My Sabbath My Alb

Just this morning I was thinking about my Alb.  I ordered my Alb at Annual Council and I was hoping it would be here for Easter.  Then this morning I was thinking about the Celebration of New Ministry service for my Interim-Rector who became Priest-In-Charge who is going to be my Rector next month.  I was wondering if my Alb would be here in time to wear it for her service. 

It came today!!!

I have been borrowing one (heaven sent if you ask me, how did an Alb that fits me perfectly just happen to be in our vesting room when my priest-in-charge wanted me to have one?).  It has worked very nicely and I am very thankful.  But I am very excited to have my own, I ordered a more breathable fabric and it has some bling to it ;-)  The deacon with the bling.

I tried it on and it fits perfectly and the sleeves aren't as wide so altar work will be a little easier without cuffs that defy gravity and threaten to knock everything off the table.  I want to wear it so badly this next worship.  But I feel like I should still save it - what to do, what to do.  It is amazing to think that one year ago I was just meeting with the COD (the committee on the diaconate).  A year later my first Alb has arrived, I serve on the altar at worship, I help with worship and ministry and my first term of formation is almost over.  I have final papers and exams coming up.

Some might say I am a completely different person or rather I am becoming whole, fully who I am.  What I have always been on the inside is now visible on the outside.  I think it is hard for some who have known me for so very long, it feels like a shock to some of them.  Others reply to the transformation as if they have been waiting.  Allowing my life to be fully lived and authentic has allowed others to share with me their own truth and journey to being whole.  It is such a privilege to share a person's life with them, to truly know someone.  I have people in my life who I have known my whole life and yet I do not know them.  There are walls put up and only so much is allowed to be known.  Then I have people who I have known for only a short time and yet I know their inner most thougths and being.

Some embrace me fully, others are tolerant of me and others run from me as if I am a zealot with all my God talk.  It is all okay.  I am no longer willing to hide who I am to make others more comfortable and I no longer seek to please any person.  The beginning of my day I surrender to God and at the end of the day I confess my sins and ask God to forgive my ignorance and bless my intentions.  At the end of my day all that matters is what has pleased God. 

One of my homework assignments is to design my funeral liturgy.  I would rather call it my Celebration of Life liturgy.  As I work on it I think about my friend and classmate Anne.  She had to do this assignment one year before she died.  I wonder if the liturgy we shared for her was written by her?  I wonder if she sat on her front porch, soaking up the sun on a rare warm day for February and contemplated how short life really is?  I think about how today might be my last, there is no guarantee for tomorrow.  If I meet Jesus on the other side of the veil today have I lived a life I am ready to present?  Does my life speak to who I believe my Savior to be?

Wearing the Alb whichever day I do will be special, for I present myself to my God for worship.  It is another outward visible sign of the inward grace I have been given.  Wearing it proclaims that I have answered my call.  And when I present myself to Jesus at the appointed time I hope that Love's light recognizes itself coming forth from me.

"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.  As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."  John 15:7-11

Scripture Speaks

One of my readings from Morning Prayer today.  Sometimes I think 1 Timothy was written just for me.  It amazes me how scripture can answer prayer so clearly.  It can both convict and uplift me in one breath.  Amen!

"Now the Spirit expressly says that in later* times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. 3They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; 5for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.

A Good Minister of Jesus Christ

6 If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters,* you will be a good servant* of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound teaching that you have followed. 7Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives’ tales. Train yourself in godliness, 8for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 9The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. 10For to this end we toil and struggle,* because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.

11 These are the things you must insist on and teach. 12Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13Until I arrive, give attention to the public reading of scripture,* to exhorting, to teaching. 14Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.* 15Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. 16Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers."  1 Timothy 4:1-16

The Mystery Is Great

A call:

"Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not indulging in much wine, not greedy for money; they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them first be tested; then, if they prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons. Women likewise must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be married only once, and let them manage their children and their households well; for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great:
He was revealed in flesh,
vindicated in spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among Gentiles,
believed in throughout the world,
taken up in glory. "  1 Timothy 3:8-16

A prayer:

"I will sing of loyalty and of justice;
to you, O Lord, I will sing.
I will study the way that is blameless.
When shall I attain it?"  Psalm 101:1-2

It is my opinion that God has a great sense of humor and that he especially enjoys that humor when human beings begin to take themselves and/or their work too seriously.  Is this part of the testing then?  When people point out to me irony or coincidence, luck or fate - to me these are all ways that God shows His guiding hand.  When we begin to think that we are doing a work instead of God doing a work - isn't it in those times that God will test us?  Will God not take the opportunity to ask us Who do you serve?  Whose work are you doing?  Who do you believe is in control - takes me back to the question - Who do you say I am?
 
God will bless God's work.  The mystery cannot be contained or managed or controlled.  The only answer I have is surrender.  I serve God, I do the work God calls me to and equips me for and I know that God is in control even when the world around me might seem to be in utter chaos.  There is a lesson and a blessing in every moment we enter in to.
 
My friend has a fridge magnet "We plan and God laughs" she keeps it next to her calendar ;-) 
The mystery is great! 

(And might I mention that I had plans and then my husband made plans for the same time and hmmmm....)

Let Them Eat Cake

Today my baby boy turns 7!  We woke up and had all the neighbors over that generally walk to school with us in the morning come over and we had spongebob birthday cake and ice cream and bacon  for breakfast.  My son LOVES bacon and spongebob, not necessarily in that order.

This morning before the rush of people came I sat and cuddled with him (shhhh don't tell his friends, how embarrassing!)  and told him about the morning he was born.  My kids never tire of hearing the story of how they were born and I never tire of telling them.  I can still see the morning, feel the emotions, remember the look on my husband's face.  We knew this little baby would be our last (unless God really, really surprises us).  I experienced pre-eclampsia with 3 out of 4 of my pregnancies and this last little baby really took a toll on my kidneys.  I want to be around to raise the children I have and each pregnancy created a little more struggle for my body.  This last pregnancy I went for a routine check-up in my 39th week and was sent straight to labor and delivery - by myself, in a snowstorm.  My husband was at home with our 3 small children and he couldn't leave them to come and be with me.  I prayed to God begging that I not have the baby until he could be there.  We had been together for all of our children's births and I couldn't imagine bringing a baby into this world without him by my side.  I knew he would be devastated to not be the first set of eyes this child would see.

God answered my prayers and I was released the next day to go home on strict bedrest, up for the bathroom only.  Praise God my mother could come and she flew in to us and when she got settled in, very quickly, we went back to the hospital.  Baby #4, my 2nd little boy arrived the next morning.  And he has been pure Joy from the moment he was born.

All my kids entered this life as their own person and I just feel blessed to know and be allowed to love them so unconditionally and deeply - even if they don't realize this all the time.  All four of them are so different and distinct from one another and yet share the same internal heart, God's heart and my heart, interweaved for them, guiding them, guarding them, loving them and praying for them.  My 7yr old son, he teaches me Joy.  I have always been an introverted soul, keeping my outward emotions and actions tightly contained within myself.  People who sit next to me would be amazed to know how inside my soul dances and is exuberant, in my head I lift my voice in joyful praise and sometimes I feel as though my soul is going to jump out of my skin I am so alive.  On the outside I am very calm, still and sometimes even come off as stoic.  But my little boy he dances and sings, and he enters his own world sometimes and I watch him from across a room and he throws his body into life with energy and adrenaline and excitement and he is so purely innocent and so purely happy.  He is that Joy I feel, He is that Joy my soul is exclaiming.  He is the living, tangible inner workings of my soul.  And he invites me into that Joy, with him I dance around the room and I laugh those deep belly laughs of pure happiness, with him I am completely at home being silly and foolish.  I run around the yard with him, swing at the playground, do belly flops into the pool, jump on the bed and fly through the air into a big pile of pillows.  Watching his joy expressed has given me permission to be joy expressed.  What a gift he is to all who know him - because it is not just me, he is charm personified and no one escapes it!

I thank you God for the gift of my son.  I thank you for 7years of pure Joy and love.  I thank you that you protect and guide him, that you are leading him on a path meant only for him and you have opened his eyes and his heart to you.  I love to hear him pray, in his little boy voice and I thank you for his praying heart that thanks you "that God created the whole world and everything in it", that is his signature prayer right now.  I ask you loving God, humbly and on my knees, stay with my son, never let him out of your sight, guide him all the days of his life, keep his Joy intact and allow him opportunity to share that Joy with all who meet him so that he might glorify you, always and everywhere! Amen!

And I say eat cake for breakfast!

Fascinating

There is no National Association of CASA in my county - in all the counties surrounding me but not my own.  What does this mean?  Why is this? 

My first step is to find someone I can talk to and find out why there isn't this program in my county.  Are you interested in learning more about CASA?  Visit the National CASA website.

This just happened to be in my reading today:

"People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them."  Mark 10:13-16

CASA

Court Appointed Special Advocate.

I woke up thinking about CASAs.  About 10 years ago I looked into being a CASA but I couldn't commit the time with my full-time job and 2 babies at home.  I worked for a federal judge at the time and he was telling me how it all worked and the concept intrigued me.

After my last blathering post (sorry that really should have been 2 separate posts, guess I had to get it all out!) I slept like a baby with many dreams.  Woke up thinking of course, it is time to see what is going on with the CASA program in my county.

CASAs are volunteers who advocate on behalf of an assigned child/youth.  This is so the child has a voice in the justice system when the adults in their life may not be in full agreement. 

hmmm me - an advocate for youth who don't have a voice in the system.  As my husband would say - that is a no brainer, what are you waiting for?

"‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me,^* it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck

and you were thrown into the sea." Mark 9:42

Visioning Board

"Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator* shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,

the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness

and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,

and satisfy your needs in parched places,

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to live in. "  Isaiah 58:6-12

My bishop told me that over the course of my formation process my bridge ministry might change and as I began the education part of my formation process I could feel it changing.  But I didn't know how.  If you are not a first time reader of my blog - you have read about and felt this uknowing change building.  It has become turbulent in my soul as we go on.  I am deeply involved in my bridge ministry of serving the homeless.  The two places in my life where I feel the most at home are on the altar serving with my priest(s) and at the shelters serving my homeless friends. The third place I feel most alive is in spiritual formation small groups; exploring God's word and the movement of the Holy Spirit in peoples lives.  So what is this change?   What is this unrest?

This weekend was amazing, an adventure of emotion and worship.  Saturday was the first ordination of deacons in my diocese - in I don't even know how long or if there has been one before.  The first class of 5 deacons were ordained and I was there.  It was affirming and wonderful and overwhelming and exciting and sobering and humbling and uplifting.  Before this moment the formation process did not have a conclusion of ordination.  Now it is a real possibility. I am still a postulant, there are still 2 years of formation, committees to sit before, ember day letters to write, classes to take, lessons to learn.  But now there is also hope, not cautious hope afraid to really believe.  Rather a wild, passionate grace-filled hope that what God has called me to my church will ordain me to.  God has called me to be a deacon of this I have no doubt.  It is in my dna, my blood, my thought, my word and my deed.  Once I claimed my call there is no stepping back from it.  The question for me was (and is) will the church affirm my call and allow me to serve in the church as I feel called to serve?  Will I be able to articulate to my church, my brothers and sisters what God has set before me?  As of today the answer is yes and I will continue to pray for the words to speak, the quiet to hear and the wisdom to serve my bishop effectively while serving the homeless in their deepest needs.  It was a good day!

The next day as I was driving to church I felt the Spirit welling up in me, filling me to brimming.  The mantra "I am Alive"  "I am Alive" "I am Alive" kept coursing through me.  This fullness lasted all through worship.  I found this an interesting prayer response for the whole night I had been praying for my classmate and sister in Christ, deacon in formation friend, Anne.  She had died and I was leaving worship to drive a few hours to her funeral.  I couldn't sleep that night knowing that in only one more year she would have knelt at the altar and been ordained by our Bishop.  At the funeral we learned that one of her friends at her deathbed had stated "Jesus will place her stole on her."  How true, how true.  Anne was a deacon years and years before the church even decided to reinstate the sacred order.  Her call came from God and she served unceasingly as she was called to do.  Her ordination would have been an affirmation of who she already was.  Anne's funeral was an amazing tribute to her life.

What do you do in the formation process?  It is such a roller coaster of Who Am I?  Who do you call me to be?  Where do you want me?  How do I serve?  How do I share who I am?  The process breaks you down and lifts you up - it stretches you out of your comfort zone and demands you embrace your gifts, your call, your voice.  The process demands you claim your call!  It demands you continue to listen and to vision God's dream for you.

That leaves me to my visioning board.  I made one about 2-3 years ago.  It was a family visioning board.  We had certain goals we wanted to meet and we made a board outlining those goals and putting up pictures and scripture to help us.  I had a morning of silence last week (blessed silence!).  I sat in the silence and jut let thoughts come to me.  Some began to come more rapidly and I sat down and began to write them down on post-it notes.  I took down portions of our visioning board and replaced the empty spaces with my new thoughts, my new revelations, my new visions coming at me as quickly as a heartbeat.

I have a homework assignment to take a current social issue from any news source and work it through theologically and through our baptism covenant, to work up a plan of how to bring it to my congregation and create action around it and minister to it.  In december I read an article about a homeless high school teen in the next county over that I can't stop thinking about.  As I spent the last 3 weeks trying to figure out what social issue I would explore and do my homework on I continued to think about this teen and then it seemed on a daily basis I would get 5 more stories of other teens in the same circumstance for different reasons.  And then I met a woman in the shelter with 6 kids - she has been on her own since 14 - she is 26 with 6 kids, no high school degree, currently unemployed and homeless and shelter hopping to try and keep her kids warm and fed.  Of course my social issue is the rising epedemic of children and youth homelessness!

Sometimes God really has to smack me on the forehead.  I can envision the Holy Spirit swirling around me saying "Hello?"  "Do you hear me??"  "Don't you see, feel, smell and taste what I am showing you?"  You could say God began planting this seed 15 years ago when my husband and I began talking about being foster parents, exploring how we wanted youth to always feel welcome in our home, a place where they felt heard and seen, our kids friends love to hang out here;  our kids know their friends are welcome here and at the dinner hour we don't turn anyone away, just be ready to pray and share your highs and lows of the day.  About 10 years ago we began talking about purchasing land to have a "safe house" for homeless mothers and their kids - maybe a summer camp for homeless youth - a place where family dinners were normal, game night was a constant, reading before bed and hanging out watching movies and telling jokes was okay.  A place where you had warm shelter and said your prayers before bed.  A place where the mothers' could switch out of survival mode and began to just mother and kids switched off the stress button of adapting to survival environments and felt home and safe and comfort.  A place where cycles could be broken.  Cycles of addiction, abuse, fear, neglect, homelessness and hopelessness all broken and replaced with redemption of our Lord, hope in the living God, and a cycle of the pursuits of happiness, liberty and justice and a future!

Something tells me I am going to have many sleepless nights as I begin researching my county's foster care programs, homeless teen rates and options.  I don't have the money to buy land and build my safe house but I do have the resources to do research, work in current systems set up, educating myself and meeting these kids who need me now, need to know that God loves them NOW!  God could not reveal His vision to me until I was ready.  Visioning sometimes is just one step in front of the other without being able to see through the mist.  Sometimes it is just a random heartbeat of thought that won't stop and has to be written down and placed on a board so that you can stare at it until you can really SEE it and become it!

My visioning board has this scripture:

"Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house;"

What is God's vision for you?

My Sabbath My Heart

Today is my sabbath and I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with my hubby; spinach and tomato egg white omelet with fresh fruit.  Today is Go Red For Women day!  Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women.  Wear red and tell your favorite ladies to get their heart checked.  Help them to exercise, eat right, stop smoking and relax!  Women are born as caregivers and caretakers and often take the weight of the world upon their shoulders.  Hug a lady today and remind her to live for today and smile in Joy!

I am so thankful for the doctors and nurses who performed my open heart surgery and cared for me before and after 32 years ago.  I was born with a congenital heart defect - the same an uncle of mine was born with and died from.  Technology had come along further for me and saved my life.  Technology has come so far that babies with my defect can be detected in utero and corrected in utero!  Amazing!  Thanks be to God!

Every day I wake up alive and breathing and kicking for a new adventure I praise God.  God saved my life so many times as a child and the surgery was one of the biggest savings.  How can I do anything but live my life in love and response to that saving? 

I am not special or unique - God loves all of us and saves all of us - when was the last time you considered God's saving grace in your life?

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast".  Ephesians 2:8-9

Freedom Oh Freedom

"For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore,

 and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."  Galatians 5:1

Yesterday opportunity and change dropped into my lap - 3x! So I ended my fast. Let me admit fasting is one of the hardest spiritual disciplines for me. I get cranky, really cranky. I think my whole family was praying for God to drop anything into my lap, anything, just so I would break my fast. God did and I did. And I ended it too soon. For while opportunity and change landed in my lap and I knew what to begin praying about, I still wasn't clear. My chains hinder me. We all have them, chains and shackles that hold us to the old life. They change over time, some of them remain hanging from us just waiting for a chance to jump up and claim us again. One of mine is lack of self-confidence another is self-doubting. The two work nicely together to undermine my steps out of the good ole comfort zone.

I am convinced that if we are comfortable we aren't stretching and working. I don't mean content. We are called to be content. "I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." Phillipians 4:11-13

What I mean is maturing in our faith, stretching our gifts. It would be so easy for me to sit at home and ignore my gifts and read all day. Napping and curled up with a good book would be the life. Or would it? Truth be told, it wouldn't. The minute I am not sure where to share my gifts or what God is calling me to next I get restless. Being spiritually restless is painful.

"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another."

Galations 5:13-15

Perfect freedom is found in perfect surrender. Contentment is found in following your call. We are equipped for every good work that is put before us. We have to break the chains of bondage and free ourselves for service. The chains of bondage can take on so many forms - worry about finances, worry about familial responsibilities, living someone else dream for our lives instead of God's dream for us, shackling ourselves to others perceptions or expectations of us, forgetting to be alive today and instead hoping on a promise for tomorrow. It is so easy to put ourselves at the center of our lives and get sidetracked. God needs to be the center of our lives so that we might be free to live a fully redeemed and eternal life.

So I am back to fasting ;-) Not a full fast this time, I am just going to deny myself certain foods (more like Daniel than Paul). I have choices and opportunities to figure out. A beloved friend of mine today reminded me that while I might glow with the light of God in all that I do I really need to focus so that I can SHINE with the light of God at the one thing God is calling me to do. She is so wise. Everyone deserves beloved friends, the ones who know your deepest heart and still love you; the ones who know that life gets busy but keep you in their prayers and when you call after months of silence they begin talking from the last sentence you shared; the one who will tell you the truth even if they know it will make you cry, but they tell you anyway because real love tells the truth to save you. My beloved friend and I already have plans for our matching rockers with a view of the ocean!  Ah the surrender into perfect freedom!

Prayer Of Your Servant

"O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man."  Nehemiah 1:11

Bad and icky weather, schools closed, kids home. Fasting.  This would be the day we would break out the games and with games comes food.  Not sure how it works in other families, but playing cards equals popcorn and playing dominoes equals chips and dip. 
 
I pray so that I can fast, I fast so that I can pray.  Lord give me strength.  I am weak but God is strong.  I keep saying I have got to stay focused.  Change is in the air, opportunity is in the midst.  I just can't name it.  Waiting on God.  Can't let the "stuff" claim me.