearance today - it is so symbolic of tradition, the past, growing love, and the need to keep expanding that love into something new.  The main part of the dress, the substance of it, will not be changed for Olivia, but if she chooses someday, I will hand it down to her, with my blessing, and she can take it and make it her own.  I hope we are not afraid to "hand down", with enthusiastic blessing, the substance of our religious faith to future generations and allow the way we practice our faith to be expanded, made new, and transformed into something that sparkles, something tailored perfectly for future souls, so that future generations will want to wear it, and that when they do wear it, they will feel beautiful and loved in it....so much so that they will have a desire to be wedded to service, mission, and above all, gospel love. 

Show us, God, what needs to die in us

so that what longs to live can rise up, serve your purposes, and grow love.

Help us think, reflect, and listen to each other's thoughts. Let us be honest and brave

as we give voice to our fears and our sadness.

Help us grieve. Help us lay to rest everything 

that is holding us back.

Help us respect what was, what is, and what will be. 

Help us put aside our egos, our pride, and our expectations

and find common ground, a new vision, and a fresh destination. 

Please, God, reveal to us your plans for our religious institutions.

Please, God, show us the Way to go, the Truth of our hearts, and the Life

we have to offer one another.  

Generously give us direction, guidance, and wisdom.
Make clear to us the path we must follow.

Help us die so that we might live.  Amen. 

Reflect On Your Life

For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in a dry wasteland.

Isaiah 43: 19

1.  What is it that we fear the most about change in our churches?

2.  What would you change about church services? How would you improve them? 

  

What Makes the GOOD NEWS Great!

When Jesus arrived in this world, he arrived amidst some less-than-ideal circumstances. Born to a mother who was probably considered an outcast by some, he found his first bed to be made of straw with animals that were smelly, noisy, and probably not all that clean.  At this point in the church year, we see Jesus as a grown man, still finding himself in less-than-ideal circumstances.  I'm sure he could relate to the family who has lost a child due to gun violence.  I know he could relate to the person who sits in jail, wrongly accused, and completely innocent, of the crime he/she was supposed to have committed.  And, I think he could relate to the person whose body has been ravaged by cancer.  None of these circumstances reflects a loving God, nor did the circumstances that Jesus found himself involved in.

Jesus looked around this world that he was growing up in and deeply felt the sheer absence of love.  He understood that the hearts of people were existing on nothing.  They were starved for love. Fear was literally eating away at their souls and leaving behind the skeletons of people who were content to suffer.  They accepted their hunger as God's Will, something that God "blessed".  They were existing on a belief that God desired them to be hungry, to live in poverty, to be sick, to be violent, and to be in a state of "holy" war.  Their belief that this was how God was loving them kept them from thinking that maybe they didn't have to live this way.

If Jesus were present in the physical form of a body, he would still find us in the same poverty.  He would still find us at war, still find people hungry and homeless, still find people suffering from disease, still find people living in violent conditions, still find people unable to get a decent education, and still find people depressed, over-worked, and dependent upon pills in order to get by.  He would see that we are more advanced technologically, but barely getting by, and even living in primitive conditions of the heart when it comes to giving and receiving love.  He would notice that we may be able to access any kind of information we could possibly need in a matter of seconds, but we are still unable to access God and hear His guidance and how much He loves us in a matter of seconds.  And I am  positive that Jesus would notice that the world seems to be content with people who still don't have homes or access to clean water.  I think Jesus would notice that we've all but stopped noticing our contentment with the way the world is today.

The look and feel of our world-wide problems may seem different in appearance, but their cause still stems from the same cause, a severe lack of love and care for our neighbor.  And I feel ashamed and embarrassed that I can tell you how to download pictures from one cell  phone to another, but I can't tell you the name of my neighbor who lives just across  our driveway. She has told me her name twice.  Her mother just passed away from Alzheimers and I went to write her a card and I couldn't address it with a name.  We took a tray of fruit over to her, and yet again, we had to ask her name.  This is the reality that we face.

Jesus practiced the skill of awareness, of noticing, and the simple art of THINKING about why the world is the way that it is.  He used the gift of his heart's common sense and His Father's common sense and figured out that everyone is simply reacting to the world's conditions instead of preventing the conditions we all struggle with.  He figured out that unless we truly believed that we could change what is wrong with the world, the world will continue to reflect more and more darkness and less light.  When we finally have it figured out that we don't have to settle for poverty, for illiteracy, for homelessness, for hunger, for polluted skies and dirty rivers- when we finally have it figured out that we can live a different way, we will have finally rolled back the stone from the entrance of our entombed hearts and feel the promise of a new light.  When we figure out that our world can look and feel like a completely different place to live in, we will have shed the linens of our death-state, break our addiction to the cross and choose to rise higher because we are thinking higher thoughts, we are living in higher realms, and we are thriving in a fully resurrected state.  A loving God wants nothing to do with violence, poverty, hunger, and a polluted world.  Jesus' death and resurrection means absolutely nothing unless we, as individuals wake up, and then when we begin to help each other wake up, the world will notice that God is always talking to everyone all the time about how to change their individual lives and the collective heart of the world, and we will start to see things changing.  We will finally start to experience love in action and the world will literally shift toward peace.  It really is possible! 

At the heart of our waking up is beginning to feel that we really do trust God. When we can stop clinging to this life that isn't serving us, give it up, we will find a better, brighter life that serves all! We are more willing to listen to God and follow His lead when we feel that God REALLY DOES want us happy and He is always leading us toward greater happiness.  When we can look back on our lives and see God always moving us toward greater happiness, we learn to trust much more readily.  Little by little, generation by generation, we will finally hear what God has in store for all of us, and it looks nothing like the world does now.

Clare is the perfect example of this.  She is "waking up" to her desire for independence. She is wanting to rearrange her room and buy new things for it and express herself by how her room looks and feels.  She is realizing that she has a mind and she has certain desires and that she doesn't have to live in her room the way it is now.  She has awakened to the fact that she could move her bed, she could paint the walls, and she could get rid of the toddler table she has hung onto for such a long time.  She is coming into an awareness of her independence, but she is also going to come up against the reality of interdependence.... that mom and dad pay for certain changes, and the fact that we live in a rectory, owned by a church, all play a part in her independent decisions.  This is the struggle we all face.  We all struggle with issues of independence vs. interdependence.  The idea of being dependent upon anything is hard to swallow, but Jesus assures us that our dependence upon God doesn't lessen our independence.  In fact, our dependence upon God empowers us and frees us to be more of who we were created to be, in other words, our happiness finds us! Dependence upon God ensures our happiness!  This is the GOOD NEWS! This is what makes the Good News great! There is nothing good about poverty.  There is nothing good about war. There is nothing good about oppression, hate, and prejudiced behaviors.  There is nothing good about hunger.  There is nothing good about my life, if someone else is suffering. 

If our little corner of the world is fine, then everything is good!  I'm doing ok, so the world must be ok. This is the kind of belief that must be changed and transformed.  Jesus knew that we all are born with borders around our heart and mind.  Just because wars, death, and deep poverty are happening way across the world, or just down the street, doesn't mean we shouldn't care or try to do something about it. The borders in our thinking become thick, high, and embedded in our minds deeply, but they are never permanent. And this non-permanence is also our GOOD NEWS!  We are not stuck in this mess!  We really can do something about it!  This is the thought that will resurrect the world!  This is why we celebrate Easter! Where do we begin?  It seems so overwhelming!

Transform your life first.  Start with practicing Silent Meditation.  Begin a consistent, committed relationship with God through prayer, study, and personal reflection.  Ask God to heal your wounds, all of them!  Forgive everyone.  If you are just reacting to life, start living intentionally.  Co-create the life you want.  Get out of the abusive marriage.  Stop drinking. Leave the job that you absolutely hate!  Begin to take care of your body again.  Lose the extra weight.  Join a small faith group.  Get a spiritual director. Evaluate how you spend your time. Put down the cell phone and the laptop more often. Make a list of who you love and why you love them. Let go of relationships that aren't loving, respectful, and worthy of your time. Begin to make your heart-work a priority.  Put the health of spiritual life, first, and the rest will fall into place.  Work on your inner-world, and your outer world will automatically transform itself.  Jesus was an inner-world man!  This is where your GOOD NEWS RESTS, inside you, not outside of you.

If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me,

you will find it.  Matthew 10: 39 

God of Hope,

Help me transform my life.

Help me put my heart first and things second.

Make me alert and aware of where love is absent.

Help me notice why things are the way they are.

Tear down the boarders in my heart and mind.

Forgive my selfish thinking and my lack of 

care and concern for the neighbor right next to me.

Transform my life so that it reflects the Good News!

Grow my trust in you, God!

Give me a new vision for my life and the world's life!

Give me the courage to do what I can, when I can, wherever I can.

Resurrect my life!  Make my life Great, God!  Amen.

Reflect On Your Life

1.  Where do you see the GOOD NEWS being reflected in your life?  What part of your life is lacking love?

2.  Where do the boarders exist in your heart and mind?   

3.  What can you do beginning tomorrow to transform your life?

Ashes, Hearts, and Mountains

Wow!  This is a big week! Mardi Gras Tuesday,  Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day all in one week!  The kids and I worked on their Valentine cards today.  I loved helping them put their little treat bags together, and they loved talking about who "likes" who in their class, and what Daddy might be getting Mommy for Valentine's Day!  And of course, who can turn down the Brach's Conversation Hearts- my personal favorite are the yellow ones.  After we got all the Valentine's Day things put together, the conversation went from giggles about love to what to give up for Lent. Whiplash! There is a connection between Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day.  Both days are all about the heart. And the gospel we heard at church today couldn't be a better precursor to this big week!

The Transfiguration is one of those stories about Jesus that you just don't forget.  Jesus decides to take three friends with him up on a mountain to pray.  This is significant because normally Jesus goes up on a mountain by himself to pray.  He obviously wanted these three friends to be with him as friends, but he also wanted them to experience something special.  And they did.  Jesus' face was transformed, his clothes became a "dazzling white".  Two men appear at his side and talk to him about his leaving from this world.  Peter and the other two men had fallen asleep and woke up to see Jesus in his glory and the two men with him.  When you stop and think about it, this is similar to the garden scene where Jesus asks his friends to stay with him while he prays and his companions fall asleep. In this account, Jesus' face doesn't become a dazzling white, instead he sweats blood.  In both cases, something very significant must happen in his inner world to cause such a transformation in his "outer world" or out appearance.  And when Peter and the others finally "wake up", they are completely moved.  So moved that they say, "Master, It's wonderful for us to be here!" A cloud appears, and  after hearing a voice say to them that Jesus brought God great joy, and they were to listen to him, they fell to the ground, terrified.  Jesus touches them, and tells them to "Get up! Don't be afraid!"

Valentine's Day, although a VERY commercial day, ripe for consumers and capitalism,  is a day which commemorates the fact that love transfigures us. When we fall in love, we feel "dazzling white" on the inside. We feel as if our entire world has changed. People describe the sky as being "bluer", the flowers "more beautiful" and the whole world a happier place to be.  The power of loving someone so deeply and completely changes you on the inside and causes you to see your world on the outside in a completely different light, a "dazzling white light".  And many of us really sleep our lives away until that kind of love is felt deeply enough to startle us out of our slumbering.  We wake up and realize that this kind of love takes us to another world where our step is lighter, our outlook on life brighter, and we feel limitless, free, and "on top of the world".  Jesus went up on a mountain to pray and felt so deeply loved by God,  that as his inner light grew and expanded, his outer appearance began to reveal the brightness of his inner Heaven.  As his inner sun grew brighter, this physical world began to lessen and diminish, a taste of what was to come in his future death and resurrection.  Valentine's Day is a day set aside as a memorial to the transfiguration that real, authentic love can manifest.

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. 

St. Valentine believed that love is always stronger and more powerful  than war. Love produces strength, hope, and the will to live for something greater than yourself. It is love that is worth fighting for! St. Valentine stopped being terrified, trusted God's touch in all of this and rose up!He believed that love multiplied would be the victor, and that family life mattered to the world, added a love that a desperate soldier and a desperate world longed for.  Love doesn't weaken humanity, it binds up wounds, casts out fear, and wins wars! St. Valentine would choose a very natural inclination to love someone over the man-made belief of  death and fear.  Jesus, having been transfigured on a mountain through prayer, would also choose the very natural inclination to love over the belief of death and fear.  On Ash Wednesday, the world of love will begin to collide with the world of fear.  The journey that begins with ashes that will take us on a quest to believe in love again, and to make ashes of our fears.  Ash Wednesday and the weeks of Lent that follow is a time to stand up for love, to be young lovers of inner transformation, wedding ourselves to the romance that Jesus experienced, the romance of Mind and Heart, the place inside us where Earth and Heaven kiss as we pray. The place inside us where Heaven grows and Hell falls into its grave.  Ash Wednesday is the beginning of everyone's love story, it is the "Once Upon a Time there was a young boy who grew up to save the world" story.  Wear your ashes and wake up! Rise up off the ground of fear, let God touch you, and see the dazzling white light that you are, go to your mountain and pray with intensity, with fire, and with every ounce of strength you have.  Let your crosses be dismantled and your innocence rise up and be rebuilt.  Look at the person next you in the pew, on the street, and at your table, and tell them, with your ashes on your forehead, how wonderful it is to be here!  Make a memorial of life, not death! 

It was love that gave Jesus strength to do what he did.  It is love that will give us strength to do what we think we cannot do!  It is always love that resurrects us, wakes us up, causes us to shine, and lifts us out of a world of despair, violence, war, poverty, and death.  Write your Valentine's to the ones you love.  It is good to say "I love you!"  It is good to feel loved and to make someone else feel loved.  And this Ash Wednesday and the entire season of Lent is God's Valentine message to you!  He has written you love notes every time Jesus spoke of  love, resurrection, faith, hope, trust, and transformation.  He has written one of the greatest love stories of all time in the life of the risen Christ.  God didn't bother with candy hearts, flowers, and chocolate.  He gave us Jesus, a heart so filled with love that he was willing to give up his life in the name of Love. Every time he healed someone, forgave someone, taught someone, life and love blossomed, handed to us in a fresh bouquet of new peace, wrapped in ribbons of strength.  What Jesus experienced on mountains was sweeter than any box of chocolate we might enjoy. He tasted knowledge, truth, and wisdom, and savored every last drop of Heaven that God fed him.  What he gained  on top of  a mountain sustained him underneath the weight of a cross.

Declare yourself a young lover of God.   When you pray this Lent, close your door, and let God wed you to himself in secret.  Feel how wonderful it is to be there with Love...with God. Feel His glory fill you! Feel yourself sparkle with change and light up with new thoughts that could change the world.  Make a memorial of your life beyond Ash Wednesday and the weeks that follow.  Do what St. Valentine and Jesus did.  They were brave. So you must be brave.  They saw the poverty of love and fed people. So you must feel your poverty and feed people.  St. Valentine and Jesus were soldiers for love. So you must be a warriors for love!

A Prayer for Lent

Take me to my inner room God,

and I will sit on top of my mountain

and make my prayers to you.

May love change me and cause me to shine, whitened and

ready to receive new thoughts about how to change the world.

Make my life a living memorial to life and love!

Make ashes of my fears and 

wed myself to your strength, your truth, and your wisdom. 

Dismantle my crosses, God, and let my 

newly discovered innocence rise up and be rebuilt. 

Let the whole world's innocent heart rise up and be rebuilt. 

It is so wonderful to be here, God!  Amen.

Reflect On Your Life

Then Jesus came over and touched them.  "Get up," he said.  "Don't be afraid."

Matthew 17: 7

1.  Where do you need God's touch in your life?  What are of your life do you feel fear about?

2.  How has God caused you to shine?  What makes you feel loved? 

3.  When are you able to "close your door" and be transformed by God's presence?  

4.  If God could actually write you a love letter, what would He say to you about your life now? 

An Unsinkable Ship, John Boy, and a Beloved Psalm

Recently, my children and I were watching an episode of Walton's Mountain!  Yeah, I know!  I loved that show!  I watched all the reruns right up until college and I love that my kids are getting into that show too.  Timeless television.  The episode we most recently watched included a funeral scene, where of course, everyone was dressed in the darkest black wardrobes, complete with veils,  on a perfect spring day, while the preacher recited Psalm 23.  You could have put the scene on a hallmark card.  It is almost universal for Christians to pray that psalm, or sing it, when someone has passed away.  You just can't go wrong with the effect of peace and calm serenity that this beautiful prayer has upon a person's grieving heart while you lay a loved one to rest.  

As much as I love hearing it recited at funerals, I have also found that it has become extremely useful when it comes to my mind.   Our mind is what separates us from the rest of creation.  We have the ability to think, and not only do we have the ability to think, we have freedom about what we will think.  We can choose which thoughts will fill our minds.  And if we were able to write down absolutely every single thought we've ever had, word for word, we would be shocked at some of the thoughts we allow ourselves to entertain.  Some of these thoughts need to be offered up to the Shepherd and laid to rest.

The first line in Psalm 23 states that God is our shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.  If this is true, and there isn't anything that I could want because God is protecting us, feeding us, guiding us, and making sure we never get lost, then I should have absolutely no worries.  We are being called in this very first line of this Psalm of LIFE, to let our worries die, to let them rest in green meadows.  The green meadows being a quiet mind, a mind of silent meditation, and empty of thinking.  We have the ability to stop any thought at any time, allowing the life we gave them to pass. We have the ability to go to the pastures of silence and let our worries rest in peace.  Our minds need  rest from all the ridiculous, crazy thinking we do, and the stories we make up about our life.  Burying our worries and giving them back to the earth to decay, we are led beside the peaceful streams of new thinking.

My oldest daughter came to me, worried that some of the "mean girls" were trying to take her friends.  She had  convinced herself that everyone in her classroom was on the "mean girls" side.  She thought that single thought enough so that she believed everyone was "against" her and no one wanted to be her friend.  Of course there were tears involved.  But as I began to question her to get the facts about the situation, she discovered that even though some of her friends did other things with the "mean girls", they still came back to her,, wanting to do things with her too.  Clare was thinking and believing a certain thought that needed to be laid to rest in order to make space for the truth.  Once she allowed that false thought to pass, peaceful streams filled her mind and her heart. Not only had a false thought died, but so did an underlying fear that no one would like her. Once she could name that fear, her strength to go back into the classroom was renewed.  God could now lead her on a right path. She began to change her thought from no one likes me to a new thought, I have plenty of friends and I am likable. One thought kept her walking in a dark valley of fear, afraid of being alone.  The new thought enabled her to survive the darkest valley while the light of her new thinking began to dawn on her mind and dissolve it day by day.  By burying an old thought, she found a rod of strength in her Center that would protect her from repeating that experience.  She also found a staff of hope to comfort her when she felt that old thought trying to resurrect itself from the grave where she had once laid it to rest.

Her enemies, the "mean girls" had a feast prepared for her spirit.  If it weren't for them, the self-confidence that she had gained would not have grown deeper and stronger.  Were it not for them, she wouldn't have been able to identify an underlying issue with self-esteem.  Were it not for them, the feast of seeing herself in a new light, a light of being loveable, likeable for who she is, without having to change herself, would never have emerged.  That is a "feast" that will last for a lifetime.  She began to realize that nothing was done to her and everything that the "enemy" had done, was done for her. So now her feast includes thanksgiving and gratitude for the "mean girls".   Clare's mind, her head, was anointed with the oil of insight, understanding, and wisdom.  The cup of her life now overflows with blessings of friendship, honesty, true self-esteem, and right thinking toward her enemy.  Goodness and unfailing love can pursue her because she won't let that fear pursue her anymore, having laid it in its proper grave.  The death of that thought, and the story of fear she believed to be true, is gone, dead, lifeless, never to rise and live again.  And Clare can live in the house of the LORD forever.  Her house being inside her built upon love's foundation, a healthy love of who she is, a respect for what our mis-guided thoughts and made up stories about our reality can do to us, and a love of who she really is, not who she thinks others need her to be.

Clare didn't totally buy all of this at first.  Finding something that she would listen to, and could connect with, was key.  She is completely obsessed with Titanic.  She can't get enough of the stories, the people who experienced it, what happened, and why that great ship went down.  She could probably teach a college course on it, and she has written James Cameron to tell him of how much she loves this ship's story.  When I explained to her that what we think can "sink her ship" then she started to listen.  I explained to her that thoughts can cause death or life.  And what we think will cause us to either sink to a cold, icy death or enable us to stay afloat and swim to a lifeboat.  We had been able to visit the Titanic Museum in Branson, and there you receive a card with a name on it, and at the end of the tour, you get to find out if you lived or died.  All of our family members were survivors.  I reminded her of this, and told her to start thinking "survivor" thoughts.  Then I could see this lesson start to click.  I can imagine how many times Psalm 23 must have been recited on that unsinkable ship's night of death.  Some thoughts must die a cold death if we are going to live in the house of the Lord for the rest of our lives.

Identify the stories you tell yourself based on thoughts of fear.  Lay them in their dark graves, and then go to your green meadow of a mind fixed on nothing but God.  Sit beside the peaceful streams of loving thoughts and be renewed by the strength of Truth.  The shepherd who provides you with all you need will guide you on a right path and will get you through the darkest valley of fear, of which you will not be afraid, because your fears were never real.  God will stay close beside you, holding a rod of strength and a staff of hope to comfort and protect you.You will dine on the feast of friendship and your mind will have been anointed with the oil of self-love, knowledge, and wisdom.  The cup of your heart will overflow with blessings and gratitude at what God has brought to life inside you. Because you've thought a different thought, only good things can pursue you because you believe in your goodness. What has died in your mind has caused you to live in the House of the Lord forever because love lives forever, not fear. 

When that famous line in the Walton's comes at the end of the show, "Good Night, John Boy", it really is a good night.  A night without valleys of fear, a night of strength and hope, a night with only friends, no enemies in sight, a night of dreams filled with green meadows.... a night of walking the right path, with a Shepherd that provided, even during the Great Depression. The Walton house was the Lord's house in many ways. A simple love lived there.  That's why I loved that show and that's why my kids love it too.  Love always prevailed. 

An excerpt of Psalm 23 from MPMW Vol. 1

Lord, you are my Shepherd

I shall not want.

Lead me, God, to stillness and quiet,

make my worries lie down

in the greenest pastures of your presence.

Please restore me, God.

Please change me. 

Let me feel your love.

Make me new,

And awaken me to right thinking and lead me on

love's perfect path.

Meet me in the valley of my fear, worry, and lack

and save me from myself.

Reflect On Your Life

1.  Pray the 23rd Psalm before you meditate.  Give one worry that you have to God. 

2.  What helps take you to your "green meadow"?  What helps you quiet your mind?

3.  Tell God everything about your worries.  Listen for a response.  What did God tell you?

Perfectly Imperfect, We Are All in This Together

We just returned from a trip back to Nebraska to visit family. Usually, we try to leave right after Christmas Day and spend a week, but this year, it didn't work.  So we had to pull the kids from school, gather homework, and make our way North.  (No complaints from the kids, that's for sure!)  The combination of getting older and living a couple states away makes you appreciate the time with family even more.  Each year, we bring home new family pictures, and the focus is always how much the kids have grown and changed.  We forget how much the moms and dads have "grown" and "changed" too! Yikes! Young and old, we are all growing and changing, and always moving toward greater happiness, contentment, and ultimately, heaven.

Because of distance, commitments, health, weather, and everything in between, time with my mother is special.  As I've achieved just a few years of motherhood under my belt, you begin to make a few observations about motherhood, and realize just how diverse this special "club" is that we belong to.  Mothers are as unique as snowflakes. No two mothers are alike.  Each are fashioned of  their own design, patterns, and beauty. Each sparkle and capture the light in their own way.  Some women become mothers later in life.  Some mothers are just barely adults when they have children. Some mothers go grey at 26 years of age and some mothers don't have a grey hair on their head till 70.  And thanks to hair color, some may never grow grey! (Isn't hair color the best!)  Some mothers were born to be mothers.  They knew they "just had" to be a mother.  Other mothers didn't feel "maternal" at all.  They sort of "grew into" their role as moms.  Some mothers have adopted their children and some have given birth to their own children.  Some mothers are single, some are married, and some are divorced a couple of times over.

Mothers come in all shapes and sizes.  Some have model-like qualities about their physical appearance. They are absolutely beautiful.  Some mothers are chunky and thick and some moms are way too thin.  Some mothers suffer from obesity and some suffer from anorexia.  Some mothers live in their "mom jeans" and some moms wear their heals everywhere.  (The higher the heal, the closer to God!)  Some mothers have to have jewelry on and some won't wear a piece of jewelry until they attend a wedding.  Some mothers love their yoga pants and some moms change their clothes a few times before they find what they want to wear.  To some moms, lipstick and mascara are a must before they go out, and for some, putting on a hat is just fine. Some moms shop at Target, others at Wal-Mart and still others at Macy's or Banana Republic, or thrift stores and garage sales.

Some moms stay at home until their kids are older and some stay at home until their kids go off to college. Some moms need to work outside the home to make ends meet and some mothers work three different jobs to put food on the table.  And some moms work at a job simply for the benefits.  Other moms may work from home and some moms work part-time to save their sanity.  Some moms see work as a vacation.  All moms are working moms 24/7.  They are always on call, ready for anything.   Some moms can fix anything - toilets, vacuum cleaners, leaky faucets, and clogged drains.  Some moms won't touch a tool.  Some moms work out at the gym every day, and others squeeze in a walk now and then.  Other moms hate exercise, or just don't have the time or the energy. Some mothers live very long lives, experiencing their own children becoming senior citizens and some mothers live a very short time, never seeing their children give them grandchildren.  Some mothers bury their children and experience miscarriage after miscarriage.  Some mothers live with serious illnesses and diseases while other mothers barely get a cold.  Some mothers battle mental illness and depression, while other mothers are the epitome of happiness no matter what. Some of us are mothers of a special needs child and some mothers have given birth to a genius. Some of us are just plain, ordinary moms of plain, ordinary children. Some mothers are paralyzed, some have lost limbs, and some are blind and deaf.  Some mothers rely on day care, nannies, and baby sitters, and some have only themselves to depend upon.

There is one thing every mom has in common, and that is, that no mom is perfect.  We are perfectly imperfect, figuring out how to be a mom to the children we have been blessed with as we go.  Some of us have read a ton of books on the subject of mothering and children, and others of us, haven't read one single book. We all make mistakes.  We all have probably said or done things we wish we wouldn't have said or done.  We've all done or said some really brilliant things too.  Mothers are deeply courageous, extremely creative, and hopelessly optimistic or we couldn't do this job/ministry very well. Some mothers never get tired of being a mom and some wake up sometimes wishing they didn't have to be a mom - just for a day, pretty please?  None of us are completely well-rested.  And maybe it's best that way.  If we were too well-rested and sharp, we would probably be an even bigger mess. Sometimes being in a sleep-deprived fog is just as good as a bottle of prozac.... well, maybe.

All of us moms want to give our kids everything, and be the best mom we can be.  We want to meet all of their needs, all of the time. It is a hard task to be the perfect combination of the cool mom and the nagging parent.  But at some point, moms are going to "fail" their kids.  Something is going to happen that has completely caught us off guard and we aren't going to be completely prepared for it at all. Think about it, one human being gives birth to  another human being.  These two human beings may grow to get along perfectly, or they may never see anything in the same way, ever. The combinations of this spectrum are endless because God's creativity and imagination and plans for us are endless.  Nevertheless, the mother you wind up with is the perfect mother for you. But what about the mothers who are drug addicts, the mothers who abandoned us and left the family, the mothers who gave their children up for adoption, the mothers who abused their child, the mothers who were never home because they had to work several jobs just to keep up.  What about the mothers who knew their husbands were sexually abusing a child and said nothing, or blamed them?  What about the mothers who sit in smoky bars while their kids sit in the bar too, or worse, their cars, waiting for mom to finish.  What about the mothers who go through boyfriends like kids go through candy?  How is it possible that these moms are the perfect moms for their kids?  How can you say that God had this kind of "perfect mother" in mind for these innocent and perfect child who have no choice but to live with the mother they were born with?

For some reason children seem to be programmed to believe that their mom will never let them down at any time, for any reason.  We start life out depending on them for everything and we depend upon this fantasy that every mother is going to be perfectly educated, completely self-aware, spiritually/religiously sound, have all the answers at just the right moment, and that there isn't anything that could happen to me that they wouldn't be able to fix.  But what school did our mom, or us as moms go to, in order to become this Goddess-Mom?  What curriculum was put together, and by whom, so that I could possibly believe this fantasy?  Where do you get one of those diplomas because I could use one of those.  There wasn't any "school" that any mother went to, except the "school" of their own experience of their mom. Moms learn from their moms, and their moms learned from their moms.  So, it only stands to reason that parts of the curriculum are going to be left out, never addressed, the textbooks never opened, some collecting years of dust.  We do "turn into our moms", for better or worse,  because we spend a lot of time being their child, absorbing everything they said and didn't say, everything from mannerisms to the way they talk, to the expressions on their face, to the way they handled stress, the way they communicate, the way they juggled the demands of life to their philosophies on life, and even the way they argued and handled conflicts.

There are a few theories about how children come into the world.  We get the biological aspect of entering the universe.  Some of us believe that the mother we ended up with was completely random and some believe it is no accident at all.  I have heard mothers say that they felt chosen by their child, had dreams about the child they would have, and I've heard of moms saying that they felt their babies "recognize" them in a deep way, as if they knew their mother long before they were born into this world. And going back into biblical history, there are plenty of examples of "announcements" of children that would be born to chosen mothers - our most extraordinary example being Jesus, and his mother, Mary. No pressures for her, right?

I don't believe that children are born randomly to just any mother.  Believing that our purpose is to grow spiritually, through the  healing of our hearts, the transformation of our minds, and learning how to love, forgive, and serve in the name of Love, we begin the journey of spiritual growth with the mother that gave us life, and/or the mother that adopted us. Every mother and her child each have spiritual growth to accomplish, and I believe that they agree to do this together long before they take on the form of a body and enter the physical world that we know as earth.  I believe they choose each other, the various sets of circumstances that will arise in their lifetime, each one agreeing to play the role of "mother" and "child", each agreeing to be a "soul mate" to each other, each agreeing to teach the other how, through those various circumstances that come up in their lives, how to love, forgive, grow, and live as a servant of God.  In this way, we all have been blessed with the perfect mother. Everything has happened exactly as it should, every detail perfect in the good work that God has begun in both mother and child. Both mother and child can much more easily embrace the other's character flaws and mistakes, can "see" through the lens of spirit how to love the one who hurt you, and even be happy for that because they are the ones that not only been left with physical stretch marks and birth marks,  but stretch marks and birth marks upon our soul because the easy weight of love grew bigger and bigger. Both are able to acknowledge that they needed each other to learn how to love larger, and forgive bigger and more readily than ever.  So, even a child who has been greatly wounded by a mother can ultimately say Thank you, Mom, for agreeing to play such an "unattractive, and sometimes, even hateful role" so that I might become the spiritually magnificent and mature creation of God that I am today, and that I believe you to be too.  Instead of seeing how "awful" a mother might treat her child, the spiritually savvy person realizes how much her mother "sacrificed" in this world in order that the healing work of God could be accomplished in their life.  What once may have seemed like unforgivable circumstances is now seen as almost nothing to forgive.  Neither person, mother or child, superior to the other.  Both are teacher and student, fulfilling the role they each agreed to in the first place.  In this light, it becomes very "easy" to love your "enemy" because your enemy isn't really your "enemy" after all.  This is cause to be happy, even when you feel  persecuted, betrayed, or misunderstood.  

Like it or not, every mother will fail her child at some point, on some level. We must depend upon God for the grace of eyes to see and ears to hear what this very complex relationship is trying to teach us. One of the very first spiritual lessons we have to go through is forgiving our mothers and our fathers for hurting us.  Working through the hurt, the pain, and the anger isn't going to be easy, or quick, but the "sting" of it all is diminished greatly just by the thought that way back when, in Higher Realms, when you were both pure light, you agreed to all of this.  You chose each other to participate in a covenant relationship with God  that also included you and your parents, and your other family members, brother, sister, spouse, etc.  We live in this world with the title family, but we are not of this world.  We are spirits, who took the form of a body, to be born into the physical world with the sole purpose and the soul purpose of healing certain aspects of heart and mind, and God accomplishes this in our worldly families.  We acknowledge that we were loved by God first, and that Love never changes, and God will love us forever. Only God can love us in the way that we need to be loved. Children cannot expect that of their mothers, their parents. It is Truth that we belong to God first, not our parents.  We belong to Heaven first, not this world.

Every mother does the best they can with every child, given the circumstances they grew up in, the kind of mother they had, the knowledge they were able to obtain, and the spiritual understanding and perspective of life they had acquired at that moment and time. Mothers cannot give to their child something that they never had, or were never taught.  Ultimately, no mother should ever carry around guilt, blame, or shame no matter what may or may not have transpired in their relationships with their children.  We all do better when we know better, and sometimes all of us in our families, just didn't know any better.  Generation after generation we spiritually grow in all kinds of ways.  Generation after generation, God transforms our thinking, changes us in ways that otherwise may never happen, and mends legacy after legacy of wounds.  Every generation is a step up on the spiritual ladder of growth.  We really are all in this together. And ultimately, we are joined in heart and mind. I am my mother and she is me. I am you and you are me.  We really all need the experiences we have with our mothers in order to be the people God intended us, and created us to be.

Mothers, do not compare yourselves to your daughters. Children, do not compare yourselves to your mothers.  Forgive each other and forgive yourselves. Move forward and depend upon God for grace. Learn from each other, apologize if you need to, and try to do better in the future because now you know better. You learned something about yourself and each other.  Pray for each other and bless each other.  Give thanks in all your circumstances, both the good, the beautiful, the ugly, and the hurtful.  Live with a peace beyond understanding because neither of you intended to hurt the other.  Take your spiritual lessons and apply them to your own children or your grandchildren.  Generation after generation be sure to tell of the good things, the miracles of healing and love that God did in your life, so that all generations will call you blessed because the Almighty God has done good things for you. 

I love you, Mom. I know and feel you love me. I have more happy memories than disappointments. You gave me more than I could ever hope for, always provided whatever I needed.  You are a wonderful mom, a magnificent grandmother, and I have learned lessons that I treasure far more than any amount of money or material blessings.  We were meant for each other, and I look forward to more memories, more lessons, more love, and more time together.  I thank God for your sacrifices, your endless support, and your belief in who I am.

The following prayer is an excerpt from Mother Prayers, Mama Wisdom 

Transformed and Saved, Volume 2

Exalted One,

Wed my soul to the deepest truth within this beautifully

complex relationship that I have with my mother.

Remind me, God, that even though my parents

may have failed me at times, You cannot fail me.

Show me, God, everything that hasn't been fully 

healed in this relationship.

Transform the wounds of my past into a legacy of healing

handed down to my own children.

Deliver me from pain to healing, from brokenness to wholeness.

Let the victim in me refrain from feasting on their faults.

Instead, let the adult in me, dine at the banquet of forgiveness.

Forgive us, God, for we know not what we do.

Let me see my parents as you see them.

I release my parents from all I needed them to be

and accept them for who they are. 

May only peace and compassion remain in our hearts. Amen.

Reflect On Your Life

Can a mother forget her child? Even if your mother should forsake you,

I would not forget you!  See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.

Isaiah 49: 15-16

1.  What have you learned from your mother?  What are the greatest lessons she gave you?

2.  What is a favorite memory of your mother that you love to think about and even comforts you?

3.  Where do you find challenges in your relationship with your mom?  How is God asking you to think differently about this relationship?

What will your "state of heart" be in 2013?

2012 is almost behind us, and if I had to pick a theme that sums up what the past year was "about", I would have to say "learning to be content".   One of my very favorite scripture passages is from Philippians, which I I think sums up 2012 for me - a year of growing in my understanding of contentment.

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.  I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. Philippians 4: 11

Learning to be content, satisfied, and happy, no matter what, is not always easy.  We have had our financial challenges this year, we've experienced a lot of grief in our church family this year, and I think it is safe to say that we have had more "empty" moments this year than most....  To everything there is a season, and 2012, was definitely a season of needing to be filled and trying to help "fill" others through their own seasons of loss, challenges and times of change.  What I know for sure is that even during the what seemed to be "endless, empty" moments God was there, right by my side.

Contentment doesn't just happen.  It is both a grace and a choice that has to be cultivated and tended to each and every day.  It is not just a state of mind, it is a steady "state of heart"...  A heart filled with gratitude, a heart filled with hope, and a heart filled with patience.  Remembering to be grateful for the small things in life lays the foundation for contentment and wards off the desire to love self-pity, which is the exact opposite of contentment.  Some days, all I could find to be thankful for was that I had hot water to take a shower, a van to drive, and tylenol to take for a headache.  There is always something, and someone, to be thankful for. Give thanks in all things, for this is God's will for you...1Thessalonians 5:18 The key word in this verse is all.  In even the worst situation, we can find something to be thankful for.  Gratitude is the womb in which the seed of contentment attaches itself to, and grows. Contentment relies on our ability to enjoy the continual feast of a merry heart Proverbs 15:15   Contentment needs the oxygen of gratitude in order for it to come alive in us, breathing in and out,  causing us to rise up out of near-death circumstances that we perceive to be "less than perfect".  Contentment is not dependent upon the perfection of anything.  God is content with us, just as we are, and we are certainly less than perfect, but always growing, always moving toward happiness, always making our way toward heaven-on-earth. And we must be content with God, even when we don't understand, or "get" what God is doing, or not doing. If gratitude is the space inside us in which contentment expands, then authentic hope is the soothing water that surrounds contentment and cushions it from outside dangers, enabling it to move freely at will, always protected and nourished.  Proverbs 23:18 reads:  There is surely a future of hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.  Hope is the belief and trust that God is always fighting, on our behalf, for our happiness, and that the desires that God has placed in our heart will be fulfilled in the perfect time.  Hope is the belief that God will not disappoint us.  When we know and trust that we have a future of hope, we can be content with whatever today holds, that all things work together for those who love God....for those who hear the call to have hope no matter what.  Things may not be what we want them to be today, but they will be something better, brighter, and bigger tomorrow, and the next day, the next month and the next year, right into the next life.  Hope trusts in the bigger picture, the larger vision, that only God can see and understand.  Hope leaves behind human logic and clings to a higher logic, the logic of God. Hope trusts that the miracle we need  will come, and it will come just in time.  There is no limit to her hope and never will she fall....1 Cor 13: 7 Hope never puts a limit on what God can do. It never puts boundaries on God's power and might to accomplish what must be accomplished. When we can enter the warm space of gratitude and immerse ourselves in the waters of hope, patience will keep us content to labor until what we've hoped for arrives in our world. 

Patience is sheer grace, the virtue upon which the contented heart beats and forms the lifeblood of true joy in what is in this moment.   Let's face it, the teachers of patience are many.  We must learn to be patient with our parents, our children, our co-workers, our check-out lines, our church leaders, our country's leaders, our religion, our doctors, our lawyers, our spouses, our friends, our God, and life.  Patience resists nothing. Patience doesn't feel lack or the pressure of man-made time. Patience is the gift of allowing... allowing the high and low tides of life to move in and out at will.  The patient person is the person who knows how to wait with a smile for things to work out in their own time and their own God-driven way.  Patience expands love and compassion and impatience contracts our hearts and blocks the love, the happiness, the "very best dream" that God wants to hand to us.  Impatience wants everything "now"  Patience knows that "now" is already here.  "Now is when we are at our happiest, not in the future when what we've waited for has arrived.  Patience knows that man-made time is strictly of this world and only trusts in God's eternal time, the eternal now.  My people, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  James 1: 2-4.  Patience doesn't believe in lack, time restraints, or that everyone should do as I do, believe as I believe or act as I would act.  This kind of patience is what keeps us content when hard times find us.  Patience declares that God doesn't have to do as I would do, believe what I believe or act as I would act.  Patience recognizes, and keeps in perspective, that I am one person out of billions on this planet. The space that my life occupies in this world is so tiny.  My experience of hardship isn't the only experience of hardship.  My experience of being blessed isn't the only experience of being blessed. No one in this world has to be "my kind of perfect".  Patience espouses the fact that it isn't about me, it is about all of us, all of the time, all over the world. Patience willingly sets aside my expectations and weds itself only to Loving everyone, everywhere, all the time, in this moment.  The patient mind is the mind filled with God.  A mind filled with God is always hopeful, grateful, and peaceful.  A mind filled with gratitude, hope and patience is forever content.  All anyone can do is to try and love someone moment by moment.  In this lies genuine contentment. 

My favorite moments of contentment in 2012: Listening to my husband whisper, I love you, hearing my children laugh uncontrollably, holding two books that I have written in my hands,  hearing a friend's voice on the phone when I needed it most, my husband rushing home to hold me after hearing our world lost such a large group of children in an elementary school in Newtown, CT.,  being able to give two plates of food to a homeless person on Christmas Eve,  listening to my son read to me every night, praying with my children and my husband every morning before school, watching my husband heal after foot surgery and seeing him walk pain-free, watching people stand in line for hours to vote, the privilege of  reading to a friend late at night while she lay dying from cancer,  comforting my children after a bad dream, kissing my husband after a long day of work, meeting another former nun and listening to her experience of healing and hope, continually hearing God say I love you.  I am here.  I will help you.  

I am praying for a contented world in 2013.  I am praying for all of my reader's contentedness. I am grateful for all of the many moments of sheer contentment in 2012 and I cling to a future bathed in the waters of hope, a future saturated with thanksgiving, and a future flooded with realized dreams, brought to fruition through the grace of patience...with each other, with life, and with God.  For God knows the plans he has for us in 2013...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 

Please, God, remove the desperation from our world,

and grow perfectly contented  hearts everywhere.

                                        Keep us patient with everyone, especially myself                                   when everything feels wrong.

Shield us from self-pity, lack, and negativity.

Keep us hopeful when darkness appears.

Keep us grateful moment by moment, God.

Prosper us even as we wait and dream.

Dissolve our need to have everything now.

Keep us in a state of pure contentment, God, during our trials and tribulations,
our needing and our having, our losses and our gains,
our joys and our tears.

Keep us happy all the time, God,  no matter what.  Amen.

Reflect On Your Life

May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing with hope.  Roman 15: 13

1.  What is blocking your natural state of contentment at this time?  

2.  In what or whom does your hope depend upon?  

3.  What keeps you grateful?  How do you guard your heart from self-pity?  

4.  What is the thing, the situation, or the time where your patience is tested and grown the most?

5. In all of the problems you face, what are you grateful for amidst the problems you experience?