Tending the Fire

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dance, enlighten, flame, Joyce Rupp, love, opportunities, Pentecost, Prayer Seeds, share, spirit, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, the spiritual center

Today we will have a meeting of the Sophia Center Advisory Board. It will be our semi-annual look back on where we have been since autumn to see how we think we’ve served the purpose for which we exist. It comes at the precise moment of gearing up for our new season at home – the Spiritual Center where I live – where we offer mostly weekend events during the six months of summer into fall. It’s a fortuitous dance of “changing partners” as the year unfolds. The purpose is the same: to afford opportunities for people who come to us seeking to touch more deeply into the spirit that keeps them on the path of their highest good with companions that share the journey with them.

It seems significant to me that this transition is coinciding this year with the feast of Pentecost. As we prepare at home for a sort of new beginning this weekend, an outpouring of what is always an exciting manifestation of Spirit, I will sit this afternoon in the small band who will share what we have known in similar, if not matching, Spirit-led experiences over the past several months at the Sophia Center.

Joyce Rupp has a prayer that reminds me of the need to remain constant in the desire to serve for the good of the world – even as our small corner of it has an effect on the whole. Pray it with me if you will for renewal of heart and hope.

Flame of Love, Enkindler of Hearts, enlighten my mind to recognize where my love has grown dim. Spark renewed desire in my heart to give myself ever more completely to your service. Beam your grace through my being so I respond freely. May the fruits of your love be harvested through me. I will share them generously. Amen. (Prayer Seeds, p.174)

 

 

 

 

 

Sharing God

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blessing, experience of God, give thanks, grateful, presence, Psalm 138, share, strength, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In an alternate translation of Psalm 138, the psalmist speaks to me this morning with a powerful message of God’s presence in the universe and in my life. By it I am reminded that we are all invited to share the experience of God and to encourage one another in that sharing. Listen and see if you are similarly drawn in by the mandate in this song of praise and challenge.

With my whole being I give you thanks, with grateful heart I bow before you, with all of heaven’s mighty hosts I sing this song to praise you. Your presence is my temple ground, and there I lift my voice and speak your name, in testimony to a love and truth exceeded only by your promises. For when I spoke your sacred name, your word and answer swiftly came as source of all the strength I know within. O peoples of this earth, know this, you too can hear this voice and speak the name. You too can know the music of this song revealing all God’s beauty in fullest splendor. For though our God is high beyond this earth, as swift as wind God stoops to hold the lowly close, the proud afar. And even though the path of life leads into deepest gloom, O God, your presence never leaves but holds and saves when foes appear upon the earth. And at the end of life your presence stands as witness to a plan that’s never thwarted. Your love endures and greets us even at the gates of death. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p. 354)

The commentary that follows this psalm translation suggests that we are all invited to share in the experience of God and asks the following questions:

1. How comfortable are you about sharing your experience of God and encouraging others in theirs?
2. Would this be a useful thing to do?

I am more and more convinced that the kind of sharing called for here can be a great blessing to us all. I challenge all of us to invite the possibility of such exchange into our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Message: Clear and Direct

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America, beatitudes, books, Christian Scriptures, clothe, false accusation, Hebrew Scriptures, hungry, Isaiah, Lectionary, light, malicious speech, oppressed, oppression, share, shelter, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I carried a satchel full of books with me this week, texts that we have considered already and others that will inspire our conversation over the next two days. I always feel comfortable in the company of books; just having them in the room with me is sometimes enough. This morning, however, as I read the lectionary texts for today, I was again reminded of the timelessness of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. The messages fairly jump off the page in their similarity (Isaiah and Matthew’s Beatitudes) and appropriateness for this moment in the history of the United States of America. The messages of how we are to become light in this world are unmistakable. We should all read them aloud and often. The prophet Isaiah says this:

Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them and do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn and your wound shall quickly be healed…If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted, then light shall rise for you from the darkness and the gloom shall become for you like midday. (IS 58: 7-10)

How can we miss the import of these words? What is our willingness quotient and how might we respond? The message is more urgent than ever now. How can we ignore it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Harvest of Perseverance

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fertile soil, generous heart, harvest, hear, keep the word, Matthew, perseverance, share, soil, sowing seed, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understand

Yesterday someone brought us four large summer squash from their abundance and the vegetable farm down the road had many boxes ready to ship from their crop as well. That’s pretty common around here in the summer. Even if you only have one summer squash plant, you are bound to share in the end as the yield is always heavy. On the other hand, I was trying earlier in the week to plant two small pots of flowers and I encountered lots of stones (not uncommon on our land) and all sorts of ants and other bugs. I’m still not sure if they will survive.

This morning’s gospel is the one about the sower sowing seed in four different kinds of soil: the path (i.e. the road), rocky ground, soil among thorns and rich soil – all indicators of how we hear the word of God. It harks back to yesterday when I talked about open eyes and ears open to hear the word of God. All four kinds of “soil” hear the word this morning but it is only the rich soil that hears and understands the word which yields a good harvest. (MT 13:18-23) Implied is the importance of listening deeply but there’s another additive, found in the acclamation that precedes this gospel. It says: “Blessed are those who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield a harvest through perseverance.” That says to me that even if you have the best soil in the world it’s likely you will need to pay attention to all sorts of conditions so you’ll water the crop sufficiently and fertilize if need be. Sometimes it seems as if something I plant will never grow. I kept a plant of mistaken identity for six years because it kept putting out a leaf or two every year. When we transplanted it finally, it flourished into a large hibiscus rather than the hydrangea that was ordered! Clearly, perseverance does pay eventually!