Spiritual Synchronicity?

A few weeks ago I posted a piece on Benedictine spirituality  with a focus on humility as a way of becoming a caring community.  Lately I've been considering the prayerful component of Benedict's regula as I adopt his habit of daily  praying through the Psalms.

You've probably heard that two ways to develop a new habit are to: 1) practice the new behavior in the same place each day; and 2) practice the new behavior at the same time each day. I've chosen morning, as the sun climbs higher above our tree line, for my set time. And my sacred space for praying the Psalms is a comfy chair on my back deck.

(Adirondack chairs are courtesy of my husband; my Mother's Day gift!)

Today with coffee, journal and Bible in hand, I began my prayers with what Benedict called the Psalms of the Day. In this method, every day five psalms are read. The first psalm correlates with the date of the month. My first psalm of the day is Psalm 27 (because today is July 27). In true Benedictine fashion, I mapped out the day's reading to include every thirtieth psalm based on the current date. Thus, today's list of Psalms were Psalm 27, 57, 87, 117, and 147.

I turned to the first words of Psalm 27 and quietly prayed:

"The Lord is my light and my salvation."

As I rested my eyes upon these words, I noticed the morning grayness around me became brighter. I looked up and here is what I saw:

(Obviously I ran to get my camera.)

In perfect synchronization, the Psalmist's declaration "the Lord is my light" became a visual reality as the sun parted the tree tops and broke through with brilliance. And the statement kept getting louder.   

"The Lord is my light and salvation."

I couldn't have "said" it any better.



 

Worship Today

Thank you, Sheila Anderson, for introducing me to Kari Jobe and this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL0nDrEYDnk&feature=player_embedded

Worship him today.

Ultimate Care: Psalm 37.

If you're following this blog, you've been reading about developing a care ministry in the local church. A recent post, Putting Some Meat on Them Bones, promised some suggestions on providing care without a formalized ministry intact. While considering what to offer here, the Lord brought to mind a time during my college days when he presented me with a plan for my  own spiritual and emotional care. (Although I didn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about!)

I majored in what is now a defunct course of study called Elementary Classroom Music at Bowling Green State University. The goal was to become a specialist in elementary music methods. Learning to sing in a somewhat pleasant voice was also a requirement. Fortunately for me, I loved to sing. But to my dismay our selections consisted of sacred vocal music. I didn't know God, didn't know the Bible and frankly, didn't really give much thought to either of them. Regardless, in order to pass my voice juries I needed to choose a song from the body of literature presented.

The song I picked had a beautiful, almost haunting melody and I loved it. Thus, the piece O Rest in the Lord by Felix Mendelssohn became my closest companion as I sang it day and night while nervously preparing for my performance at the end of the quarter.  (By the way, I passed my juries, although the critique from the judges' panel was brutal. Hmmm... a foreshadowing of American Idol?  And yes, to this day, I remember what was said.)

Well, fast forward to age 22 and I am working my dream job as an elementary classroom music teacher. I do meet Jesus, surrender to him as Lord of my  life, and start reading the Bible. And, who knew? There in the Psalms I found the words, almost verbatim, to my favorite song from my college voice lessons. I was quite enthralled because my song was actually a song of the Psalmist in The Bible!

When you literally have a song in your heart and the words are inspired by God, they can not help but take root. God planted the seeds of hope, comfort and care in my heart that I didn't recognize at the time. As I grew in my faith,  I pondered the lyrics/text of "O Rest in the Lord," Psalm 37, and verse four repeatedly captured my attention.

Eventually Psalm 37:4 blossomed into what continues to be my favorite scripture:

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Like so many non-believers (and sadly, many Christians as well) I spent most of my life delighting in whatever got me through to the next day, week and year. I may not have known the Lord, but I certainly knew the human desires of my heart. Biblical scholars state that once we delight in the Lord, he shapes our hearts' desires to match up with his and we are guided then by holy desires. For me this has been what spiritual directors define as a "slow work of God." But what if we can't delight in the Lord because we're so enmeshed in striving for our more natural desires?  

My colleagues with expertise in developmental healing state that God wires these natural desires, our core longings, into each of us. At each stage of life, from birth to death, we seek to get these longings met from our family around us and other significant people in our lives. Ultimately, these longings can only fully be met and experienced through a relationship with Jesus and partially experienced in the now through the body of Christ.  

Dr. Anne Halley, a pioneer in developmental healing, sums up these core longings in the following words: 

Unconditional love 
Belonging 
Security    
Understanding   
Significance   
Purpose

Here is where the body of Christ, you and I, can be mindful and move people from the despair of unmet longings to the delight in our Lord, the great provider.

First, help the care receiver identify the core longing that surfaces when he is hurting and;

Second, encourage the care receiver to bring that hurt and longing to the Lord in prayer.


How can you make a difference in the life of a hurting soul?
Validate his core longings. God designed us to have them.
Help him identify the particular longing or longings that are surfacing at this time of struggle. 
Reassure him that his longings are legitimate and Jesus wants to fill them. 
Encourage him to pray and bring these longings to Jesus.
Be Jesus to him by providing for these longings in Christ-like ways.

• How can you show him unconditional love?
• In what ways can you help him feel like he belongs?
• Can you empathize with his pain and seek to understand it?
• What spiritual gifts can you acknowledge and help him use that gives his life purpose?
• How can you help him feel more secure in his relationship with you?
• In what ways can you validate his worth and help him embrace significance?

This is the hard work that often precedes a season of delighting in the Lord. 

Since my college days, O Rest in the Lord , Psalm 37, has become more than a song to sing to pass a voice class. It continues to minister to me today.  Would you like to hear this exquisite melody? 

For a sweet and clear rendition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mkswYQ5hoA&feature=related

or for a different visual and more operatic voice:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fs1hCBDWpA&feature=related

You might want to turn to Psalm 37:1-7 in your Bible as you listen to the words and music. You'll notice that Mendelssohn paraphrased some of the scriptural text, but the meaning is not lost.

". . . and he will give you the desires of your heart."  

Why Fifty Eight Isaiah Part Two

Why Fifty Eight Isaiah?

1. Isaiah Fifty Eight was already claimed by another blogger!

2. It is formative. God admonishes His people to see their hypocrisy.

3. It is instructive. God teaches the difference between true and false fasts.

4. It is full of hope. God promises blessings for those who embrace a spiritual rather than religious way of life. 

5. It is full of compassion. God encourages us to care for the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of others.

Isaiah Fifty Eight-- a great chapter that calls us to be a caring community.

Why Fifty Eight Isaiah?

I had no idea how to pray. But here I was in the prayer room at the National Brethren 2011 Conference and prayer was my purpose for inhabiting that particular space for the next hour. The previous sixty minutes or so were spent with Brethren pastors, spouses, elders, delegates and lay leaders in the Ashland University auditorium.

On stage was Reggie McNeal, challenging us to be the church. Not just do church, but be church beyond the walls of our church buildings.

Replicating, summarizing, or even giving a few bullet points in order to capture the power of his message would be futile. All I could do after I heard him speak was feel. Feel for the lost, feel for the oppressed, feel for the poor in Spirit, feel for the marginalized, and feel for the times I've been more concerned with doing church than being Jesus with those closest to me, let alone the rest of the world.

So I asked the Holy Spirit to lead and picked up the Bible sitting on the prayer alter. I may not have words, I thought,  but God does, so I decided to pray scripture. And, you guessed it, I landed in Isaiah 58.

After praying through these scriptures, I knew the exact words to pray next.

Not prayers for the world, but prayers for myself.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive my trespasses . . .

Wholistic Care

You might have noticed on the right hand side of this post that I'm following another blog. At first glance, this particular blog content may seem somewhat out of place considering the topics upon which I usually reflect. ("One of these things is not like the other.")

On the other hand, one might consider this particular blog quite pertinent to caring for others.

It's about food and eating healthy. (She said sheepishly.)

Eating healthy can be such a touchy subject.

So if you are curious, check out 100 Days of Real Food and if you're interested, enjoy!

But there is something else I'd like to put out there. As caregivers we encourage others intellectually by suggesting good Christian fiction and non-fiction, emotionally through empathizing with peoples' heartaches, spiritually by pointing others to Jesus to meet our deepest longings, and relationally by connecting others to a healthy body of Christ. Thus, we promote wholeness . . . or do we?

I wonder, how often do we encourage others physically, to take care of our bodies given to us and created by God?

The new blog I'm championing is great inspiration for me. The author writes in an engaging, breezy manner. She's transparent as well as informed. Each of my children have been my motivation as well. Jeff shares Michael Pollan books and recent research with me, Brian and I talk about our workouts and Christy's kitchen is a mecca of natural foods and homemade meals.

I don't know about you, but I need all the encouragement I can get. But, boy, can I get defensive about the whole subject of my physical health and eating habits. And I'm guessing I'm not alone. The hardest part for me is that I'm a perfectionist, and changes in the areas of exercise and food have come so slowly. In fact, I've been working on this most of my life.

Yet, I can celebrate some victories and am looking forward to celebrating some more.

I hope you are experiencing some victories with taking care of your body as well.

Because . . .  I care about you.

Quality Care Control

A few months ago I picked up a book on Benedictine spirituality titled Ancient Paths by David Robinson. You may be familiar with the Rule of St. Benedict. Rule or regula  means measuring stick. Benedict intended the rule to be used to measure the growth and quality of  spiritual leadership, shared wisdom, spiritual formation, obedience, and humility.  Robinson's point of view intrigued me because he proposed that the contemporary church adopt these same spiritual growth essentials that Benedict integrated into the lives of a cloistered group of sixth century monks.

I've never really thought about the parallels between community life in a monastery and that of the local church, but certainly the operative word here is community.

But have you noticed there are days when it seems it's just easier being a Christian when you are spending time alone? You know, when your office or house is all quiet, you're focused on listening and talking to God, maybe meditating on a Psalm or digging into a letter from the apostle Paul. Or perhaps you are happily organizing a ministry for church-- putting the pieces in place at your computer. By yourself. And you are only relating to you. You can feel all holy inside as well as accomplished: a Mary/Martha all rolled into one.

While alone time is necessary and periods of solitude with God biblical, the struggles to be Jesus to others is exposed in community.

What I like about Robinson's book is the way he articulates the values of St. Benedict's monastic Rule. Sometimes when I struggle in relationships, a few words of wisdom go a long way. While Robinson provided commentary on each of Benedict's five spiritual growth essentials, his words on humility spoke most loudly to me.

"Humility calls us to stand gently upon the earth, to step into the shoes of another, to leave only the trace of Christ's love."

I hope to make this my regula as I care for my family, for my church, and surrounding community.

What helps you measure your quality of care for others?