Of mice and broken things

I cried about mouse poison this morning.  Well, more exactly, about the need to purchase mouse poison.

I heard it in the ceiling last night - that horrible skittering sound - and I talked myself out of believing it. I convinced myself it was grandma's dog upstairs.  I popped in earplugs to block out ambient noise, and turned up the Grey's Anatomy re-run I was watching on Netflix, and I convinced myself it was okay to sleep, and there wasn't something skittering around in the ceiling above my head, and that it wouldn't come through the pop-out ceiling tiles that my grandpa shoddily put in place decades ago, and land on me while I was sleeping.

It worked, too, until this morning when I heard it again, just before heading upstairs and discovering that the dog was outside.

And then I called my mom and I cried.  Because I needed to go out and buy mouse poison.

More exactly, I cried because this seemed like the last straw in a week that had been filled with hard stuff.

Two different good friends are facing major illnesses in parents right now.

Others are facing major illnesses of their own.

My nursing semester hasn't started off anything like what I was hoping, and I'm playing a waiting game, getting more and more stressed about getting in the hours that I need before the deadline in early December.

It just seems like the last week has been full of hard things in my life, and in the lives of people I love.

And now there's a mouse in my ceiling, making my already ridiculous living situation just that much crazier.

The mouse was the last straw.  I ended up leaving the house, walking to a local bookstore, and browsing until I'd managed to calm myself out of an anxiety attack.

Then I walked home and put mouse poison in my ceiling, and convinced myself that earplugs are a great invention.

I'm drained - so drained that I couldn't even make a decision about what to make for dinner.  I let a friend on facebook do it for me. (I'm going to make a turkey burger and some steamed veggies).

I'm drained, and I'm sad, but I did manage to fight off an anxiety attack today.  And I'm going to have a healthy meal, and then maybe go for another quick walk in the sun, just to gear up for bed.

So I cried over mouse poison, but really, I cried over broken things - a broken world, broken bodies, broken organizations, and a broken house.  And then I got up and did something about the one of those things I could tangibly manage.  And that made me feel just a little bit better as I walked home from the bookstore, and from buying mouse poison and tried to pray.

They Kill Prophets

Her words have played over and over in my head in the week or so since I sat across from her.

"It seems that in this area, like so many others in your life, you are called to be 'other', to speak, to be a prophet calling out from the outside."

I cringe every time the words come back to me; each time they sink a bit more deeply into my reality.

There's a truth there, but one I'd rather avoid.

She is a trusted advisor that I've come to know over the last year and a bit.  She listened as I shared, as I thought out loud, and then she gently called me to task.

"I don't want to hear those words," I told her.

Tears sprang to life, unbidden, and it takes me a few moments to collect myself, to continue.

"I don't want to be other.  It's alienating.  It's deeply lonely, this living on the outside.  It hurts."

We talk about this for a while, and she tasks me with the job of remembering those who surround me even in this place.

And yet, as the week has played out, it is the truth, spoken again of being separate that has stuck with me.

It's that truth that makes me ache as I ponder various facets of my life - as I consider the places where my spirit is being challenged to expand, to grow.

And it leads again to the conversation Jesus and I have been having for many years.  The one where I stop and look at him, disgruntled, hurting, annoyed.  The one where I ask "This too?  I have to be different, to be other, to call from the outside in this facet too? I couldn't exist from within the boundaries on just this one?  It wasn't enough that I was already separate in all those other ways? You're asking this as well?  Sure, being a prophet is a noble gig, but you remember, they kill prophets!  It was you who pointed this out to the pharisees.  I don't want this."

And it is quiet.  And then I remember, I remember this Jesus who was isolated, whose dearest friends fell asleep in his moment of anguish.  I remember this Jesus who begged his Father for a different path, not in a resigned, "I guess I'll do it, but I'm just checking" sort of way, but with a fervor that caused blood vessels to burst, that caused droplets of blood where sweat should have been.

And my separation, my wrestle, my questions, they're still not sated.  But I am comforted by the reminder that this road is one I don't walk alone.

Wine-Stained Hands

I've been thinking a lot this week about one of the most powerful encounters with Jesus that I've ever had.  I've shared in this space before about my story of healing (I share it every year on the anniversary, November 1st), and that is a pivotal moment.  But, there is one other pivotal moment.  One that I've carried inside my heart for quite a few years, choosing not to share it publicly, to protect it, and process it, and let it make itself truly at home within me.

This week I realized that I might not ever be fully at home with this experience.  That it is an experience that will probably shape me for the rest of my life.  And as I realized that, I discovered that I am ready to share it.

It feels risky, sharing this here.  I prefer to talk in generalities in this space about my life with Jesus - to talk in quiet tones about the ongoing dance that I do between the conservative church upbringing that shaped me, and the charismatic experiences that have defined the last ten years of my life or so.  It's easier to talk in generalities than to be specific about realities.  It's easier to talk in generalities that it is to risk judgement, confusion, or misunderstanding.  And yet, this week, as I reflect on that moment, and on things that have flowed from it in my life, I can't help but feel it demand to be expressed.  And so, I'm going to try.

It's no secret to those who know me even a little that I have an active dream life (waking, but particularly sleeping).  Dreams have been a part of my reality for as long as I can remember, from the earliest nightmares as a child, to the dark, earth-shattering dreams I experienced at the height of my battle with depression, to the dreams that are oddly close to reality.  When I first encountered the idea taught by charismatics that dreams are still a primary way that God speaks to his people, I was horrified.  At the time, in the throes of depression, I slept minimally, and what little sleep I had was marked by nightmares so vivid that I would wake and lay in the dark, wondering why my bed was shaking until it would hit me that the bed was shaking because of the trembling of my body due to residual fear and adrenaline.  With this as my primary experience of the dream world, I couldn't imagine why anyone would actually pray, asking God to cause them to dream!  (In fact, I remember  agreeing to pray that for one friend, since it was her specific desire, while at the same time only quasi-jokingly informing her that I thought this was an absolutely crazy request!)

And then, then God stepped in.  My moment of healing happened, and that night was marked by the first time in years where I managed six straight hours of sleep uninterrupted by either waking or nightmares.  I assumed that my years of dreaming were about to give way to years of peaceful sleep, free from dreams of any sort.

I assumed wrong.

By the fall of 2007, I was coming to a grudging acknowledgement (acceptance was still far away) that dreams, this time falling into four categories, were going to be a long-term part of my life.  I developed four categories, "god dreams," "bad pizza dreams," "processing dreams," and (for lack of a better descriptor) "demonic nightmares."  The vast majority of the dreams I was experiencing still fell into the latter three categories, and I was choosing to simply be thankful that the last category was rarer than it ever had been in my life.  I was definitely not asking Jesus for an increase of dreams of any sort, and I continued to be highly skeptical of those who celebrated their dreams as encounters with a living God.

And then, one night, that fall, in the midst of a season in which I was experiencing a myriad of new things in my walk with Jesus, I went to sleep.

You knew that was where this was going, right?  I mean, could it be going anywhere else?

I went to sleep, and dreamed the following:

I entered a room, set for a formal banquet with snowy white table linens, gorgeous china, and sparkling crystal.  People milled around, finding seats at the table, but I held back, shy - afraid even.  The only one in the room that I recognized was Jesus and I would have done anything to escape his notice.  Slowly it dawned on me that everyone was now seated, and the only seat left at the table was in the center, directly across from Jesus.  It was the opposite of the invisibility I craved.  But, knowing everyone was watching, and desperate to have their attention turn elsewhere, I quietly made my way to my seat, keeping my eyes down.  Once seated, I refused to look up, but again somehow knew that I was being watched.  This time, it was Jesus watching me.  He was clearly waiting for something, for a blessing of sorts, I thought.  Instinctively, still never looking up, I knew how to respond. I rested my elbows on the edge of the table, and tilted my wrists towards him, cupping my hands over the center of the table, and burying my face quietly against my wrists.  He took a carafe of red wine, and poured it over my hands, until it pooled and spilled over, contrasting against the sparking white linens.

And then I woke.

There's something else I should mention.  At that stage in my life I'd never tasted wine.  I feared alcohol, having seen it's affects on the lives of some I loved.  And knowing that my own personality tended to extremes, and to addiction, in fear I'd made a choice to abstain.  It was beyond odd that wine would be a defining characteristic in my dream.

When I woke, I felt baffled.  I was astounded to have encountered Jesus in a dream (something that has never happened before or since), but was confused by the sequence of events, by the wine.

As the day went on, I puzzled over the dream, wondering at it's meaning.  A few lines from a song recorded by Steve Bell stood out in my heart and played through my thoughts:

Come back to me

with all your heart

Don't let fear keep us apart...

long have I waited for

your coming home to me

and living deeply our new life

I puzzled over the connection of the song to what I had dreamed.  Years later I see the lyrics as a description of the invitation being offered to me as I settled into my place across from Jesus.

That same day, as was often the case, I was listening to a sermon as I walked home from the train.  On that particular day, I wasn't paying very close attention as I walked, thinking instead about the dream, and the events of the day.  It suddenly occurred to me that the pastor speaking (I think it was Rob Bell) was talking about wine!  Odd, and timely.  I started paying attention just in time to hear the pastor speak the following:  "Wine is about the shalom of God, the wholeness of God, the healing of God."

I tuned the sermon back out as I began talking to Jesus, my words spilling over each other in their haste.  "Did you pour your shalom over my hands last night?  Did you pour your wholeness and healing over me, until it overflowed?"

Years later, that is the question I'm still asking.  Months after the dream, while I was in Malta, I asked someone to pour wine over my hands in reality, needing to experience in waking what I had known in sleeping.  That moment in Malta was four years ago this week, and both the dream and that time in a Maltese field have continued to work on my heart.

A view of Maltese fields taken from the walls of Mdina

When I read this post about healing earlier this week, I found myself again pondering that dream that I've quietly held all these years, telling very few, and pondering the ways it has worked in my heart since then.  I found myself thinking again in new ways about what it means that one night, in a dream, Jesus invited me out of fear, and blessed me, pouring his shalom over my hands until they overflowed.  I still ask that question of Jesus, "what does it mean that you poured this out on me?"  And I still find different answers on a regular basis.  I find partial answers in the moments when my heart travels as I pray, and in the moments my hands begin to burn as I lay them on someone and ask for healing.  I keep walking, journeying, asking questions.  I study healing, and sometimes I despair, finding it hard to believe that it is something Jesus desires.  And yet, in those moments, I close my eyes and feel the wine in the dreaming, splashing onto my hands.  I picture the color of the wine staining my skin as it overflowed my hands in Malta, spilling onto the soft, dark dirt on which I stood.  And I am reminded that however it looks, this is a moment that changed and will continue to change me, and that Jesus is constantly pouring out his shalom, his healing, his wholeness on this earth, and simply asking me to be a vessel for that, to notice and point it out.

Friday Reflections, February 3, 2012

On Monday, the email below was the daily reflection in the email of the Daily Texts from the Moravian church.  I found it timely as I've been praying this week for several who are ill, and noting a huge prevalence of cancer around me at the present.  And so today, I reflect with the Moravians on a God who heals.


O Lord, restore me to health and make me live. Isaiah 38:16

She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well."
Mark 5:27-28,34

God of wellness, we know fear when disease strikes us hard. We seek cures from doctors and pray for healing. Most of all, we lay our lives in your hands. Make us whole in spirit and touch our bodies. Amen.

A People With Many Secrets

It seems to be becoming something of a regular thing to post a prayer by Walter Brueggemann in this space on Thursdays, and today is no exception.  As I continue to slowly re-read "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth", the book of his prayers, I regularly find bits that express deep heart cries with clarity that demand their reposting in this space.  And so today I offer you the prayer with the same title as this post, written and read to a Psalms class, on January 14, 1999.

You are the God from whom no secret can be hid,
and we are a people with many secrets,
that we want to tell for the sake of our lives,
that we dare not tell because they are deep and painful.
But they are our secrets...and they count for much;
they are our truth...rooted deep in our lives.
You are the God of all truth,
and now we bid you heed our truth,
about which we will not bear false witness...
The truth of grief unresolved,
the truth of pain unacknowledged,
the truth of fear too child-like,
the truth of hate, as powerful as it is deep,
the truth of being taken advantage of,
and being used,
and manipulated,
and slandered.
We trust the great truth of your wondrous love,
but we will not sit still for it,
UNTIL you hear us.
Our truth - heard by you - will make us free.
So be the God of all truth, even ours,
we pray in the name of Jesus,
who is your best kept secret of hurt.  Amen.

An Advent Prayer

I've still been reading that book of Walter Brueggemann's prayers, and am quite caught by this prayer for the advent season:

The grace and the impatience to wait

In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our finger tips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen.

Our True Home

Another prayer from Walter Bruggemann:

Our True Home

God before and God behind,
God for us and God for your own self,
Maker of heaven and earth,
creator of sea and sky,
governor of day and night.
We give thanks for your ordered gift of life to us,
for the rhythms that reassure,
for the equilibriums that sustain,
for the reliabilities that curb our anxieties.
We treasure from you,
days to work and nights to rest.
We cherish from you,
days to control and nights to dream.
We savor from you,
days to plan and nights to dream.
Be our day and our night,
our heaven and our earth,
our sea and our sky,
and in the end our true home. Amen.
(Old Testament theology class /November 12, 1998)

Stunned by the Morning

I have another prayer of Walter Bruggemann to share with you today.

Stunned by the Morning

The night of defeat is long and still and unbearable.
We know the nights.
And our sisters and brothers
who are cold,
and hungry,
and brutalized know them better than do we.
And you also know the night in Ashdod and in a trillion other times.
How it is with you in the night we do not know.
Perhaps it is like it is with us.
We, with the Philistines, are stunned by the morning.
stunned to find our pet projects toppled.
stunned to find our favorite gods failed.
stunned to find our managed hopes defeated.
Then you in the morning.
You only.
You in splendor.
You in glory.
You in power.
This day we dazzle at your glory in the midst of our long night.
Move in your glory this day in the midst of our many nights.
Bring us to your day.
To your new day.
Your third day. Amen.
(written on Reading 1 Samuel 5 /March 2, 2000)

No Newness Yet

I've been revisiting an absolutely beautiful book of prayers written by Walter Bruggemann lately, and have found myself moved again by his words and driven to share some of these prayers with you. Each prayer in the book was written for an occasion (such as a class lecture - he opened classes with these beautifully written prayers).  This particular prayer caught my attention in a week where I'm celebrating an anniversary of healing, but also conscious of all the places in my own life, and in the world that still cry out for healing.  Bruggemann wrote this prayer for a class on the Psalms that he taught, and the prayer is dated January 21, 1999.

No Newness Yet

You are the God who makes all things new.
We gladly raise our voices and move our lips
to acknowledge, celebrate, and proclaim
your staggering newness.
As we do so, we hold in our hearts
deep awareness of all the places where your newness
is not visible, and
has not come.
Our hearts link to many places of wretchedness
short of your newness.
We picture our folks at home,
sick, in pain, disabled, paralyzed
(we name Frank).
and no newness yet.
We know up close the deep wretchedness
of poverty, of homelessness, of hunger
and no newness yet.
Move our hearts closer to the passion of our lips.
Move our lips closer to your own newness.
Work your newness in hidden, cunning ways among us.
Move us closer to your bodied newness in Jesus,
newness of strength come in weakness,
newness of wisdom come in foolishness.
Draw us from the wretchedness we know
to his scarred, bloody wretchedness
that is your odd entry into our life.
We pray in the sane of his suffering newness. Amen.

Seriously? Seriously? (How I Know When God is Speaking)

We went around the circle, sharing ways we hear God speak, and how we know that it's God.

"It feels intoxicating."

"There is an echo within me - His spirit agreeing with my spirit."

"It matches up with scripture."

All of these pleasant ways of knowing.

I squirmed, just a little, wondering if I should add my voice to this conversation, knowing that what I would say wouldn't sound quite so pleasant.

Mentally sighing and shrugging just a little at the prideful realization that I cared what these people thought, and that I didn't particularly want to be the voice of dissent, and have that color their opinion of me, I began to speak.

"I know it's God when my response is 'Seriously?!?'  I've heard and experienced God in most all of the ways we've talked about, but the most common way that God speaks, and that I know it is really Him is when it is not something I could have ever come up with on my own.  Quite often it's the last thing I want to do.  It almost always drags me far beyond my comfort zone.  And most of the time it doesn't make any sense.  It's the thing that I will fight, and it won't go away.  The thing that causes me to fall immediately back on my favorite Grey's Anatomy explanation and cry 'Seriously! Seriously?'"

The circle was quiet for a moment, until the friend sitting to my left adamantly agreed and shared a bit of her own experience.  The group talked a little bit more about this - that often the things God calls us to are the ones that make very little sense.

I don't know if it colored their opinions of me, but that moment of sharing has stuck with me.  I've thought about it nearly daily in the week since the retreat where it happened.

It makes me smile, this God who mostly speaks to me in a way that arouses my sarcasm, in a way that leaves me wanting to fight, and cower in my safe place, rather than risk trusting.  It makes me smile that He knows that even despite this tendency to fight, I am generally willing to obey, and that He is continually determined to broaden my comfort zone, and my ability to love and trust deeply.

Today I'm asking you - how does God speak to you, and how do you know it's him?

Until You and I Are One

It was last Saturday evening, and I found myself sitting on the floor against a wall in the library of a small Catholic retreat centre.  I'd gathered with other house church leaders for a retreat to plan, pray and dream for the coming year.

I'll be honest and say that I would have rather spent my weekend in other places, but I knew somehow that it was important that I attend, if only because I do provide leadership to one of the house churches and I felt it important for me to meet with the other leaders and get to know them a bit. So, we'd spent some time talking about hearing God speak, and now, now we were spread out across a few different rooms, listening.

I've spent years cultivating a nearly constant dialogue with Jesus, one that only seems to lag when it is suddenly forced to the center of my consciousness.  Saturday was that sort of occasion.  I sat there chafing and wrestling, fighting the distractions in the room - books, unfamiliar spaces, other people moving, breathing, kneeling, listening.  The only thing playing through my thoughts, through my listening, were some song lyrics.  Lines from Misty Edwards:

Come be the fire inside of me
Come be the flame upon my heart
Come be the fire inside of me
Until You and I are one

I was growing irritated with this incessant repetition when I felt the urging to kneel, face to the ground in a posture that has long significance in my conversations with Jesus.  I fought the urge for a bit, arguing with myself, assuming the urge was simply me trying to manufacture something (did I mention that my dialogue with Jesus flows easily until it is forced front and center, at which point it becomes stilted and I second guess it?).  Finally I knelt, and began to understand.

As I've lived in limbo for this last lengthy period of time, I've invited Jesus often into the quiet spaces as a bearer of peace.  I've spoken to him as one I trust to fix and resolve the many challenges of life I've faced.  But it's been quite some time since I've entered into the quiet spaces and felt the urge to simply beg for that love, that Jesus that I love to consume me, to set my heart afire.

Once I was on my knees, I understood.  This particular posture, one of surrender, is central to some deep promises Jesus has spoken over my life.  By entering again into that posture, by welcoming the repetitious song lyrics instead of fighting them, I was able to hear Jesus amidst the noise I'd created in obsessively worrying that this would be the time he wouldn't speak.

And so I invited him to again be the fire inside of me.  To consume my heart with love and passion for Him alone.  To consume the distractions.  And then finally, finally I was able to pray.  To admit again the struggles with life lived in limbo.  To surrender each of those things again to Him.  And to know a different peace than the one that He has constantly met me with.  It was needed, and I will remind myself of that consuming love as I continue to face the struggle with life in limbo over these coming weeks.

"If..." Take 3

If you were to qualify your own spiritual aspirations, what would you say they are?

Today's "If..." question (from If... Questions for the Soul by Evelyn McFarlane & James Saywell) is one that I would answer with three phrases from scripture.  These three phrases, from Romans 12:12 sum up who I desire to be, and the words that Jesus has inscribed deeply on my heart as the things that are central to what he is calling me to be as his follower.

Joyful in hope.
In all things.  In everything.  Choosing joy and life.  Always hopeful, whether life is looking good or bad, bright, or terrifying.  This is my goal.

Patient in affliction.
Willing to learn.  Uncomplaining.  Again, choosing hope and joy.  Resting in the knowledge that in this too, Jesus is at work in me.  Not always expecting affliction, but patient when it comes, and in whatever form it comes.

Faithful in prayer.
My heart loves to pray.  I am never happier or more at home than those moments when I am talking with Jesus.  I believe He has called me to pray for others as well, to be in continual conversation with Him.

And you?  How would you answer today's "If..." question?  Leave the answer or a link to your answer in the comments!

It's Monday

It's Monday, and it's not a long weekend.

By the time this post goes live, I'll as usual be on a bus, on my way downtown to work.

I'll probably be reading, though I might be browsing emails, or simply trying to stay awake.

A week or so ago I learned that the morning bus commute is decidedly NOT a good time to do the meditation exercises that a trusted advisor recommended I do on a daily basis.  Turns out that doing them at that time of the morning mostly leads to falling asleep on the bus.

I'm coming off a very full week, and a busy weekend of tackling things like reading, correspondence that I was behind on, and some baking.

I'm heading into an equally full week, and sorting out how to juggle all of the little things that need to be accomplished, and how to prioritize, and which things really can be let slide just a bit.

That said, both weeks have had and will have more than the normal amount of chances to be with and speak with friends, and I've been grateful for that.  There is a blessing in having heart friends, and in managing to find time with them.  There is blessing, too, in embracing some ministry opportunities that have required a more full compliment of my attention lately.

And so, I'm here, because this is one of the few days this week that doesn't boast evening plans with friends, or ministry obligations.  I'm here, and I'm thinking about and praying for the week ahead.  I'm wondering what sort of humorous adventures it might hold (for example, last week because of work, I can now quite humorously boast that on a stressful day I purchased my first ever pack of cigarettes! (for my boss people, for my boss!))  And I can wonder just exactly what heartbreaks or challenges this week will also hold.

It's a new week.  A Monday.  Not a long weekend.

I'm praying, waiting, and looking for moments of thankfulness.

A Prayer to the God of Ebb and Flow

Some time ago, in the midst of my nightly reading, I flagged a prayer, with the same title as this post, written by Henri Nouwen, as something that I absolutely needed to share with all of you.  And today is the day for it!  Here you are:

A Prayer to the God of Ebb and Flow

Dear Lord, today I thought of the words of Vincent van Gogh: "It is true there is an ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea.  You are the sea.  Although I experience many ups and downs in my emotions and often feel great shifts and changes in my inner life, you remain the same.  Your sameness is not the sameness of a rock, but the sameness of a faithful lover.  Out of your love I came to life; by your love I am sustained; and to your love I am always called back.  There are days of sadness and days of joy; there are feelings of guilt and feelings of gratitude; there are moments of failure and moments of success; but all of them are embraced by your unwavering love.

My only real temptation is to doubt in your love, to think of myself as beyond the reach of your love, to remove myself from the healing radiance of your love.  To do these things is to move into the darkness of despair.

O Lord, sea of love and goodness, let me not fear too much the storms and winds of my daily life, and let me know that there is an ebb and flow but that the sea remains the sea.  Amen.
(Seeds of Hope, pg. 88)

You Ask, I Answer, Take 17

Today's You Ask, I Answer question comes from Johanna, in Germany.  She asked:

What does prayer mean to you? How do you cultivate your prayer life?

At this stage in my life, prayer is so central to who I am that it's funny to me to look back and realize that for many, many years, I hated prayer and thought of it as a sort of necessary obligation, and a boring and rather useless one at that!  In fact, it was so well known that I was not a fan of prayer, and particularly not a fan of praying aloud, that the friend who was my young life leader in high school would pointedly force the issue!  She made me pray in public at every opportunity she could.  It was nearly always my "turn" to bless the food when we ate together.  She'd let me know at the beginning of our small group prayer times that while the others had an option of whether or not to speak up and I pray, I'd better be opening my mouth and talking with God!  It drove me crazy, and became almost a game - how could I avoid it, and how could she force the issue!

Somewhere early in university, I began attending a new church, and encountered people who seemed to really believe that prayer was actually important and effective, and that it didn't have to be boring!  Some of that coincided with the time period where I encountered the 24-7 Prayer movement in a number of forms and places, and learned new things about prayer, and discovered creative expressions of prayer.  Some of it coincided with the time where I ultimately had a profound encounter with God, and experienced healing from some severe depression and oppression that had haunted my steps for years.

So, what does prayer mean to me?  I don't have a definition for form, and I'm probably far more lacksidaisical about prayer than some.  Prayer for me is anything that allows me to engage in conversation and relationship with Christ.  Sometimes it looks like actually sitting down in the very traditional way, and talking to God, but sometimes it looks like worship music playing, or writing, or doing something creative, or spotting something that reminds me of something or someone on my heart and challenges me to lift them before Jesus.

As for cultivating my prayer life, the biggest part of my prayer life is that for years now I've worked to cultivate my internal dialogue into a conversation with Jesus, rather than simply a monologue.  So, as I'm out walking, when I'm reading, when I'm going about my day and thinking, as things come up, I've mentally cultivated the habit of turning them into conversation with Jesus - thanking him for them, sharing my concerns with him, asking him questions about them.

I also have made a habit at various times of using prayer books, or guided prayers to carve out a specific chunk of time for prayer in my day.  Right now I'm using a little book by J. Philip Newell called "Sounds of the Eternal", which is a book of Celtic prayers, designed to fill a week, with a set of prayers for each morning and evening.  I generally just use the evening prayers, taking time to read through them and let them guide and quiet my heart as I prepare for sleep at night.  The prayers are quite lovely, and I really enjoy the repetition and flow of joining my heart with semi-ancient prayers each evening.

The house church I'm a part of also makes a regular habit of sharing our lives and concerns with each other, and lifting each other up in prayer, so that is also an integral part of my prayer life.  I'm still not a very big fan of praying aloud, but on a pretty much weekly basis I make the choice to do so.  To audibly talk to Jesus about the friends with whom I share life and church community.  And I'm blessed as they do the same for me.  I also have a few close friends with whom I take time to pray nearly every time we gather, and I'm thankful for them as well.

So there you have it!  Some of my thoughts on prayer.  It's a hugely important topic to me, one I could talk about forever, and one that I've done fairly extensive reading about, but these are some basic thoughts - the first ones that come to mind anyway - on my own prayer life, and it's importance and how I cultivate its growth.

Quiet

Today is a day for quiet.

For cleaning, and for prayer.

For lifting some deep needs I've been made aware of to Jesus.

For thinking, and maybe journaling.

For pondering patterns.

For celebrating the joyful moments as well.

For gardening if it doesn't rain, and reading if it does.

But mostly for cleaning, and for praying.

A Celtic Prayer

I've been using a little book of Celtic prayers each evening again lately, and last night I was particularly struck by the relevance and beauty of this cry for God's healing grace to descend on the world:

Like light dappling through the leaves of a tree
and wind stirring its branches,
like birdsong sounding from the heights of an orchard
and the scent of blossom after rainfall,
so you dapple and sound in the human soul,
so you stir into motion all that lives.
Let your graces of healing flow this night,
for my soul is wounded
and there is brokenness in my life.
Let you graces of healing flow, dear God,
for those whom I love are in need this night
and there are agonies in the life of the world.
There are agonies in the life of the world, O my soul,
and those whom I love are in pain.

Labyrinth

On Monday I met up with a dear friend at an old church downtown, and together we walked a labyrinth.

In the past I've walked labyrinths with something specific in mind to pray through as I walked.  Monday wasn't like that.  After spending a week flat on my back sick last week, I didn't have anything specific in mind to pray through on this trip.  I simply started walking and let my heart be open to God's leading.

I was struck by the need to focus only on the steps just in front of me if I was going to stay on the path.

I was caught by the experience of walking the path with a friend.  Sometimes ahead and sometimes behind, sometimes parallel and sometimes walking in different directions, but together, sharing the journey.

And as I walked, I pondered what was the word for the walk, and thought about my one word for the year, "heal".  The word for the walk was "peace".  The last couple weeks have been filled with some really hard decisions and not a lot of peace.  So I walked and focused on the steps just in front of me, and breathed deeply, and let peace come.

I thought about how "heal" hasn't looked anything like I thought it would on December 31st as I prayerfully chose it as my one word for the year.  It's looked totally different than I thought it would, and, if I'm honest, that has been discouraging at times.  It's involved humility, surrender, and a whole lot of wrestle.  And I thought about the need to simply focus on the step just in front of me, to just see that step, that moment of healing, instead of becoming overwhelmed by the immensity of the myriad of steps beyond that.  I thought about the friends who are walking this journey with me, encouraging and praying for me.

And I thought about a dozen other little things, as God's voice took over and I walked and prayed.

It was such a lovely thing to share that sacred quiet space with a friend.  The silence was so needed, and the peace it carried with it was precisely what my soul needed after the last few weeks.

From the Moravians

On a day where I was up late studying, woke from odd dreams again, and was out the door before 7am to write the first of two exams for the day, this daily text from the Moravians seemed particularly appropriate:

I will satisfy the weary, and all who are faint I will replenish.
Jeremiah 31:25

Jesus ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled. Matthew 14:19-20

Redeemer of our souls, we hear the noises of everyday living and feel panicked. Give us a moment of calm to re-center ourselves in your spirit. Surround us with your love. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Practice Resurrection

Late last fall I attended a funeral, and then a Jason Upton concert, both of which seem appropriate to talk about on this day that we celebrate Christ's resurrection.  Together, the two events formed the backbone of a theme the Lord was speaking over my life.  Practice resurrection.  Expect it.  Long for it.  Find it in each day.

I attended the concert just days after the funeral, and together they have shaped my heart.  And now, months later, on the day we celebrate resurrection, those words are burning within me again, and I want to share some of them.

Following the concert, I wrote in my journal:

At one point during the concert as Jason spoke and sang, I found myself frantically grabbing for a notebook and pen I'd tossed in my purse on the off chance I'd need it.  I was giving up on making reminder notes to myself in my phone, and went for the notebook.

He told a funny story of being at Bible camp as a kid, and there having been "rapture practice."  And we all laughed as we pictured it and he acted it out.  He switched gears, though, and told us that we should be practicing resurrection.

Huh.

Interesting words in a week where I'd been to a funeral where I was invited to do just that.

Jason wasn't talking about that so much, as talking about a continual process of being born again.  Being made new.

The notes I frantically scribbled in my notebook as he spoke read as follows, "Practice resurrection.  Don't be afraid of the valley - He'll walk with you there.  He has things for you in the valley.  Psalm 23 is not a death song, but a resurrection song."

It was sort of the theme of the evening, and it capitalized on a theme God has been speaking to my heart in the last few days again.

There is life in the moments that feel like death.

There is priceless value in the things that seem most horribly worthless.

God is present in the most simple things.  Look and listen for him there.

The concert came only days after the funeral, providing words to a theme that began in a place of grief.  It was the funeral for Nolan and Faye's mom.  Both long time friends of mine, I'd been praying with them for months as their mom battled cancer, and now I found myself sitting at her funeral.  It was an event that I will never forget, one that I was privileged to attend, and one that has shaped my life in the months following.

After it was over, I wrote the following:

When was the last time you went to a funeral where you were invited to practice resurrection?  Not just sit there and be grateful for the hope of future resurrection in the midst of the grief you were feeling - the knowledge that you will see the person again, someday, but to actually practice - to speak to a corpse, to a casket, and say "Wake up."

I went to a funeral like that yesterday.

It was nearing the end of the service, and my friend Nolan rose to speak.  To share his memories of his mother.  And he was brilliant.  Articulate and funny.  He managed to address each of his siblings in a special way, reminding them of the ways their mom had expressed her love for them.  He encompassed her personality in ways that those who knew her well described as "to a tee".  And then he shared something she'd written - talking about the fact that she was vacillating as her health grew weaker.  That in some moments she could picture her tumor shrinking away, and their life as a family continuing on.  And, that in other moments, she dreamt of walking in heaven with her mother.  And that both seemed to be appealing options, but if she had her preference, she'd rather stay here.

And then Nolan began to read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave, and my breath caught.  "Surely, he wouldn't!" 

He had shared some profound thoughts by email as his mom was dying, and just days before she passed away, he'd sent an email talking about the fact that after a year of praying for healing, he'd been asking God if he was going to learn how to raise the dead before he learned how to carry healing.

And my breath caught as he stood there and read one of the stories in scripture that has meant so much to me these last several years.  Jesus bringing life where there was nothing but death.  So many conversations and moments of prayer had stemmed from that story.

And I was frozen in that moment, unable to think of anything but a whispered desperate prayer, "Oh Lord, do something, be present here, because if he commands her to rise, and she doesn't, this is going to be the most painful place for his family to exist in."

To Nolan's credit, he handled it beautifully.  He finished the story, and talked about the fact that his mom had loved Jesus and believed his words.  He told us about Jesus telling his disciples, "go and do likewise."  About Jesus' command to "Heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons."  And then he invited us to practice - to participate in one of Jesus' commands.  To say with him, on the count of three, "In Jesus name, Marilyn, wake up!"  And we did.

I recounted the story later, amazed at how well that moment had been handled.  Struck by it.

A day later, it is rattling around inside of me and touching raw spaces.

I don't have faith.

I talked with Nolan after the service, and he still genuinely believed she might sit up.  Not in a way that denied the fact that his mom had passed away a week ago, but in a way that said, "Yes, Jesus I believe you can and will do big things."

I don't have faith, and I couldn't figure out why this was so rattling.

A day later, I'm beginning to understand.

I'm in the midst of some hard days.  Days of slogging through battle after battle.  Days of walking out a very painful process of healing.

Eleven days from now I will celebrate five years depression free.  Five years since a crazy late night encounter with God.

And I'm reminded today, as I ponder a friend's faith in a God who can and will raise the dead, of the questions I was asking five years ago.

I wrote about it last year, on the fourth anniversary of that moment of healing:

There was so much hurt in each of our lives, and in those days we were talking a lot about believing in a God who is real and active, and who longs to bring healing and freedom, but we couldn't quite manage to move our conversations past the theoretical, to the point of really praying together and caring for each other... I'd stopped saying much to God quite a while before that. It didn't seem to make much difference, and to be honest, at the time it seemed that if I prayed, or sought prayer from others, things got worse, not better. That night, after watching and seeing all the things that weren't said, I was angry, and as I drove I yelled at God - this from a person who quite admittedly rarely prayed anymore.

I so vividly remember that moment of realization.  That moment of understanding that we couldn't translate our intellectual assent into faith.  Into faith that propelled action.  That all we were doing was talking.

The next day God "showed up" in my life.  It sounds crass to say it like that, as if he'd been absent somehow.  He hadn't.  But that day he made his presence known in a new way.  I saw and heard and experienced.  I walked into a divine appointment that I wasn't expecting, and I left it free from the depression that had dogged my steps for nearly seven years.  I left it stunned and overwhelmed by this God who had made himself known.  And thankful.  So thankful.  I left it healed.

It's been nearly five years.  Today I'm surrounded by a group of friends who believes.  I'm making practical steps towards healing.  I'm getting help.  I'm making choices.  I'm talking to God.

But my faith is waning.  After a year in which my life has deconstructed itself, where nothing looks like what I'd expected or planned, where I'm living in limbo, I'm aware that my faith is flagging.

I'm again in that place of desperation and anger towards God that I felt that night before healing came.

Mostly, these days, I pray with desperation, but little belief.  "Intervene in my housing, let me get into school, provide work, bring healing."  All things I intellectually believe my God is capable of.  I've seen him do far greater things than these in the five years since that night of healing.  And yet, today, today I pray with desperation and very little expectation.

And it's that lack of expectation that is causing the rattling echoes of yesterday's funeral.

Because I struggle mightily to pray with expectation, and still trust, whether or not my expectations are met, that the God who met me five years ago with healing is the God who doesn't change.  The God who tells us that he is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  It's a challenge for me, in the moment, to trust that God.  To trust that he controls even this, and that he holds and guards me when it feels as if I'm walking through the darkest night.  To wait with hope and expectation, and be willing for those expectations to be dashed.

And so I'm challenged by my friend Nolan, and his invitation to participate in resurrection. 

And I'm challenged to expect big things, but to still trust in a God whose ways are sometimes hidden and mysterious, and whose ways may not look at all like what I want or expect.

And today, months later, with a life that is still somewhat in pieces, I continue to be struck by that invitation to participate in resurrection.  It moves me.  It has become the theme of my days - practice resurrection.  Invite healing, life, rebirth, new and fresh things to come.  No waiting for them.  Not just a future hope, but also a present reality.

Nolan, I'm thankful for that step of faith you took that day.  I'm thankful that you invited God to work.  I wish for you and Faye and your family that your mom had risen that day, and I'm praying for you all, often.  Please know, though, that God is using her life and death even still.  

Happy Easter everyone.  May you practice resurrection today.