29 July 2014

road song

Do you walk this road alone,
oh traveler?
Is the soft thump of your steps and the stir of the breeze in the dust your only companion?
Awake,
awaken to the sunrise.
You are not alone...do you not see the first ray of dawn?
See, now it rises, bright and sure over these hills....
you will hear the song of the morning again.
I see the dark...
I walk the dark.
Groping, feeling my way through this path, starless night that it is.
See, though, the light that dawns.
Moon and stars rise,
sun over the mountains comes slow and sure.
It will be a quiet morning.
Never, though, has there been a night without a morning.
So still I wait.
This is not a lonely path,
dark though it is.
I am in the company of the strongest, bravest ones I know.
We walk in the silence,
waiting for the morning.
It rises.
We will see again.
Listen,
Oh traveler.

26 May 2014

the prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life
.

28 April 2014

thrive- switchfoot

Been fighting things that I can't see
Like voices coming from the inside of me and
Like doing things I find hard to believe in
Am I myself or am I dreaming?

I've been awake for an hour or so
Checking for a pulse but I just don't know
Am I a man when I feel like a ghost?
The stranger in the mirror is wearing my clothes

No, I'm not alright
I know that I'm not right
A steering wheel don't mean you can drive
A warm body don't mean I'm alive

No, I'm not alright
I know that I'm not right
Feel like I travel but I never arrive
I wanna thrive not just survive

I come alive when I hear you singing
But lately I haven't been hearing a thing and
I get the feeling that I'm in between
A machine and a man who only looks like me

I try and hide it and not let it show
But deep down inside me I just don't know
Am I a man when I feel like a hoax?
The stranger in the mirror is wearing my clothes

No, I'm not alright
I know that I'm not right
A steering wheel don't mean you can drive
A warm body don't mean I'm alive

No, I'm not alright
I know that I'm not right
Feel like I travel but I never arrive
I wanna thrive not just survive

I'm always close, but I'm never enough
I'm always in line, but I'm never in love
I get so down, but I won't give up
I get so down, but I won't give up
I get so down, but I won; t give up

Been fighting things that I can't see
Like voices coming from the inside of me and
Like doing things I find hard to believe in
Am I myself or am I dreaming?

Am I myself or am I dreaming?
Am I myself or am I dreaming?

Thrive, thrive, thrive, yeaah, thrive

No, I'm not alright
I know that I'm not right
A steering wheel don't mean you can drive
A warm body don't mean I'm alive

No, I'm not alright
I know that I'm not right
Feel like I travel but I never arrive
I wanna thrive not just survive
I wanna thrive not just survive

Yeah yeah
Feel like I travel but I never arrive
I wanna thrive not just survive
I wanna thrive not just survive
I wanna thrive not just survive

Feels like I travel but I never arrive
I wanna thrive not just survive

18 April 2014

we remember




 He was dishonored and not considered, He bears our sins and suffers for our sakes, and we for our part thought Him distressed and afflicted and ill-used; but it was for our sins that He was wounded, and for our lawlessness that He was made weak. Punishment for our sins was upon Him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:4-5

04 April 2014

go to the limits of your longing

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

R-anier Maria Rilke

24 March 2014

between

Now He is led forth to death, carrying His Cross. O what a spectacle is this! Do you see it? Lo, the government is upon His shoulders. See, here is His rod of equity, His rod of empire. Wine mingled with gall is given Him to drink. He is striped of His garments, which are divided among the soldiers; but His tunic is not rent, but passes by lot to one of them. His dear hands and feet are bored with nails; and He, stretched on the Cross, is hung up between thieves. Of God and men the Mediator, He hangs in the midst between heaven and earth; joining lowest things and highest, earthly things and heavenly; and heaven is bewildered, and earth condoles.
"And what of you? No wonder if, while the sun mourns, you mourn also; if, while the earth shakes, you tremble; if, while rocks rend, your heart is torn; if, while the women beside the Cross are all in tears, you cry aloud with them."
Anselm of Canterbury, Meditation #84

05 March 2014

isaiah 58:5-7

 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?
 Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

21 February 2014

small

Five Minute Friday! :)

He speaks to us
and I see His galaxy spread wide before these eyes.
A billion stars flung with abandon and careful presicion into the inky sky,
and I know.

I am small.

I sit waiting for the wave to crest and carry my kayak up, and I see the ocean spread white tipped wave after white tipped wave,
and I know.

I am small.

My skis slip through the powder like a knife through flour, and the mountains rise high, jagged against the brilliant blue winter sky.
I know.

I am small.

He's big.

That's the right way.

Then one of my favorite stories tells of Elijah wanting to see God:

Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.
1 Kings 19:11-13

Another translation calls it the "still, small voice."

To you who know you are small:
listen for the gentle whisper of God who is big.

Love:)

R

04 February 2014

until we don't need to remember

He raises the bread up.

This is my body, broken for you.

The cup.

This is my blood spilled for the forgiveness of your sin.

Remember.

And we taste.

Taste and see that the Lord is good,
even in the bitter dregs and the dry crumbs that remain.

We celebrate this.

We celebrate the remembrance, the sacrament,
until the day
He comes again
in glory
and we won't need to remember
because we
will
see.

This
is
no empty ritual.

This
is
practicing the remembrance.

Knowing the price of freedom.

We are free.

Praise God.


Love:)

R

01 February 2014

the lost and the finding

The words
left.

They went
away, gone for so long.

They're still
gone.

Inside, though,
I feel them start to rise.

They're so
deep.

Exhaustion does that,
strips you of yourself.

You go so long, you
start to shut down
and you get
lost.

Lost?
Inside.

It's so easy to
hide.

You could do it forever.



I will be found.



Love:)

R

30 January 2014

John 1:14-16

The Word became flesh and blood,
    and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
    the one-of-a-kind glory,
    like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
    true from start to finish.
 John pointed him out and called, “This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.”
We all live off his generous bounty,
        gift after gift after gift.

05 January 2014

a year



What do you do with a year?

Do you speak a benediction over it to close it out,
or do you simply bless the year ahead?

What do you say?

Do you look back into the darkness and the pain?
Or do you reach for the light?

I remember.
I remember dark.
More than the dark,
though,
I remember light.

It wasn't an easy year,
but it was a year of leaning in.

Of hope.

Of hearing the voice of God in the desert canyon,
the whisper of love and peace into the wind.

Of friends who were there.

It was a beautiful year.

Light conquers dark.

Maybe a benediction and a blessing aren't so different after all.
They might even be the same.



Christ in us- the hope of glory.
That is the blessing and the benediction,
the first and the last,
the edges of a year-
of a life.

Do I need anything else?

Christ in us,
the hope of glory.


Love:)

R