Kinship

Claudia

triangle • kinship • bonding • journaling • now • prayer

Five Minute Friday :: Say

"…if you say to this mountain,
'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,'
and if you do not doubt in your heart
but believe what you say will come to pass,
it will be done for you." Mark 11:23

"So I say to you,
whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe that you have received it,
and it will be yours." Mark 11:24

• Five Minute Friday :: Say Linkup

In Mark's gospel, the journey to Jerusalem and to the cross is particularly incessant and relentless. Jesus' assuring teaching on the power of speech, word, and prayer (also in Matthew 21:21-22) happens during his final trip to the Holy City, after he has cleansed the temple and cursed a barren fig tree (another subject for another blog on another day).

Jesus and the twelve have been on a perilous journey together. When he called followers, he asked them to follow him. They left their family fishing enterprise with its conventional, pre-planned days and expected outcomes to follow Jesus, although they couldn't have known the future.

Even reading silently or aloud from Mark's pages, we can feel it had been quite a trip. Although Mark opens his gospel by announcing, "The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," and close to the end, a Roman centurion declares Jesus "Son of God" [Mark 15:39], were there many or any clues along the way to suggest or affirm Jesus as God with them, God among us? We need to remember all the gospel accounts – even Mark, the earliest one – were written from scattered sources quite a while after Jesus' death and resurrection. In any case, back to say, our word for today.

Jesus is conversing about the power of speech, the effectiveness of words and communication. Would anyone want to send a mountain or a beachside cliff into the ocean? Hebrew literature long had been full of hyperbole! In the midst of your own turmoil, would you consider addressing an element of creation, suggesting it do your bidding? I don't know.

But I do know I love the "if - then" promises in this passage, especially pertaining to prayer.

• Do you pray without doubting?
• Do you say with believing?
• Do you pray knowing you've already received what you asked for?
• And do you then claim God's response as yours?


• You might enjoy this overview of Mark I wrote for my scripture blog.

Sermon for 29 January

Intro:

These days I preach from notes, so typically I can't easily fill in the spaces and blog. Besides, a homily really is for a specific day and place, for "those people" in the best sense of the word. However, for 29 January I typed out a lot before making notes (church pastor requests guest preachers to send her some content beforehand—a good idea in many ways), and from the compliments plus my own perception I believe it went well, so here you go. Not surprisingly, the real life sermon was a few minutes longer than it blogs. Scripture was Matthew 6:7-14. During the autumn through spring academic year they follow the Narrative Lectionary that emphasizes the larger story of God and God's people. This year the NL twins with the Revised Common Lectionary with Matthew as the featured gospel.

Matthew Background

Today we continue in Matthew's gospel. Each of the four gospels has a distinctive personality, flavor, and style. Along with Mark and Luke, Matthew is one of the gospels that views Jesus' life and ministry in a similar way. In fact, all three contain a lot of the exact same content. Scholars believe authors of Luke and Matthew had a copy of Mark, so they literally copied and pasted big chunks.

This is Matthew's year in both of the lectionaries that suggest scriptures to read and study, so we'll spend a lot of time on Matthew to learn more about the Jesus Matthew presents, more about the way Jesus teaches us to live.

Matthew starts out as the story of a new creation, biblios geneseos—the same word as Genesis, the very first book of the bible. According to Matthew, Jesus of Nazareth's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension initiates this new creation, new genesis. According to Jesus, our lives and ministries continue the new creation, the new genesis.

As Matthew's gospel progresses, Jesus provides formal instruction in the Sermon on the Mount and offers parables about the reign of heaven. We see Jesus healing diseases and confronting economic, religious, and governmental powers that be.


Sermon on the Mount

Today we continue with the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' sermon on the mount has five sections that parallel the five books of Moses in the Torah or Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus…

Through Moses God gave the people ten words or commandments at Mount Sinai. Jesus brings us words of life in the Sermon on the Mount on another hill or high ground, with a different style from the commands God gave us through Moses, yet like the ten words/decalogue, Jesus is all about our flourishing together in safe, healthy, productive community. Jesus' entire ministry shows us how to live and love together in service, how to be church together.

Jesus was a rabbi or teacher who moved around a lot. For Matthew, Jesus is the ultimate teacher who wants his followers to be the best learners ever. As Pastor MAH mentioned, it's interesting that Matthew is the only gospel that uses the word church or ecclesia; we mostly know the word "church" from the letters or epistles. This called out assembly (us) is the Roman City Council, the Los Angeles City Council, the New England Town Meeting that gathers together, deliberates together, and in our case, prays and worships together.

Starting with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' entire ministry shows us how to live and love together in service, how to be church together. Rabbi Jesus wants us to be the best learners ever. Jesus' ministry leads to healthy community. When we follow Jesus, our ministries lead to good community.


Jesus' Model Prayer / What is Prayer?

Today we're considering the model prayer Jesus taught his followers. We call it the Lord's Prayer, and almost all worship services include it in traditional or contemporary language.

But first, what is prayer? Prayer is communication with God. Prayer takes many forms. Sometimes we read prayers the church has treasured for a long time, such as from the liturgy and devotional books. Sometimes we speak words from our heart. Scripture includes many prayers. The book of Psalms was the prayer book and the hymnal of the synagogue; Christian hymnals include many songs based on psalms. There's silent prayer when you sit, stand, or maybe lie down to bask in God's presence. The apostle Paul told us to "pray always," which is an attitude of openness to God. You may have heard we usually become closest to those we talk with the most.

Prayer is communication with God. As we pray, God also communicates with us.

Let's look at this particular prayer Jesus taught his followers. Jesus outlined this prayer not necessarily for us to repeat the exact words as we do every week in worship, but to follow its general content.


Lord's Prayer/ Our Father

It starts out with addressing God and requesting God's name be holy or set apart. In that culture, a name reflected or described the essence of a person. A few months ago Pastor MH preached a sermon about Names of God. That could make an excellent study or journal entry for us to continue.

"May your kingdom come, your will be done" asks God to make the world heaven on earth.

Daily bread or bread for tomorrow? Food is essential! We can't keep on with other endeavors without food, water, sleep… In his Small Catechism Martin Luther explains "daily bread" is shorthand for everything we need. That would include solid housing and safe streets, streets and roads to get us from here to there, good government, functional families. Daily bread may include high-speed internet, too.

What else is essential for all of us? What is essential for you and your family? What would your "daily bread" list of essentials include? Is there anything you might leave off your list?


Forgive us our debts or sins

"Forgive us our debts or sins" is a huge one for everyone. Some versions of Jesus' prayer ask forgiveness for trespasses, which sounds like entering someone else's property without permission (in many senses, it is). In Jesus' world sin and debt essentially were the same thing. Tenant farmers, people who fished the sea, and those who sold goods and wares often found themselves owing their soul to landlords and to the government.

In this year 2023, the world is full of financial debt and obligation. Many people are in serious credit card debt from trying to stay afloat during Covid. However, this prayer also asks to forgive (the opposite of to give) all those ways we've offended people (friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc.) close at hand and on the other side of the planet, our lack of justice to creation, everything we've done to hinder our own well-being as individuals.

Forgive is far from saying and acting as if those sins and offenses are ok and didn't do harm. Forgiveness admits and acknowledges the serious wrong someone else or we ourselves have caused.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with tolerating sin. Forgiveness is not about minimizing or denying sin.

When I forgive I've turned the wrongdoing over to God so that sin no longer is a debt or burden to me or to my community. Literally giving the sin to God means the sin or offense becomes a debt to God. Forgiving a person releases them from our lives and turns the person and the offense over to God. And sometimes it's necessary to physically release a person from our lives, as well.


Shalom

We've taken a short look at the prayer Jesus taught his first followers, the prayer scripture gives us to learn from Jesus.

Last week Pastor MH talked about shalom, the peace that's more than absence of conflict. The Lord's Prayer or Our Father prays, begs, and pleads for the reign or rule of heaven on earth.

Heaven on earth is the fulness of shalom. It begins with eliminating obvious physical, emotional, and interest conflicts, but shalom goes beyond that. Shalom is enough of everything we need to live healthy lives. As Martin Luther explained, actual daily bread or food (water, shelter, etc.) is only one part of our request in the Lord's Prayer. Shalom is integrity and honesty with each other here in community and with everyone we meet outside. Shalom is the Good News of the gospel fully lived out every day, everywhere we go.

Jesus the master teacher or rabbi teaches us how to be church together. Jesus wants all of us to be the best learners ever who pray, hope, and act to bring this world the new creation Matthew's gospel is about. We beg God to bring heaven to earth. We pray for the reign of shalom. We act in ways that welcome shalom.


Table of Grace

Again today Jesus invites us to the table of grace. This feast of life is about heaven on earth—the reign of life right here and right now. The Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, brings shalom into the world. All are forgiven. All is healed. All is whole. Everyone has enough. In the Lord's Supper we experience the new creation, if only for a fleeting moment.

Come, let us eat, for lo, the bread is spread!
Come, let us drink, for lo, the cup is poured!

You are welcome.
I am welcome.
We are welcome.

Amen? Amen!

To God alone be glory! Amen!

22 March • Wrong

Wrong

Some of us are old enough to remember all the free world [cautiously] rejoicing at the dissolution of the USSR. Putin's undeclared war on the young democracy of Ukraine is as wrong as it gets. Let's all stand with Ukraine and pray for Ukraine.

Yellow and blue is my all-time favorite color combination. I used to call myself an "Honorary Swede" (you know—wonderfully clean, spare Scandinavian design!); I've added Honorary Ukrainian. Though I haven't done a DNA test yet, everything I can find indicates my ancestors that entered the USA through Ellis Island migrated through Western Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Poland. Shifting borders, and for sure I still have many relatives there. Prayers, please!

Lenten Snapshots 2022

You can jump into April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots any time; you can post or tweet or blog them almost anywhere. All the prompts are on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be any fleeting impression: photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food.

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December 2021 All Around Town

• Urban Paradise Lectionary Project: Four for December

• Tuesday 07 December: Ecumenical Prayer followed by Soup, Bread, and Pastries at the Armenian Cathedral in Burbank

• Neighborhood Toy Drive and Christmas Party on Saturday 11 December

• Day Long Worship Planning Retreat on Thursday 16 December

• Las Posadas Tuesday 21 December "Wear Your Own Costume" because of COVID. I was a black cat panther.

• Front Lawn with Nativity Scene to set the seasonal theme

• Christmas Eve – Participatory Lessons and Carols at church. I got to be pianist because our staff pianist's spouse had a high fever so the fam wisely didn't go anywhere.

• On 26 December, "The First Sunday of Christmas," three of us gave a talk – here's mine – focused on our testimony of Christmas. Instead of live music we had a wonderful video of scripture readings and music for another Lessons and Carols.

• The afternoon of 26 December I finally saw West Side Story 2021, one of very few movies I absolutely wanted and needed to see.

• Final event of the departing year—house blessing for Jeremiah at noon on Friday 31 December. His place is full of beautiful furniture and decor. I've included pictures of the cow painting that's similar to one or two I have; the tall digital clock he got at Home Depot for an amazing price; elegant elephant tapestry.

Nativity 2021

The First Sunday of Christmas

The pastor asked three of us to bear our testimony of Christmas for the proclamation on Sunday, the day after Christmas: where do we find Jesus, the Christ child? On my mostly lectionary blog I posted approximately what I plan to say. I really like the prayer I wrote to help focus my remarks, so I'm blogging it here.


Nativity Prayer

Root of Jesse, Son of Heaven, Mary's Child.
Cradle of Joy, Word in the Manger, Astonishing Gift.
Lord of Creation, Abundant Promise, Dayspring of Peace.
Be with us here in this place; make us shepherds of your grace.
May our lives season the world with salt;
Nurture our neighbors with leaven;
Light a path to show your way.
In your name we pray—
Amen!

Five Minute Friday :: Prayer

My God in his steadfast love will meet me. Psalm 59:10

• FMF Prayer Linkup

Prayer! That activity of heart, mind, and body that helps connect us to God. Prayer—it comes in varieties of praise, thanksgiving, petition, lament, celebration, solicitation, questioning why. When we pray and imagine we're alone, we're not really. As the apostle Paul points out, God's Spirit of Life within us shapes our prayer because as a supposedly solitary individual we don't know what to say. Then there are times we pray as we gather in the assembly of saints: prayers of the people bring the world's concerns before God's throne of grace; eucharistic prayer reconnects us to God's people and God's actions in every place and time and even carries us together into God's future.

But if I could continue a short five minutes about prayer, it would start with the Psalter. The Psalms were the Prayer Book of the Synagogue. The Psalms were the Hymn Book of John Calvin's Geneva Reform. Every single denominational and free church hymnal today includes dozens of hymns based on psalms. The psalms themselves express every possible human emotion, which makes them perfect examples of prayer. Psalms were composed to be sung in corporate worship and to be used in the prayer that's never private because the Holy Spirit always abides with us and within us.

Do you have a favorite psalm?
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Finding God in the Verbs :: Brent Bill & Jenny Isbell

Finding God in the Verbs: Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer by J. Brent Bill and Jenny Isbell – on Amazon

I've enjoyed all of Brent's books, but the ones that directly engage the reader's connections with God are his best! Although it's not in a traditional workbook format, this colorfully covered book he co-authored with Jenny Isball is full of simple exercises or activities a reader can work through in order to connect more intimately with God. As I tried a few of the suggestions I wrote in a spiral bound notebook; that's been my style for other spiritual and general self-help books, though there's no reason not to make notes on the pages of the book instead of or in addition to.

Finding God in the Verbs is altogether very well done yet in a rare way that doesn't often happen in printed – or on-screen – media. I easily can imagine the Good Book's psalmists approaching their prayers and songs that have become part of both Hebrew and Christian canons in the diverse ways the authors suggest.

Brent and Jenny include sample scriptures, prayer examples, and contemporary real-life incidents. I love the chapter titles! The bright splashy cover would look excellent alongside your scriptures; it would be a good reminder routinely and randomly to add some of these ways of Discovering God in the Verbs to your daily devotional times. You'll probably appreciate the endnotes, too.

July 2020 • Into a Future

Virtual Sunday School

• Since March my mostly lectionary Sunday School classes have been Reflections on Scripture during a Worldwide Pandemic; link's to my four for July.


Fourth of July



• Most people with any smarts and/or common sense had a quiet #SaferAtHome – #StaySafeStayHome Independence Day, Fourth of July, Spirit of 76. Macy's fireworks show on TV felt like the very best ever. I assembled this picture honoring the Fourth out of design elements I got via Creative Market during 2017.


Living Local



• Before the world outside China knew anything about COVID-19, I declared 2020 my year of Living Local; necessarily staying local has been one of the paradoxical gifts of this global pandemic. Thanks to a friend's generosity, farmer's market bounty throughout the month has included—partial list:

• Lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, grapefruit, potatoes.
• Eggs, avocados, apricots, peppers, persimmons.
• Blueberries, blackberries, cherries, strawberries, raspberries.
• Basil, mint, cilantro, onions, peaches, plums.
• Cucumbers, green squash, yellow squash.
• Radishes, corn, lemons, limes.


Porch Stories

• The upper right quadrant of this month's header features the porch from one of the Porch Stories buttons I used when Kristin Taylor hosted a regular linkup. During July I front porch socialized a couple of times with dinner and conversation, though we kept more distance than in the picture.


18 Year Blogoversary



• To help celebrate, I've claimed a suite of five cupcakes pics from px here; with its preponderance of not chocolate, this one's my fave.

In May 2002 I graduated from the Community Economic Development (inner city economic self-reliance) certificate program at San Diego State with a mini-MBA in entrepreneurship. My future felt expansive because I planned to network intensively and extensively come autumn, but on that sixteenth day of July, beginning a blog felt like the thing to do. For substantial starters, I'd saved a lot of what I'd written on the UCC theology, book discussion, and evangelism forums.

As I sat with Suzanne on the back stoop of the Koreatown place on Catalina four and a half years ago – also known as fourteen years later than May 2002 – I sensed the same boundless future and said to Suzanne, "Was LA worth such a long wait? I need to say, I need to believe yes!"

Eighteen years, four and one-half years, a quarter century or a few more months, what now?

I often remind myself many things can't be quantified. Some things can. At least as often I remind myself scripture constantly testifies to resurrection: the inbreaking reign of heaven is the end of the old, the start of a new almost completely discontinuous with what has been.

Eighteen years have passed too fast.

This year the 16^th, that middle day of July literally fell on a Thursday. With Teena in Toronto no longer popping over with reminders, 2020 wasn't the first year I'd ignored this blog's anniversary. Today? During this pandemic I wonder if anyone anywhere has a future, though you might scroll down to the end of this post, and even before pointing out the historical reality of resurrection from the dead, the centrality of hope to God's people, all of us might remember despair and discouragement fall solidly within the traditions of the Psalmists.

What else? "Practice resurrection!" What time is it now? Time to wait, to expect the future God has been preparing.


Ice Cream Day / Year



• It's official! National Ice Cream Day happens every year on the Third Sunday in July! Although I'd planned a Sunday outing with a non-household member (technically forbidden to anyone abiding by statewide directive), instead we did a couple of errands on Monday afternoon with interspersed Hot Fudge Sundaes at BR31. Some insist it's really national ice cream month; can anyone go wrong believing that?


Pioneering Latter-day Saints



• Awash in sweet memories of festivities in Liberty Park followed by fireworks later in the day, every so often I "do something" for Utah's Pioneer Day that every July 24^th recollects because it can't forget Brigham Young's This Is The Place declaration. This version #3 for 2020 is the only wide one—specifically engineered to accommodate my always centered monthly summaries.


Futures…

• …not commodities markets. Talk about declarations—Living Local, This is the Place?! Last month's blog header announced Into the Future; for July into August I'll go Into a Future. Despite no big judicatorial gathering this year and as a result I won't have an art workshop, with life gradually opening up I'm in an excellent position to offer activities such as expressive art for almost any age (3^rd grade and up… please no tiny kids). As I emailed a friend, I'd like to find a spiritual director. I'm thinking probably a Jesuit because of their reputation for wisdom and discernment. Why do all those protestants (esp so many PKs) attend Jesuit schools? I realize it probably will be masks and distancing until they have a vaccine, and that's fine with me. I cannot abide another virtual anything.

• Every week I open my SS lesson with a prayer—often one I write based on the lectionary readings, frequently the appointed responsive psalm. Last Sunday's was from The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, retired bishop of the Episcopal Church USA and Native American of the Choctaw People. I counseled my blog readers to "trust God's future" as they prayed.

Something sacred is coming this way.

That is how my ancestors would have said it. In the midst of all this turmoil and confusion, when we cannot clearly see the path before us, when we feel trapped in a situation we cannot control, then I believe the wise elders of my holy heritage would climb to the high place of the heart, draw the circle of reason and faith around them, and stand to sing their prayers into the open sky of the history to come.

They would not shrink into a corner afraid, but rise up to catch the first light of what was coming into being all around them.

We are living in a time of emergence.
We are the witnesses to a great renewal.
The world is full of the fear of birth and change, but that transformation will one day be our blessing.
Do not be afraid, but be believing.
Come to the place where the ancestors are already standing.
Come and see.

Something sacred is coming this way.

• For myself and for all the teachers, preachers, designers, artists, musicians who create, say, sing, play, proclaim, and acclaim what they themselves most long for and need, during the past year I've talked a fair amount about the previousness of God. Exactly as Jesus promises, God always goes before us to prepare a way before leading us there. (During advent we imagine we're waiting for God to show up, but reality's the opposite). God already has been to our future! Your future and my future as individuals. The world's post-pandemic future.

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Terence Lester :: I See You

Equal parts testimony, analysis, and exhortation, at first glance Terence Lester's soon to be released I See You: How Love Opens Our Eyes to Invisible People is about the growing population of homeless individuals along with assorted "others than us" we don't perceive as part of mainstream society. However, as the late, highly admired and regarded Henri Nouwen observed, everyone is impoverished in some way, and surprisingly, "that’s the place where God wants to dwell! 'How blessed are the poor,' Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty. ... Let’s dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden." from Bread for the Journey

So I See You is about all of us.

Terence tells us poverty of any kind is about lack of access, but that's only a starter. And yes, much of this book does focus on the economic and material impoverishment that often leads to individuals and families finding themselves without physical shelter, the poverty that happens because of lack of human connections, lack of a community of support and participation.

Have you noticed how homelessness and poverty tend to be systemic and multi-generational? Lester dreams of eradicating (especially) systemic injustice. I see You chronicles the author's own experiences and his observations of others who've been poor; it particularly testifies to Terence's – and other's – experiences of being seen clearly enough to have their needs acted upon and met by people acting as God's agents—as God's eyes.

¹³Hagar answered God by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, "You're the God who sees me! "Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!"

¹⁴That's how that desert spring got named "God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring." That spring is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. Genesis 16, The Message

The author reminds us scripture has over two thousand references to poverty and justice; we need to recognize aspects of justice include distributive, retributive, restorative, and procedural. Possibly others, as well, though they may be sub-sets of these primary types. Quite a while ago senior pastor asked what classes I was taking and I mentioned one called "Poverty and Justice." Senior pastor responded with a longish speech about the criminal (retributive) justice system and the highly disproportionate number of persons of color and others without economic means who remain incarcerated. I replied, "No! You're thinking of retributive justice! This course is about distributive justice! Who gets what, how, when, and why!" Most poverty seems to happen because of disconnects in distributive justice that often cascade into other injustices.

Hagar's God who sees me is a God who sees each of us as we really are. That includes individuals with massive financial resources it's easy to stereotype as having everything; it includes people in ragged clothes holding a Please Help! sign at the freeway entrance. What stereotypes do you need to start breaking down? What ones do I still hold onto?

Scripture tells us, Jesus shows us how God created humanity in the image of the divine. In the power of the Holy Spirit of life, God calls and enables us to claim that divine nature and live as God's presence on earth, to act as God's voices, hands, feet, and eyes everywhere we go.

Almost everyone underestimates what a "regular" person can accomplish. Terence advises each of us, "Do something, anything for the [solitary] one." I like to remind my adult Sunday School class everything we do is synergistic and adds up to far more than the sum of our small, individual actions and prayers. "Prayers"? Yes. Read the gospels! Jesus always prayed before taking any significant action, before making any response to human need.

"Where will you start after reading this book?"

With God's blessings to us concealed in our own poverties, with God's blessings and presence in those we see and encounter hidden in their own unmet needs, in the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit, each of us can be the spring named God-Alive-Sees-Me as previously invisible people become visible to us.

Some link love:

• Terence Lester online

• Terence on Facebook

• Terence Lester's Instagram

• Terence Lester on twitter

• Love Beyond Walls, an organization Terence and his spouse Cecilia started to draw attention to homelessness and poverty and to help mobilize people in situations of poverty into a full future.

Notice of Material Connection: As a member of the launch team, I received a complimentary pre-publication copy of this book with no requirement or expectation I'd write a positive review. As always, my opinions are my very own, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

my amazon review: vision and hope

Porch Stories: Prayer

Last week Kristin Hill Taylor's weekly Wednesday linkup changed from Three Word Wednesday into Porch Stories; today Kristin writes about Putting my Prayers in a Box.

When Kristin told me today's topic was prayer, I immediately thought of it as a good topic for the slowed-down days of Lent. I also realized all of us need to evaluate and reorient our prayer lives on a regular basis. People insist we become closest to those we talk to most often. Talk to about what? Most of us reserve certain topics for certain people, but with God, we need to be sure nothing's off limits. In her Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren Winner reminds us Jewish prayer is liturgical prayer, meaning actions, words, postures, and attitudes that belong to the entire community, not simply to a single individual. She suggests beginning our daily prayer time(s) with written prayers rather than with free prayer that's the longing of our own hearts.

What written prayers would I suggest? Why not start each prayer time with a psalm? Close with a psalm, as well? In our necessary quest to be sure nothing between us and God is off-limits, the full range of the psalter provides expressive depth to every aspect of "Our Human Condition," and afterwards we can bring our own situations, consternations, hopes, and troubles before the throne of grace. We can pray the liturgy of the hours with the church in every time and every place, but apart from a retreat or vacation setting, praying all the canonical hours every day likely won't happen. Why not greet the new day with an abbreviated version of Matins and/or pray Compline as a family, as a couple, or alone on your balcony or veranda after your evening meal or before bed? When Jesus' disciples asked him how to pray, he responded with "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name..." You know the rest! Talk about praying with the rest of the church! Just as we bring our own voices to God in prayer, God's Holy Spirit has inspired people who developed the structure and words of the divine office (and the Eucharistic liturgy) to combine and integrate God's address to us humans with our responses to God's initiative.

I've never gotten into praying scripture through the practice of Lectio divina, but it's still easy to claim for ourselves a few verses from almost any portion of scripture. There are daily devotional booklets that offer very short reflections on short passages; you also could begin your serious devotional time with the standalone two-year daily lectionary on PC(USA)—"standalone" because it doesn't relate at all to the 3-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary. Just as we speak to God through our words and actions, with our whole lives, God speaks to each of us as individuals and in gathered community through the words of scripture, best interpreted by Jesus, the Living Word. You also can access the daily lectionary here—this links directly to readings for today, 22 March 2017.

Making scripture as God's word to us and for us a integral part of our prayer that's our word and words from earth to heaven can help us discern what God asks of us, where God wants us to be. As dwellers in the 21^st century and as people God has called and claimed in baptism, we will receive personal, individual revelation—just as the scriptures witness to countless individuals to whom God has revealed Godself and God's intentions. What God asks of us always will be for the greater good, and will align with better or best options for the families and communities we belong to and interact with; God's intentions for any of us ultimately will lead to the well-being and betterment of all creation. We literally can invoke God's words and Jesus Christ's presence in scripture to measure and test what we hear!

There are sitting (standing, walking) in silence types of prayer that provide opportunities to open, bear, and lay bare our hearts and our lives to God in ways speech can't; ways to listen for God's response in ways only sheer silence can transmit, but for this Porch Stories edition I've concentrated on Praying with Spoken – and sometimes our own Written – Words.

Mercy & Melons: Lisa Nichols Hickman

Mercy & Melons by Lisa Nichols Hickman on Amazon.

Mercy & Melons: "Thanking God for All Good Gifts from A to Z" presents a memorable and rememberable way to "pray always" and to perceive God's hiddenness in the smallest, most mundane objects and events. Lisa Nichols Hickman Prays the Alphabet by pairing a clearly theological or scriptural concept with one not obviously immediately so. "Mercy & Melons" in the title, Grasshoppers and Glory for letter G, Yellow and Yahweh Y. The Hebrew bible book of Lamentations and several psalms model an acrostic approach to devotion, so this book and our practice in response to reading Mercy & Melons has scriptural precedent.

You could practice Praying the Alphabet in your head or in a notebook. You could visually (drawings, sketches, photographs, paintings) or poetically illustrate your own pairs of Praises & Pavements – Berries & Baptism – Rivers & Rhubarb. You could create a month of blog posts, either minus Sundays or simply allowing for any occasional skipped day or alternate topic. You could give Mercy & Melon to a seasoned, mature, highly theological Christian, to someone newly baptized, or to that person who's not quite sure about Christianity or religion, but who nonetheless savors every bit of life.

Cover Art and an illuminated letter for each chapter by Celia Marie Baker of The Bookwood help immensely to make Mercy & Melons an appealingly attractive handbook. Dark green type inside perfectly harmonizes with yellows and greens on the cover, but given that the cover also includes black lettering, for readability I'd prefer setting the book in black type.

my amazon review: "pray always" by praying the alphabet

Ray Waddle: Undistorted God

In Undistorted God: Reclaiming Faith Despite the Cultural Noise, with chapter titles like Largesse of God, Rhythm of God, Motion of God, House of God, Ray Waddle's often energetic yet deeply reflective reports on his own experiences of God's presence or non-presence in his life create a wild, orthodox, and appealing model for our own journaling, blogging, or book-writing. Despite Undistorted God mainly featuring the author's own story, at almost every single juncture he places himself solidly within the two-thousand years (plus) history of the people of God in Jesus Christ, and demonstrates the centrality of Eucharist and prayer in his journey. Whilst reading the book, I alternated between, "what an astonishing life!" and "I so could begin getting out of my own head and my own pain, I truly could move beyond the clutter, chatter, noise (and sometimes silence of) other people and media outlets, and even be more open to God's real, undistorted rhythms, largesse, rebirth... in my own life and world."

In response to its inspiration, I'm planning at least to journal some along the style of Ray Waddle's Undistorted God—possibly even write some posts for this blog.

Legal Notice in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR Part 255: I received a copy of this book via Amazon Vine with no obligation to write a positive review.

my amazon review: I'm going to do this, too!

River Sunday 2014

God of all creation, at the dawn of time rivers flowed over mountains and through valleys; we ask that in the Spirit of life we may live faithfully to our baptism with water and the word, that the rivers of the new creation would flow freely and provide healing to all the nations. In the name of Jesus the Christ, Amen!

Here's the Eucharistic Prayer I wrote for Season of Creation Year A in 2011:

Eucharistic Prayer Creation A – © leah chang 2011

Outback/Wilderness Sunday 2014

God of the covenanted faith-filled journey homeward, in the exodus desert you formed a people after your own heart as you led them toward the land of promise. We ask that you would lead us to trust you in our moment by moment wanderings, that we might freely serve as your gracious presence in the world. In Jesus' name, Amen!

Here's the Eucharistic Prayer I wrote for Season of Creation Year A in 2011:

Eucharistic Prayer Creation A – © leah chang 2011

Land Sunday 2014

Holy God, you chose to live among us in a body formed from the soil of the earth and you promised to lead your people into an inalienable land you would show them; in your Spirit may we live faithfully to your call to steward the land, that it would become safe living space and produce life-sustaining food for all creation. In the name of Jesus the Christ, your son and our brother, Amen!

Here's the Eucharistic Prayer I wrote for Season of Creation Year A in 2011:

Eucharistic Prayer Creation A – © leah chang 2011

Forest Sunday 2014

God of all creation, God of all seasons, you made rivers and streams and planted a garden; trees grew out of the ground and the earth breathed. May we receive and retain your life-giving Spirit that we would faithfully care for the rivers, the gardens and the forests, so that everything in creation would continue to breathe in wholeness and health, to the glory of your name, amen!

Here's the Eucharistic Prayer I wrote for Season of Creation Year A in 2011:

Eucharistic Prayer Creation A – © leah chang, 2011

Resurrection City

Resurrection City: A Theology of Improvisation on Amazon by Peter Goodwin Heltzel

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free through The Speakeasy and I was not required to write a positive review; the opinions in this review are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR Part 255.

"Resurrection City offers a Christian prophetic vision for justice... in "the style of improvisation players of jazz offer." After all, "...traditional theology has most often been written in the style of Western classical music." ...the style of Western classical music? Despite the Christian scriptures not originating in the contemporary western world, until recently, most theologians have originated in the contemporary western hemisphere, so how else are they going to express themselves? Yet still I appreciate "classical music" in the sentence, since jazz also is a musical genre, and in this case, comparisons can be valid.

Resurrection City moves along at the approximate pace of the biblical book of Acts, and like Acts, brings us stories of discipleship, exploitation, inclusion, injustice, healing, conflict, resolution, and resurrection from death. Like Acts, Resurrection City tells us of the eschatological reign of the Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. According to the author, Resurrection City has [at least] a double meaning: new life for the poor, heaven in the biblical book of Revelation, "an ethical goal and future destination for world Christianity." Although the book title refers to many locations and ways of being, most specifically Resurrection City is the Beloved Community that gathered and grew in Washington, D.C., beginning in spring 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Out of a thoroughly orthodox Theological (Christological, Pneumatological) perspective, author Peter Goodwin Heltzel chronicles triumphs that have occurred because of faith-filled prayer, discernment, direct, and less-than-direct action. Heltzel outlines possibilities for a more inclusive, more justice-oriented future for the entire planet. You could describe much of Resurrection City as scripturally-based instructions and encouragements of ways to "practice resurrection" until the real, enduring experience of God doing a New Thing happens in the power of the Holy Spirit. The blues are a state of mind, blues often signal it's time to start reaching for change, sometimes a case of the blues is a place to rest and reflect for a while. In Peter Heltzel's Resurrection City, blues and jazz are all of the above. Very very highly recommend!

my amazon review: improvisation into resurrection

FOW Opening Prayer

Opening Prayer for today's meeting of the Faith, Order & Witness committee.

God of Creation, Lord of the Church, your Holy Spirit calls us together here to unity, to conversation, to agreement, to disagreement. As individuals and in our diverse theological graduations, we differ on interpretation of scripture, yet agree Jesus Christ is the ultimate interpreter, the Living Word of God.

How timely that the lectionary has been bringing us the gospel of John with Jesus' command to obedience and his pleas that the church might be one. As we soon celebrate and rejoice in the festival of the Spirit of Unity on the Day of Pentecost, may be one in your Spirit of Unity. We thank you for the healing in N's life, and ask your healing presence with all those who cannot be with us today.

We pray in Jesus' name―Amen!

Picture of the parking lot; you can see the building where we meet on the third floor reflected on the glass in the middle of the background building.

kinship, now, prayer...