“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott
“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott
If you asked me to play a tune on the piano, I am sure I could not even squeak out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” If you asked me to paddle you across a lake, I am pretty sure that a few strokes into the trip we would be swimming. However, it you asked me to pray for you or help you talk through a life-sized problem you are facing, there is a chance, albeit a small one, that I might be able to help.
You see, we practice our spiritual disciplines so we can live what I have come to call an unrehearsed life. We practice them so when the moment comes and our best spiritual self is needed to respond, we don’t have to do a Google search to find out what to do. We respond out of all that God has formed us to be over the years of relating to Him: through our disciplines.
Years of practice at the piano make it possible for you, later on, to quietly, effortlessly, play something that soothes your soul. Years spent paddling a canoe make it possible for you to easily glide out onto a lake and be in the kind of peaceful, soulful environment that enables you to fully think something through.
God does not reward us on a spiritual point system for how often we pray or fast or study His word. There is no ‘big box store points reward card’ for how well we play the piano or how well we paddle the canoe or for how often or eloquent we pray. He rewards us with Himself for the time spent in our spiritual disciplines, tuning our heart to His.
Like the Sabbath is made for us and not us for the Sabbath, that is when we discover that our disciplines serve us: they familiarize us with who God really is so we can readily find Him, even in the dark. We move from knowledge of Him to knowing Him … from some measure of doubt to some measure of certainty … from reading it on-line to living it in real time. We discover, much to our amazement really, that we have moved into the unrehearsed life. And there is no telling what God might invite you to join Him in, in life’s myriad of daily unrehearsable moments .
When I hear “end of life”, I think of the circumstances around the moment we die. In the context of planning to die well “end of life”encompasses – days, weeks, perhaps months /years — preceding our death — a liminal space in which we have the opportunity to prepare for death. Commencing with an existential slap “End of life” begins with acceptance of our mortality, the sooner the better. “existential slap” —that moment when a [dying] person first comprehends, on a gut level, that death is close. For many, the realization comes suddenly: “The usual habit of allowing thoughts of death to remain in the background is now impossible,” . “Death can no longer be denied.”1Nessa Coyle, a nurse and palliative-care pioneer,wrote My “existential slap” occurred there years ago.
All of us project ahead a trajectory of our life. That is, we anticipate a certain life span within which we arrange our activities and plan our lives. And then abruptly we may be confronted with a crisis … Whether by illness or accident, our potential trajectory is suddenly changed.”
The task of dying well:
“You have to live with awareness of dying, and at the same time balance it against staying engaged in life,” he says. “It’s being able to hold that duality—which we call double awareness—that we think is a fundamental task.”2Gary Rodin, a palliative-care specialist
Despite plans to assure intentions for our final days are fulfilled, there can/will be circumstances beyond our control. Death may come without warning, rendering plans moot. Any dying well plan is a contingency. The best result for a dying well plan comes in circumstances were control is possible and decisions are made in accordance with expressed desires.
In a perfect world, our final days —end of life — would be laced with “…years of conversation about the need to prepare well for death – medically, communally, and spiritually.” Because of our cultural aversion to death, engaging in meaningful conversations with family and loved ones may be the most challenging part of dying well.
Goals for Dying Well
Tim Keller’s article: “Growing My Faith in the Face of Death” should be required reading for every Christian. In the excerpt below Keller conveys two goals of dying well. [my emphasis]
When the certainty of your mortality and death finally breaks through, is there a way to face it without debilitating fear? Is there a way to spend the time you have left growing into greater grace, love, and wisdom? I believe there is, but it requires both intellectual and emotional engagement: head and heart work. And so I set out to reexamine my convictions and to strengthen my faith, so that it might prove more than a match for death.
It is important to be prepared for death, very important; . . but if we start thinking about it only when we are terminally ill, our reflections will not give us the support we need.
-HENRI Nouwen’
STILL ON THE JOURNEY
1
Nessa Coyle, a nurse and palliative-care pioneer,wrote
Once upon a long ago, I was staying in a well-known big hotel that the organizers of the event paid for … maybe just trying to provide for me in memorable way, I guess. I was speaking at a gathering of clergy on adapting to the waves of cultural change hitting the church and how to avoid getting caught in the undertow of it all and thereby lose focus on our message. There was also a huge business conference of sorts in the hotel at the same time. Their meeting room held 1,200 people or so. Ours held 60. You get the picture: significance and importance and sophistication in Room A-1 and humble and meek and lowly in Room A-23.
One could be intimidated by the impression such inequity created if you didn’t know the story about a destitute and desperate widow found in II Kings 4. There, the prophet Elisha instructs the widow to collect as many pots as she can from her neighbors and then go into her house and shut the door behind her. And there, behind closed doors, through Elisha, God does the miracle of multiplying the little oil she has … over and over and over again. It’s a miracle … not a spectacle. It is done in hiddenness, behind closed doors.
Jesus said in Matthew 13 something similar about the Kingdom of God. It is like yeast, He said, subtly growing and penetrating this world almost imperceptibly. It’s mustard seed size to begin with but quietly grows and becomes this mighty tree that the birds of heaven nest in. It’s miracle … not a spectacle. It is done in hiddenness, behind closed doors.
So, as with the miracle of the widow’s oil, the Kingdom is multiplying and at work: behind closed doors. Do you know that the overall World Population is growing by .87% each year, less that one percent? But do you also know that the overall growth in the Christian Population is 1.08% with 4 major Protestant movements leading the way with growth figures of 6.73%each year… almost seven times more than the growth of this world’s population?
Do you know that it took 1400 years to get to where 1 out of every 100 persons in the world was a believing Christian? Then took over 500 more years, until1940, to cut that number in half, 1 out of 50. But it took only 70 years to get from that to where 1 out of every 8 people on earth was a believing Christian. And it is a movement that is still gaining steam. The world holds about 2.52 billion Christians today and that population is projected to grow to 3 billion by 2050. Three billion. That’s a whole lot of Kingdom believers.
Today, there are more churches, more missionaries, more radio broadcasts and more pod casts and more computer on-line teaching courses than ever before. There are more Bibles in more languages than ever before, more Christian books, more Christian music, more Bible colleges and seminaries and training schools…
More relief work, more literacy work, more medical work, more compassion work, more justice work, and more and more and more work of all kinds all being done in Jesus’ name. So let’s stop wringing our hands. Forget the cultural optics. The Kingdom of God is doing quite well, thank you very much. It’s just doesn’t have a ticker on Wall Street so the whole world can be impressed. It’s never going to be a headline on CNN or FOX News but it’s making the 6 o’clock news each night in Heaven. Why? Because it’s a miracle … not a spectacle. It is being done in hiddenness, behind closed doors.
So don’t let the cover of Forbes Magazine or Time Magazine or Newsweek intimidate your Kingdom faith and hopes. Don’t let Amazon or Google or Intel fool you into thinking they are the really big news of this world. The truly big news of this world is in the little mustard seed and the little yeast and the little bit of widow’s oil. The big news is what is happening behind closed doors. How can we say that? Because God is at workbehind those closed doors. And He’s just keeping an old promise He made back in Mt. 16:18 “I will build my church and (even) the gates of hell will not prevail against it!” But don’t look for a spectacle. Look for a miracle.
Sitting on the front porch this morning, I sneezed loudly.
From our neighbor’s open window across the street, I was pleasantly surprised to hear an unequivocal “BLESS YOU”.
Welcome to community!
You should never say bad things about the dead, only good things. Joan Crawford is dead. Good. — Bette Davis
A Faithful Life
A faithful life is not like a grocery list-something to get through as efficiently possible. A faithful life isn’t simply reciting the right ideas about God. A faithful life is an invitation to contemplate God, to linger in the presence of God, to be with God, not just to do for God.
Peterson translates Psalm 27: this way: I’m asking GOD for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I’ll contemplate his beauty I’ll study at his feet. (THE MESSAGE) _
Open & Unafraid – W David O Taylor
“Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er fraught heart and bids it break.”
“Macbeth”: Shakespeare
Empty Ritual
Some adults, having lost their true humanity, even use phrases such as “empty ritual.” Like many other enemies of tradition, they eradicate all the truly human pursuits in the name of “higher” rational activities, invented only in the last few hundred years.
Those who utter phrases such as “empty ritual” (something I’ve heard all my life) forget that it is God who first gave ritual to the people of Israel. This primary story about the faith runs counter to modern intuitions. For we presume that real things and true things are in the mind. It is thought and sentiment that we consider to hold the lofty place of the holy. But it is ritual that is given this place in the Scriptures.
In the later chapters of Exodus, we are told of Moses’ 40 days on the mountain in the presence of the Lord. During that time he is shown “the pattern” of all the furnishings of the Tabernacle. He is given the “pattern” of worship as well – the ritual of Israel. Christian understanding from the New Testament forward has always seen these patterns as a foreshadowing of Christ and His Pascha. The gospel was hidden in the patterns given to Moses.
Fr Stephen Freeman
Wealthy people
…this is why I think Jesus says that it is difficult for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. Not because wealth is inherently contaminating. Or that wealthy people are morally corrupt. The issue, it seems to me, is how wealth insulates you from your neediness, your vulnerabilities, dependencies, and brokenness. Separated from your neediness your days can be blissfully passed in delightful spaces and lovely experiences. Wealth cocoons you, and eventually entombs you.
Thus the exhortation from Psalm 62: “If wealth increases, don’t set your heart on it.”
Richard Beck
Who is my neighbor?
The question “Who is my neighbour?”, is answered by Jesus’ question “Who proved to be neighbour to the person in need?” And the lawyer’s answer, drawn like a deep rooted tooth reluctant to emerge, “Well, I suppose, the one who showed him mercy.”
Mercy is thoughtful and costly neighbourliness. Mercy is the tilt of the heart towards those whose lives can be made better by our kindness and generosity. Mercy is compassionate practical caring about what is happening to folk who are struggling.
Emotional empathy and practical kindness, feeling and action, embodied kindness, the love of God enacted and demonstrated as a way of life; each a constituent part of mercy. We love because God first loved us; God’s love poured is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. God’s love to us is sufficient motive and our love for the neighbour is the energy source of mercy. “Anyone who does not love his brother or sister [or neighbour] whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
Jim Gordon
Truly Human
While it is true that “God became man so that man could become God,” it is equally true that God became man so that man could become man – truly human. To be truly human we must sing and dance, create art and tell stories. We engage in commerce and build cities. All that is human life and existence is a gift from God and has a God-given purpose and direction.
Fr Stephen Freeman
Human Worth
…a recent survey which showed that under 30s in Canada think poor and homeless people should be allowed to seek euthanasia if their lives are miserable enough that they want to do so. Alas, human autonomy and expendability has replaced the “imago dei” as the basis for determining human worth.
Michael Bird
View from the Front Porch
PERSPECTIVE
This morning Alexa signaled a notification. I asked what the notification was.. “CNN reports 40,00o killed in Gaza”
I was stunned. All sorts of scenarios ran through my mind. Nuclear attack? Refugee camp bombed? Middle east war spreading? It was disconcerting, to say the least.
Following up, I found the full CNN report, “40,000 killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.”
Read that, I was flooded with relief. Thank goodness it was not 40,000 killed yesterday but a total for the war.
I’m pondering — perspective Relieved to learn 40,00o have been killed ?
“You will always define events in a manner which will validate your agreement with reality.” – Steve Maraboli
“Belief in providence may be difficult, but it is also productive of thanksgiving. It enables us in retrospect, whether that be at the end of a day or years later, to see what God has been doing in our lives and to be grateful.”
Richard Bauckham
Welcome to Marilyn Elliott. She has graciously consented to be a guest author. She brings a wealth of experience and wisdom that will challenge and enlighten readers.
I am pleased her first contribution joins the conversation on Hindsight is 20/20
Perhaps looking back isn’t about seeing clearly, or about getting all the clues right or knowing now how we would make a better decision. Perhaps looking back is about telling our stories, gathering learning and gems, understanding ourselves in the universal context of all being.
“We tell our stories because all of us have survived something, because stories are signposts from the past that give us clues about the future. Finally, our stories are a witness to the next generation and an opportunity to understand the universal as well as the particular in tales of trauma, healing, and survival.”
Barbara Holmes
Maybe it is cold irrelevance to see the past clearly, as more and better data. Maybe the past is the miracle of our being loved and carried, our participation in the great mystery. In my teens I made decisions w/o thinking. They were mostly driven by feelings rising like vapors from deep voids and crevasses in my soul. The result was pain, confusion and struggle. At the time I was admonished about sin. I suffered banishment and shame. God’s wrath was being poured out, evidently.
Years later in my 50’s I was given a precious opportunity to revisit that early experience. As an adult I was able to understand more deeply what had occurred. But it isn’t in better knowing the factors at play that brings me wisdom or peace. These come from a deep realization that Father/Mother God intimately understands me, then and now, and holds me, always, in full acceptance.
My past is not shame. Nor is it a litany of what could have been done better had everyone known a little more. My story is about life, about being human and finding a way through this complicated universe. It is a story of woman, of participating with history and culture and family. But most of all it is a story of one of God’s little ones and how we participate with and in God in all things.
“The suffering creatures of this world have a divine Being who does not judge or condemn them, or in any way stand aloof from their plight, but instead, a Being who hangs with them and flows through them, and even toward them in their despair. “
Richard Rohr
My past is a story worth falling on the ears of another of God’s creatures as they find their way. It’s never the story of one person only. It is the story of US.
