Week of March 4, 2018

Dear Friends,

I have lately been musing on the question of ‘what has the biggest claim on my life’.  Is it my work?  Is it my primary relationships?  Is it my persona or public image?  Is it my political leanings?  Is it my religion? 

For sure, a variety of things has shaped and continues to shape my life. They have EACH contributed to and influenced my identity.  But I am dissatisfied more and more with labels.  I am less and less interested in self-defining as white, or well-educated, or Southern, or American, or Democrat, or religious. 

I want to be associated with the community of people who care about the heart and will of God.  Perhaps one cannot easily know the will of God.  But I believe a long train of spiritual teachers across religious divides lifts up the essential goodness and giftedness of life.  This declaration of the benevolence of LIFE (God)  is a center point, an anchor, and a north star.  It is to be celebrated and protected.  For the alternative is of course fear, anxiety, cynicism and negativity.  We live in that space easily. 

What has the biggest claim on my life?  I want to answer boldly, “The heart and the will of God.”  I want to add my confession, “I am letting go of running my life in pursuit of comfort, security, approval, success, or rightness.”  I want to say, “I am living into the call to surrender to a Presence that is bigger, more interesting, and more transformative.”

Let’s call it life in the Spirit.  In Paul’s language, it is the great invitation to patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I want all of these to live in my heart. 

Please join us on Sunday morning to hear about the fruits of the Spirit and reconsider what needs to have the biggest claim on your life. 

Warmly,

Carter

 

Meditation

Turning

Going too fast for myself I missed

more than I think I can remember

 

almost everything it seems sometimes

and yet there are chances that come back

 

that I did not notice where they stood

where I could have reached out and touched them

 

this morning the black shepherd dog

still young looking up and saying

 

Are you ready this time

 --W.S. Merwin

Week of February 25, 2018

Dear Friends,

I've been thinking about courage the last couple of days.  Not a dramatic and heroic courage, but an everyday courage.  In 2 Timothy 1:7 we are given a hint about what courage looks like:  "for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline."  Everyday courage may be about the connecting to the Holy Spirit, living in love and doing these things in a disciplined way.  David Whyte has this to say about courage:  "courage is a word that tempts us to think outwardly...but to look at its linguistic origins  is to look in a more interior direction and towards it original template, the old Norman French, Coeur, or heart.  Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with one another with a community, a work, a future."

So I think I want to be present to my own life and to those around me in a more heartfelt way.  This takes a measure of courage, for it calls for a vulnerability, and authenticity, and a willingness to be less in control and more in the moment.  I'd like to say this this is easy work, but it may be the bit of courage I am being called to.  How about you?

On another note:

This Sunday we gather to do a little of the work of the church in the annual meeting.  Its a old and important part of New England Church culture and the basis of the town meeting.  This church is yours.  I hope you will come and help us be the church.

Blessings, 

Susan

Week of February 18, 2018

Dear Friends,

The alignment of Lent this year is  from  Valentines Day (Ash Wednesday)  to April Fools (Easter).  So one Lenten Devotional is called “Lovers and Fools.”    This is no concession to Hallmark holidays.  To be sure, we worship a God of love, and we faithful are wiling to be fools for Christ.  Take it from Paul:   “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong...” (I Corinthians 1:18, 27).

Some of us will celebrate Lent with a particular practice—giving up chocolate, adding prayers, a weekly visit to someone who needs company, coloring a weekly mandala.  (I’ve tried all these.   And there was the year I gave up being mean to my husband, which he still names as one of my best Lenten practices).

The Christian calendar developed a period of observance before Easter because Easter used to be the day of baptism and joining the community.  Those who aspired would take 40 days to study, pray and prepare.  Eventually other practices got put on this period too: abstaining from meat, contemplating mortality, atoning for sins.

No matter how you do it, a practice of some sort can bring our Sunday faith to a Monday through Saturday awareness.  Of course, the idea isn’t so much to have Lenten bragging rights with your friends, as to have more intimacy with the Divine.  

By now you may already have chosen a practice.  Good for you.  

Or, Lent may have crept up on you.  Don’t worry, its never to late to start some Lenten practice.  Something small, daily and that you can fit well into your life is the best choice.  Carter and I would be happy to share a few ideas with you—just give us a shout.

Blessings all you lovers and fools!

Warmly, 

Susan