Recently I attended a soul collage one day retreat led by Mooydeen Frees, retired Deacon of the Episcopal church and so many other titles and skills. She shared this blessing written by Jan Richardson. I was so moved that I want to share it with you, too. I pray you will read it once. And then read it again prayerfully with yourself in mind.
Blessing the Body
The blessing takes one look at you and all it can say is holy.
Holy hands, Holy face, Holy feet, Holy everything In between.
Holy even in pain. Holy even when weary. In brokenness, holy. In shame, holy still.
Holy in delight. Holy in Distress. Holy when being born. Holy when we lay it down at the hour of our death.
So friend, Open your eyes (holy eyes). For one moment see what this blessing sees, this blessing that knows how you have been formed and knit together in wonder and in love.
Welcome this blessing that folds its hands in prayer when it meets you; receive this blessing that wants to kneel in reverence before you; you who are temple, sanctuary, home for God in this world.
Isn’t that wonderful? Jan Richardson is new to me but I would say she certainly has a ministry writing blessings! “The blessing takes one look at you and all it can say is holy.”
Regardless of what you may think of yourself at times; regardless of what the accuser says about you, know that God loves you always. Are you willing to align your thinking with His?
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Just in time for the pandemic, this release drew Christians around the world together in praise of our Mighty God online. There is a saying if you sing, you pray twice. What a praise declaration to our God!
Knowing how many thousands of groups around the world posted this song just makes me smile. Some fussed because Christ Tomlin recorded the song and received great acclaim. Andrew, who wrote the song, was not perturbed and knew that if Jesus is proclaimed the target was hit spot on!
I love when the guy in the beret reaches over and kisses his wife after the line “From all peoples and tribes.” And those dimples when Andrew smiles! Bet God smiles, too!
I cannot approach Resurrection Sunday without remembering the work of Jesus on earth and in Heaven. He suffered on our behalf, was crucified, dead and buried. He rose again and is crowned the King of All, holding the keys of death and hell.
The twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
Revelation 4:10-11 NIV
Do you know that as a Christian you are crowned?
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
Revelation 1:5-6 NIV
Royalty generally wears a crown. Jesus is crowned over all. You have a crown, too.
Lilias Trotter wrote as interesting take on this in her book Parables of the Cross. Writing about the calyx which is the outer part of a flower, the sepals. As the sepal folds back to allow the flower to emerge it typically remains like a cup to hold the flower. As the flower proceeds to create seeds the sepal becomes a cup-like vessel to hold them.
She writes:
“Have you ever noticed how often the emptied calyx grows into a diadem, and they stand crowned for their ministry as if they gloried in their power to give as the time draws near?
“Even here in measure the faithfulness unto death and the crown of life go together: even here, if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.”
But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
Hebrews 2:9 NIV
Diadem, crown, royalty. He made a way for us to have fellowship with the Father. He made a where where there was no way. We are His and He is ours.
I have mentioned before how the Lord often gets my attention through a song. A snippet here. A lyric there, and soon I am on a chase like a dog after a rabbit. This week it has been “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.”
The photo on YouTube must be the guy who posted video and lyrics. That is certainly not Fernando Ortega!
Wikipedia says: The poem (lyrics) is often attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux (1091–1153), but is now attributed to the medieval poet Arnulf of Leuven (died 1250). Originally the poem had 7 stanzas referring to the various parts of Christ’s crucified body. The last 2 stanzas are the most famous today. Regardless it is a very old poem that was set to music over the ages in the 1700s and 1800s, etc.
I cannot seem to play this once, but sing it repeatedly! Why not listen again and see where the lyrics take you?
1. O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown: how pale thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn! How does that visage languish which once was bright as morn!
2. What thou, my Lord, has suffered was all for sinners' gain; mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain. Lo, here I fall, my Savior! 'Tis I deserve thy place; look on me with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.
3. What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend, for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end? O make me thine forever; and should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love for thee.
How do you honor the Lord and His sacrifice on our behalf as Lent ends and Easter approaches?
I saw an image years ago a way of reminding myself that I can be with the Lord at any time. I can go meet Him at our trysting place. I wrote the poem below as an attempt to capture it.
I cannot take a camera to our trysting place My attempts to draw it are incomplete You meet me there in a sturdy platform room protected, sheltered, made from the wood of Your cross and also like the palm of Your hand where You fold Your wings of love around me
The wooden floor of the platform tree is always smooth and comfortable no splinters, fine weather leaves dancing in holy wind my joy to be there
I stand, lie, sit, sing, weep, wait and always You are there
Occasionally I must place myself upon the altar table Your soul correction treatments are swift and sweet when I yield to You I can make myself miserable imagining what might happen if I yield to you. Awfulizing is never a clear mirror of truth.
When I get centered in silence we often travel down the center of the trunk as if by elevator arriving at the stream of living water that nourishes the tree refreshes my soul brings to my being all things I need
My surrender to this trysting place is sometimes jagged, prolonged, not smooth or graceful
Yet once I give myself to the quiet and arrive I always ponder what spawned my reluctance?
I recently made a Soul Collage retreat. Our assignment was to depict what we think of as Sanctuary. I tried choosing from hundreds of magazine cut outs to show my trysting place. It is a complicated collage but with reluctance I share it with you.
Hopefully as you read the poem you can discern what the collage means. The African tree drew my eye as a place for the trysting platform. The woman’s hands are to depict the power radiating from this trysting place. (If you have ever tried Tai Chi you learned about the power you can sense between your own hands.) I love how the tree trunk is illuminated! And they show how the brilliant blue from the Living Water travels through the trunk and is drawn from the stream. The diver in the Living Water reminds me that there is nothing dark that the Lord cannot discern. He leads me always.
Hope this has given you some food for thought and perhaps a place to begin your own prayers? How would you describe your trysting place with God?
When we traveled (I think it was in Idaho?) this photo brought back a song I had heard in my heart many years before.
This is the lyric I heard and finally wrote down in 2016
Rub me smooth Rub me smooth With Your living water Rub me smooth I am a sharp stone Quarried from the earth With Your Living Water Rub me smooth
Allelu, Alluelu by Your living water rub me smooth I am a sharp stone Quarried from the earth by Your living water rub me smooth.
“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn;
Isaiah 51:1 NIV
When I studied this out here is some of what I found.
Standing above the water on a bridge, the water was so clear we easily saw the many stones in the stream bed.
look unto the rock – The ancestors of the nation are compared to a quarry, the Israelites to the stones hewn from it,—a peculiar image found nowhere else
Cambridge Bible for schools and colleges
A river rock is a natural stone that has been smoothed and shaped by the flow of water in a river. Abrasion is a process of continuing the smoothing of rocks by water and by other rocks, making them smooth and round.
Where there is a rough edge. the water’s work is not yet finished.
Abrasion from the water reshapes the rock. What is harder than rock? At times my heart is! Yet that living water flows and shapes and corrects my rough edges until they resemble smooth stones.
I challenge you to choose a stone and carry it in your pocket as a reminder of the Presence of God and the work of the Living Water in smoothing you. Yield to that life-giving work and show forth His glory in your life.
Since childhood I have been fascinated with finding dead vines that have the tendril used to attach to another plant still affixed. It has always been a special pleasure to find one on a walk, especially one that I can collect without damaging the plant.
“Ultimately, Clinging, expresses a radical dependence on God.” So reads part of the cover flap from a wonderful small book about prayer that Emilie Griffin wrote Clinging: The Experience of Prayer The tome continues to impact me many years after reading it. I read it in 1990. It was first printed in 1984.
Contemplative, free, abandoned, authentic prayer is possible for every Christian, whatever his or her state in life; even in the most secular, crowded and busy, high-pressured lives, the peacefulness of prayer is a real possibility.
Emilie Griffin
When we cling to the Lord we are fulfilling his words in John 15:5a “I am the vine; you are the branches.” And how do vines cling to branches? With tendrils of contemplative, free, abandoned, authentic conversation with the Holy One.
Have you wrapped your mind and heart about Jesus lately? Do you choose to make clinging to the Trinity a life style? Did you discuss things with Him like whether to make the rice today? Boil the eggs? Start the laundry? Write a prayer? Run to the store? Write the blog?
I wish I could give each reader a piece of wooden tendril as a reminder to cling to the Lord of Heaven and earth. This is a clinging and dependence that is amazingly good.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6 RSV
Recently a friend was telling me how her cat dislikes it when she leaves their home. I imagined the cat clinging to her leg like a small child. Jesus never leaves us. Never lets us go out of the house without Him. Can you remember that when you get in your car? Can you imagine the Lord riding with you? There was a saying years ago that went something like “Jesus is my co-pilot.” I always wanted it to be Jesus is my pilot, driver, whatever.
As I learn more and more about clinging to Him, the more skilled I am at realizing that I am never alone. Send your tendrils towards Him. Wrap your mind and your life around Him.
A metaphor seen in many verses of the Bible is the term hold fast or holding fast, meaning “be diligent,” “cling to,” or “take a firm grasp of.” It is based on the idea of gripping tightly to an object.
Holding fast to the Lord means loving Him with our whole being, following Him closely, diligently obeying His Word, devoting ourselves wholly to Him, and serving Him with all our heart and soul.
Holding fast involves not compromising in our relationships, behaviors, or anything that might pull us away from our total commitment to God and obedience to His Word.
When I am trying to cope with unrelenting pain I often tell Bob it is as if I am being ground to powder. Reading Elisabeth Elliot’s book A Path Through Suffering I was blessed by her paraphrase of Job 7:19, 10:8-9.
Can’t you take your eyes off me? Won’t you leave me alone long enough to swallow my spit? You shaped me and made me; now you’ve turned to destroy me. You kneaded me like clay, now you’re grinding me to a powder.
Elisabeth Elliot
Unless you have endured pain that will not let up, no matter what you do or medication you may swallow, you might not get the idea of being ground to powder. It is as if every fiber of your being that was once solid, is being changed to powder, without substance, mere dust.
Early in my diagnosis of chronic illness I came across this quote. It has helped me endure some hours of ceaseless pain, turning loose of my clenched senses and releasing myself to the loving light of my Savior.
O God, grant that I may understand that it is You who are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within Yourself. -Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
Teilhard de Chardin
While reading the last few days I was reminded (I do not remember in which book) that from dust we came and to dust we will return. Of course, you remember that Jesus also performed a miraculous healing by spitting and mixing it with dust, then rubbing it on a man’s eyes. (John 9) So why not use dust to awaken me to His presence and power even in the midst of pain. Even if it be the dust I call myself?
When you feel as if life is grinding you down to a powder how do you respond? Or do you just react? Elisabeth says of Job on page 52 “A living proof of a living faith was required, not only for Job’s friends, but for unseen powers in high places. Job’s suffering provided the context for a demonstration of trust. … To us who have the New Testament, it would seem that Job had very little to go on, yet he kept on talking to God.”
Job kept on talking to God, even when things looked bleak. In Job 13:15a Job declared, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Have you come to that extent of trust? Have you placed your all on the altar and left it there for God to use as He sees fit?
I had a friend named Char. She was slowly dying of lung cancer. I met her when I was giving a series of group lessons in crochet. She wanted to speak to me alone. We met several times at her house. One thing she really wanted the answer to had to do with prayer. She told me she talked to God all day long about everything. She asked me if she was “doing prayer right.” I assured her that nothing would please the Father more than to be included in every aspect of our life. Elliot pointed out that “Job kept on talking to God.” Are you continually talking to God? Do you invite Him in to your thoughts and activities throughout the day? Once your morning prayers and devotionals are over are you finished with God?
If I let myself feel the pain will I become intoxicated with the pain? Overwhelmed by the pain will my life then become JUST PAIN with no other sensation, value, or purpose? Will I be consumed with gauging the pain sitting in the pain walking in the pain? All my perceptions dulled except to pain under pain in pain pain through and through pain behind me ahead of me pain on all sides of me pain above me beneath me life reduced to pain in every cell pain Sleeplessness because of pain Restless when sleeping due to pain
If I acknowledge the pain will I have fortitude and courage to live beyond the pain, Somehow given grace to override the pain, not censor it ignore it deny it but live a life in the midst of pain always haunted by pain? Pain of bone deterioration, random muscle pain, unwarranted from any strain or excess.
Pain my life drugged or not my partner companion in my genes product of ancestral history or just misfortune?
For years my life has been pain denial pain drugs pain hope pain drained-of-hope pain denial I am afraid that no, the pain will never end, or, even worse, the pain will increase envelop, dictate, control my life.
There, I've written it. Many marvel that I'm so busy try to accomplish so much. They are not acquainted with my relentless task master who drives me on with fear that my capacity to accomplish anything will one day be diminished to near zero.
Jesus awoke in the boat and said, "Why are you so afraid?"
Yet then, through Him, I'll arise a phoenix intercessor on behalf of God's children engaged perhaps in the biggest battle of life to date. A supreme calling more valuable than my do-ings. With bones cracking, muscles aching, nerves shooting red hot signals to nowhere and everywhere outer body diminishing while inner woman draws upon her experience with the living, dynamic, omnipotent Father and she is renewed, remade in His image, inhabited daily, hourly, in every cell of her being by Holy Spirit overshadowed, indwelt in spite of all this carnal container can develop - a woman of God passing through journeying towards home where all sorrow, all tears, and all pain will be no more. Forever inhabited by Holy Spirit in rapturous adoration of His glory peace and mercy. Even so, Lord Jesus, I offer myself a living sacrifice unto You. Renew my mind according to the word and transform even this pain.
The ogre crumbles, rivulets of plaster dust falling from its once daunting facade gathering in powder clumps revealing its paltry nature.
1 Peter 4:19 encourages us to "entrust yourself to your faithful Creator." I pray you and I will both do this constantly regardless of how we feel.
At the beginning of the new year I brought the idea of Philippians 4:8 as a practice for 2024. How is your thinking coming along? Have you been able to pattern the ideas Paul gives us in Philippians?
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8 NIV
Remember when I wrote it is not just reciting the attributes but actually naming things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, etc. that is beneficial? I find that was easier when I was sitting in a chair recovering. Never to late to return to the practice though! Thinking things that are beneficial to me will help me more than anything else I might think about. A mind running rampant in the negatives is certain to get me nowhere in the Kingdom of Light.
Even though I was frustrated when the therapist said I had lost ground in my recovery I was also thankful for the honesty of measuring range of motion from week to week. It must be difficult for the therapists to have to deliver news like that day after day to various patients. I am thankful for his honesty. My lack of progress was true.
How about you? Have you been able to train your thoughts to things that Paul says are best for us? When you get in a negative thought pattern are you able to catch yourself and turn to the things in Philippians 4:8? I believe that using this practice during my recovery has helped me continue the practice.
If I catch a negative wanting to lodge in my mind (like a nasty fish hook) I turn my thoughts to ideas about that situation or person that are right, pure, lovely, etc.
It is not easy to train our mind, but it is essential if we are to mature as the followers of Jesus. Yes, He loves us just as we are, but He does not want us to stay the same as we have always been. There is very little in my life that I can control, but I am told in Scripture to control myself. Reining in my mind to come alongside the Mind of Christ is a lifetime job. It is probably best to begin by thinking on things that are excellent and praiseworthy. Find at least one example of those. Then try finding examples of one or two others. Paul is not asking us to do something that is impossible to us. This will however take discipline!
Treasures in Plain Sight, A Christian Blog 