We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders.
ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU
During the communion prayers we sometimes pray, “Jesus taught us that the liberation of the whole world will not be in the brutality of violence. Rather, it will be in showing kindness to our neighbor, in standing up against injustice, in returning hate with love, in transforming one heart at a time. It will be in the simple but holy task of dining together, sharing bread and wine, truly seeing one another as beloved by you.”
One of our favorite lines in the Communion service is when the priest declares. “This is God’s table, not ours. All are welcome.”
Oh Father, we have such a long way to go to bring you delight. Purify our hearts we pray that we might not sin against you. Open our eyes to see our fellow humans as made in your likeness. Help us to esteem others as better than ourselves. (Philippians 2:3)
We have also been learning a song by Michael Stillwater that goes, “One by one everyone comes to remember, we’re healing the world one heart at a time.”
This is a German speaking group. We also sing it in rounds at church. I found myself singing it one day last week and had to stop to remember where I had heard it!!
May your eyes be opened and your heart know that there are no outsiders. Just humans walking each other home.
I could have danced all night I could have danced all night And still have begged for more
I could have spread my wings And done a thousand things I've never done before
I'll never know what made it so exciting Why all at once my heart took flight I only know when he began to dance with me I could have danced, danced, danced all night
Yes, after 56 years I am more than willing to dance with Robert Milan. We have FUN together. Sometimes he carries his teasing and jokes too far for my emotion at a given moment, but overall, we have fun.
We create humor and jokes between ourselves. We are friends, yes, even best friends. There are times he gets on my last nerve and I get on his, but we each get over that and move on.
On this date in Edges of His Ways Amy wrote:
It is the little things of life, the minute, unimportant-looking things, that are most likely to shatter our peace, because they are so small that we are very likely to fight them ourselves instead of looking up at once to our Strong God, our Barrier between us and them. “Close the gate, or bar up the way, as the cloudy pillar formed a barricade between the Egyptians and Israel” is Kay’s note.
The deaths of Ginny and Chuck Lynch have taught us how short life is, how unexpectedly death can come and now is the time to love and laugh, to cherish and sing.
When I saw Bob Dutina for the first time, at a distance, it really was love at first sight. I have never understood exactly how our lives came to be together; however, I am grateful and blessed to have been given the gift of this incredible marriage.. Thanks be to God!
Psalm 90:12. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
I posted this with wrong date. Then it did not seem to post this morning. So here is another attempt!!
I write about this many times because I am still learning the importance of gratitude. I studied the book by Ann Voskamp entitled One Thousand Gifts and did the work of finding a thousand things to be grateful for. Mind you, there were to be no repeats from day to day. Her goal was for us to “Find Everyday Graces.”
There have been many research projects proving the benefits of doing this practice.
Recently while listening on Insight Timer the meditation instructor mentioned write 3 gratitudes, large or small. Yes, I know about those. Then he went further and said, “#2. Explain why you are grateful and how they improve your life.”
Yes, I have likely thought that while recording the gratitude, but never wrote out the reasons why. Research shows that if we will write things out, especially with pen or pencil, they make a greater impact upon us.
Then he went on to, “#3: Notice how focus upon gratitude shifts awareness from unfairness towards appreciation.”
Oh boy! Don’t most of us love to harp on things we perceive as unfair!?!
So while writing this blog I stopped to perform the three steps the teacher proposed for expanding gratitude. Yes, I literally stopped typing and wrote out with a pen the answers to his expanded examination of gratitude. It actually takes less time than one might think it would! And I do find myself more at peace and delighted with the three gratitudes.
If I type my responses out for you, I am not at all certain they will retain your attention. The benefits however are not to be discounted.
Word Press says that so far this blog post only requires a one minute or so reading. So here goes. I have often blogged about crocheting, cooking and gardening. They are my three topics.
1. I am able to crochet again
2. I enjoy cooking
3. Nasturtium blessings
Okay there are three but they are not explained at all.
#2. Why grateful? How it improves you life.
I am grateful I can create with yarn, be it a coaster, hat or blanket. Crochet improves my life with gifts to give, plus the joy of sharing patterns and the craft with Dana, Bonnie, Phyllis, etc.
Cooking is a creative outlet for me, but I am glad we can eat out when we want so I don’t have to cook dinner daily. Cooking improves my life because I use better ingredients and less salt than restaurants. It is also fun to share what I cook with others.
I am grateful for nasturtiums because so long as I pick them they bloom on and on. No matter how many I pick they bloom right into the frost season. They also remind me of our first year of marriage.
Nasturtiums improve my life because through them I can bring sunshine into the house with different shades of yellow and orange. I also get to share a bouquet with others. 🙂
Our nasturtiums with one rose
Gratitude shifts from unfair to appreciative.
After 55 years of the craft to have to stop crochet was sad, but the steroid injection in my thumb joint, then giving it time to heal, learning a new way to hold my hook differently and being content to crochet less all flowed from the change in ability. Perhaps this old dog has actually learned a new trick?!?
I have gratitude that I could in recent years offer meals to Pete (RIP) and Chuck and Ginny (RIP). The gratitude helps relieve the grief of their passing. Soon Kathy will move back to Florida for six or seven months, (that too is grief for me). I suppose I might share her portions with Jennifer, Judi and Micky, or Jerry and Diane?
The summer was blistering and miserable. I got nasturtium seeds in the ground before surgery. Then I had to get family, friends and neighbors to pick the flowers so they would not go to seed. I was often frustrated that I could not just go do it myself. (In fact, it was one of the first things I actually did outdoors once I could bear weight on the boot.) I have a better appreciation now for these sturdy little annuals and the friends who helped me in my garden when I was unable.
There. That is expansion on the three simple gratitudes. It did not take much time to write it out long hand. Studies show that is more impactful on our brains than typing, though I mostly type my journal now because of arthritis in my hands.
I hope this blog will inspire you to try this exercise. At least once a week? Look at your life, find three things to be grateful for, and then answers the questions.
#1. Write 3 gratitudes, large or small. #2. Explain why you are grateful and how they improve your life. #3. Notice how focus upon gratitude shifts awareness from unfairness towards appreciation.
Ann Voskamp wrote, “And I ride the undulating wave of grace, this lifting higher and higher in grace, the surging crest of joy, and this plunging lower and lower in humble thankfulness only to rise yet higher in grace.” Page 108 One Thousand Gifts Devotional
We are delighted to announce our marriage continues! Thanks be to God and His mercies! Someone was said to be making bets at the time of our wedding that our marriage would not last. I think we can put that rumor in the grave now.
Bury it here
Celebration? We will have a quiet dinner at a local restaurant called Trios (even though they do not have Crème brûlée). Perhaps we can find that in a couple weeks for Bob’s birthday? Addendum: They had a delicious Creme brûlée!
We will not actually celebrate on the date as our Granddaughter is having an engagement party on that date and it is her birth date!
So as we move forward I hope to be writing about
our life together, fifty-six years after that whirlwind courtship and wedding.
After the vows in 1970
Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His mercy is everlasting. — Psalm 106:1 (NASB)
But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6: 6, 16-17 RSV
These words jumped out at me: Father who is in secret, Father who sees in secret, Father who is in secret.
Pray to your Father in secret. Talk with God in secret. Do we?
Once a friend named Char told me she talked to God all day long. Then she asked, “Am I doing it right?” I told her she was practicing faith exactly right. We are told to talk with God about everything, all the time. Not to be seen and lauded by others, but for that personal, holy, Spirit- filled relationship with the Lord God Almighty. This is what Jesus died and rose again for – to give us this ability through the power of the Holy Spirit.
in the 1600s Brother Lawrence taught, “That we should establish ourselves in a sense of God’s presence by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation to think of trifles and fooleries.”
“With him the set times of prayer were not different from other times; that he retired to pray, according to the directions of his superior, but that he did not want such retirement., nor ask for it, because his greatest business dd not divert him from God.”
Can you imagine having developed your prayer life to where nothing could divert you from conversing with God? Have you arrived there? I certainly have not.
“As he proceeded in his work he continued his familiar conversation with his Maker, imploring His grace, and offering to Him all his actions.”
Yes, Lord, yes! That we might please always be in this secret communication with the throne. I never want the sacrifice of Jesus to be in vain as far as my life goes. As I bend the knee of my heart before You I reach for Your Presence within and around me. Amen.
Here is a short video about the story of Brother Lawrence. I have it starting at the discussion about conversing with God.
A quote from the series “The Hammond Family Farm,” “He knew that teenagers thought everything that happened today meant that was how things would be forever. Boone knew far better than that.”
That is so like our thinking. Even in my 70s I often think like a teenager, grasping things as if they will be this way forever. Good and bad things. I forget things change, whether I like it or not.
Then there is this:
In 2018 I journaled the following. “Change is inevitable. Come to expect it.” If only I had that tattooed on my hand, I could see it daily and perhaps remember that when I am strolling in my comfort zone, that too is subject to change. Perhaps the seasons changing so dramatically are our reminder from God that nothing remains the same except God.”
Life is full of mystery. The mystery is our invitation to let go and to embrace uncertainty with the fullness of our being. This is how hope becomes our bearing. It’s how it becomes our compass in uncertain times. Joe Primo
“Hope becomes our bearing and our compass”
“Joe Primo is the CEO of Grateful Living. He is a passionate speaker and community-builder whose accomplishments made him a leading voice on resilience and adversity. Gratefulness for life, he believes, is foundational to discovering meaning and the only response that is big enough and appropriate for the plot twists, delights, surprises, and devastation we encounter along the way.” https://grateful.org/joe-primo/
I have come to regard Joe with high praise. He was a Hospice Chaplain for many years. That gives a person a unique insight on the best ways to LIVE. The bold text above summarizes his embrace regarding the importance of gratefulness. Please read it one more time slowly.
The purple quote above says let go and embrace uncertainty with the fullness of our being. I am not there yet! Indeed, I have not arrived. Yes, Lord, I need hope for my compass.
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.“ Emily Dickinson
Right after I noted this Dickinson quote for the blog it showed up in a TV show. Just like God to send me a reminder. “Let go and to embrace uncertaintywith the fullness of our being.”
Are you willing to try it this week? And the week after that? And the week after that? I am praying that the next time you see a feather you will remember Emily and Joe, see the hope that perches in your soul, embrace uncertainty with the fullness of your being.
Peace is an invitation in daily life to breathe deep, right here, in the uncertainty. MORGAN HARPER NICHOLS
Peace. Hope. Uncertainty. They are our companions. “We Can Complain Because Rose Bushes Have Thorns, or Rejoice Because Thorn Bushes Have Roses.” No one is certain who created this sentiment, but many encourage us to be grateful for life and embrace the changes that come our way, uncertain though that way may be.
Bob Dylan is quoted as having said, “There is nothing so stable as change.”
The hummingbird is flitting from one jewelweed flower to the next, and there are hundreds of flowers out there. I read they know every flower they visit. How do they remember all of those flowers? So tiny, pausing only a short moment to drink from each, how do they keep track?
Flash of green darting among the green leaves and orange flowers, you are a marvel.
It has been reported they can recognize humans!
Hummingbirds have excellent memory and pattern recognition skills. There is evidence that they can remember and recognize individual humans, particularly if that person frequently interacts with them or feeds them. However, more research is needed to fully understand the extent of hummingbirds’ ability to differentiate between people. https://www.hummingbird101.com/do-hummingbirds-recognize-individual-people/
What?!? Those tiny creatures who migrate thousands of miles can know me? We have seen them come to the kitchen window and look in as if to find us or remind us to refill their feeder.
Hummingbirds remember every flower they visit and when it will have fresh nectar again!?!
Perhaps even more impressive than their spatial memory is hummingbirds’ temporal memory—their ability to track when flowers replenish their nectar. Studies by Dr. Susan Healy and colleagues revealed that wild hummingbirds can remember the refill schedules of hundreds of individual flowers, returning to them just as the nectar reaches optimal levels.https://www.animalsaroundtheglobe.com/hummingbirds-remember-every-flower-7-326678/
They report that the hummingbird’s brain is roughly the size of a grain of rice. I want to know if that is cooked or uncooked rice? Imagine their ability in contrast to ours! I can walk from the office to the bedroom and forget why I was going to the bedroom. Remember every flower? Human faces? What an amazing creature!
Each time I think I am finished blogging about these amazing birds who frequent the late summer jewelweed I find even more reasons to marvel over them.
They were His idea from the beginning!
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” Genesis 1:20-22
Thank you God for the blessing of birds and flowers!
Seems like wherever I turn these days folks are seeking direction and fulfillment for their everyday lives. I keep returning again and again to Rumi, the poet, theologian, Islamic scholar, and Sufi Mystic. I am not looking to replace my Christian faith, but this guy understood the depths of mysticism and genuine faith.
Merriam-Webster defines mysticism as a religious practice based on the belief that knowledge of spiritual truth can be gained by praying or thinking deeply. I know Jesus would agreed.
Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop. There are quite a few dead leaves dropping around here and summer is not even complete. How about the things we fill our lives with that do not fulfill us? Can we drop some of those and be more like the tree described in the Psalms?
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers, 2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. 3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. Psalm 1:1-13 NRSVUE
Whatever lifts the corners of your mouth, trust that. There is a local billboard that states “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” It is powerful advice. Our worship service has children participate especially in collecting the offering. There is also a special children’s sermon that is delightful. I am always refreshed by the children. And they know how to smile!
Before I had the recent foot surgery if I saw someone in a wheelchair I made an effort to get on their eye level and greet them with a smile. Since I have so recently driven electric wheelchair shopping carts in so many different stores I am even more inclined to do that. It is an entirely different world down there. Most people just hurry past and ignore those who are seated. Try giving those folks a smile of yours! If you have never driven one of those carts, the next time you see them lined up for charging you should try one, just to gain a new perspective! Of course, if there is only one or two please leave it for those of us who cannot walked the area of American mega-stores! There are some people who would see me reaching for an item and ask if they could help me with it. There is still kindness all around us!
Hard, but oh so true. Constantly flowing, never clinging, always embracing the new. Wowsers. Here are just a couple of short songs to keep you in the ways of a river today.
Last spring our contemporary worship band made a point of learning this song. We sang it this week as our offertory hymn, noting the death of Dolly Parton. The song was written by Zach Williams. In an interview he stated that he just kept hearing Dolly Parton singing it with him. He eventually contacted her. After hearing the song, reading the lyrics she said yes she would be glad to record it with him.
According to Williams, Parton was looking for more faith-based projects when his team reached out regarding the song.
“We all knew it was a big ask and we were shooting for the moon to try to get her on the song,” Williams explained. “We originally heard that 90% of the stuff that comes her way, she turns down just because she has so many people asking to do songs with her.”
Williams recounted Parton telling him, the day she received the song, that she didn’t even make it through the first chorus, before she knew it was a special song and a “God-send.”
