Tag Archives: God

How to talk to yourself so you can be heard.

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Most of us think we don’t have anything to say. But the reality is that we’ve just stopped listening to ourselves. We’ve stopped allowing ourselves to speak from a deep place. The Deep Place where the soul meets sunshine for a moment of clarity and thought. If we aren’t willing to get quiet and listen, then we won’t have anything to say at all.

You’ll never find real answers if you’re afraid to ask real questions.

And, you’ll never find real answers if you aren’t willing to answer the real questions.

For example, what is important to me?

  • love
  • friendship
  • conversation
  • creativity
  • family
  • vulnerability
  • acceptance

What things are important to you?

These are the things that are word-worthy. That mean much to us. That are breath and life and living. Those things should have words. Words on pages that may never be read. Or in secret conversations in the late of night that fall between you and your love or you and your God or you and your friend. By all means, give them words.

Words cannot be words without breath. And so life cannot be life without breath. And faith cannot be faith without breath. What is it if it has no breath? It is dead.

Give your truth breath. Speak it. Say it. Offer it to the ears of the world. And to the ears of yourself. Declare it. Write it down. Breath it out to someone else. Make it real. Make it alive. Make it full of breath. Put your breath–your exhale–in it and send it on it’s way.

We cannot live our realities if we are denying them. We cannot live out our pursuits if we are being silenced. Surround yourself with people who don’t silence you, but who cheer on your voice. Bring them into your world and let them speak their words to you so you can find your own voice. Get used to the sound of your voice and let it be the vessel you use to declare truth and love to the world. What are we without our own voices? mute… lifeless… messageless…

Don’t mute yourself. Amplify yourself. You have something to say that’s worth saying. Say it. If it’s worthy of words, give it words.

Give it words.

Resolved to get a good night’s rest…

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15

Maybe the darkness isn’t darkness at all. Maybe it is the Divine hug wrapping us so tightly that we can no longer see anything but the stillness.

And maybe the silence isn’t just silence–Divine abandonment. Maybe it is the Divine Lullaby inviting our weary souls into the stilling sacrament of Sabbath.

Maybe the Dark Night is the place where our soul is to find rest. Maybe there is no Divine Movement because the moment is not purposed for action and activity, but for restoration and refuge–hiding–holding–wholing.

And maybe the Dark Night of the Soul would pass more easily if we leaned into it, laying our souls down in the blanket of darkness, welcoming rest rather than fighting for light.

Maybe this is the Circadian Rhythm of the soul…

Do you believe in Divine coincidences?

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14

I woke up this morning replaying the past three days and the striking coincidences that have unfolded before my eyes… I thought one was just a really neat story, until Drew said “Well, seems like that’s a little pocket of grace in your day.” (Or something like that. Would he say “pocket of grace?” maybe not)

Soooo… Was it? Is it? I don’t know.

(If I had a dollar for every time I’ve said “I don’t know” over the past week, I’d take myself out to lunch.)

I have a new friend–let’s call her One Of Those Aforementioned Coincidences–who seems to find Significance in a lot of things. Not that she’s expecting God to be around every corner, but she keeps her eyes open just in case. I’m not there right now–the “eyes open all the time” place. But, these coincidences definitely have my attention.

And I’m wondering how I should process them–if I should put them in the “I think I might’ve seen a bit of God at work in my life finallydadgummit” category. Or if I should put them in the “Remember this because something strange is happening” category. Or the “What a neat surprise” category.

Anyway, if you frequently find yourself in that place of “wow. huh. That was an interesting coincidence. How did that just happen?!” would you see the hand of the Divine behind those moments? Or a random surprise? Is there another option?

Clearly, I have questions.

Life begging for art.

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13

We have a saying around the church office that goes something like: Life begging for structure, not structure begging for life.

We use this phrase when we are facing necessary innovation, struggling to come up with structure as we see the craziness of life that comes with, well, people.

But let’s not dig too deeply into that.

The whole point is that I’m also seeing moments where life is begging for art. Where profundity sneaks up on us and can only be properly captured and properly framed through art.

Just a few weeks ago, in response to Gitz’ decline, Jen commented:  ”I dug out my old prayer book from my Anglican days, and let the most beautifully worded prayers speak the grief and longing of my heart. But I have none of my own.”

In that moment, her heart and emotions begged for art.

Moments like those–the great milemarkers of life and death and growth and memory and significance–need art. They need words and images of beauty to help the soul express what is sitting and stirring and rising inside.

I’m realizing how we, as a people of faith, in our stripped down warehouses of contemporary worship, have lost the beauty and transcendence that those true moments of worship deserve.

And our artists are awkwardly worship and wait in the corners of the sanctuaries, hoping to paint murals on the walls.

Thankfully, they are picking up their paintbrushes. Watch the beauty unfold.