THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Are you contemplating or surviving

PRAYER

Insights come
at the most unexpected of times
like a virtual happy hour
and a friend’s comment about yoga.
Then I realize the world
is like my yoga mat,
not that I am doing yoga these days.
Rather that the world
is my yoga mat,
my prayer beads,
my candle,
my whatever that
inspires me to stop and pray

The world
what I see,
taste,
feel,
smell,
hear,
is my inspiration
to stop and pray.

It is the reminder
of the presence of the one
we call on by so many names
which says in the midst
of everything,
I am here with you
I am listening to your prayers
to the words of your mouth
and the meditations of your heart.

It is the reminder
that no matter where I am
or what I have
or don’t have
I can stop and pray
and spend time with the
one who created me,
transforms me
and loves me
just as I am

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Are you contemplating how you want your life to be

THE NEW STORY

When I was a little girl
I worried about being liked.
I cared what people thought,
but not as much as I did
as I grew older.
I went through a phase where
I cared about first impressions,
others evaluations.
what they thought,
what they said, and
what they believed about me.
I thought others thought
more about me then they did.

Now I know others rarely think of me
and if they do,
is not as often I could imagine.
They may have an impression
or an evaluation.
They may tell me what they think,
but that is about them
and what they believe
and what their expectations are.
their story is about them,
not me.
What matters most,
is what I think of me and
that what I think of me
is positive, loving, and affirming.

VISIBLE INVISIBILITY

https://marialorenalehman.com/post/how-to-add-depth-to-design-experience-using-in-visibility

She was sitting in the corner
and I never even saw her
until she coughed and
then I saw her and
noticed her beauty.

The last thing to discover water
would be a fish, Confucious said
because it is so pervasive
that it is invisible.

What keeps us from seeing
what we see
when we see it,
I ask my students

Our Higher Power is
ever present
but like the woman in the corner
or the fish in the bowl
remains unseen until
she clears her throat
or someone tries to remove us
from the water
or we are decentered
in our lives
and can see what we could not see
and hear what we could not hear

May we have senses that can be
aware of your presence without
you having to clear your throat
to get us to notice you

PRAYER

http://www.kkgmam.com/gary-dull-joins-nathan-kistler-on-day-15-of-30-days-of-prayer-for-the-nation/

Prayer is not just the words we utter,
It Is also the deeds.
it is the way we walk through life
it is the way we interact with the world
it is the reverence we bring
into our words and deeds.
it is about our awareness,
our ability to see the Divine
to hear the needs and cries of others
it is about our ability to sense God and
the people of God in the world
It is about us knowing God in ourselves
and others

HELP WHIP CANCER

https://pamperedchef.com/party/letshelpwhipcancer1

This is Help Whip Cancer month with Pampered Chef. However, when you are married to someone who is a cancer survivor, every month is about cancer prevention and education. When Zoe was going through chemotherapy, finding foods she would eat was the biggest challenge. Everything to her tasted like cardboard. It was so hard to get her eat anything. The greatest blessing during that time was a cookbook I found called the Cancer Fighting Kitchen. In it, the author, explained how I could make the food taste palatable for Zoe. I learned to oversalt all her food so that it no longer tasted like cardboard

Sadly, the wisdom I gained from this book is a gift I have shared numerous times with friends who are battling cancer. When a dear friend of mine was recovering from what was to be her first of several battles with cancer, I suggested to her daughter that she add acids like lemon juice and hot sauce to her mom’s food. My friend, who normally does not like hot sauce, could not get enough.

We do what we can to help our loved ones eat when their taste buds make everything taste horrible. Another friend of mine said everything tasted metallic. So I suggested her husband put peanut butter on things. He mixed peanut butter into her spaghetti and meatballs one night and she scarfed it down like crazy. Peanut butter became her best friend and they went through gallons of it, or so I am sure it seemed.

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MORE THAN A ROUTINE

I generally tell those I journey with that I can tell a lot about their lives by the state of their apartment. Esther de Waal said something similar in her book The Way of Simplicity. She wrote, “An old monastic saying goes that you can tell how a man prays by the way in which he sweeps the cloister.” It made me realize that it is not just how cluttered or uncluttered your living space is, but the ways in which you go about the routine practices in your life like sweeping the floor.

If someone were to watch the way you perform a routine act in your home or office, what would they learn about you. It has made me wonder what others think of or learn about me by the way I do things. I would like to think people would think I was mindful and intentional, but I also know there are routines I am not as mindful and focused as others.

It is easier for me to be mindful and focused when I am cooking because I am constantly thinking, especially now, about what I am eating, where it has come from, what I am doing with it. I treat each of my ingredients with a sense of reverence. However, in all honesty, I have come to realize that I do not bring that same sense of reverence to everything I do, especially chores I have not enjoyed.

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VEGAN JOURNEY – WEEK TWO

So it has been a complete week now of vegan eating and unlike my previous times of eating vegetarian, we have found ourselves going through some changes I was not anticipating. Yes, menu planning is taking more time as I realize how much of our previous meal plan was meat, cheese and egg dependent. I have also come to realize how, with my hectic schedule, I had become dependent on 30 or less minute meals. This week I have learned to slow down, breathe, and take time to think things through.

Interestingly, one day this week I was reminded to take time to do nothing. It was during that “do nothing” time that I began to gain insights into how this change was going to affect every aspect of my life. Zoe who is normally minimally engaged in meal prep and planning, has begun helping me, which is an awesome surprise. The other day she helped me grate potatoes for potato pancakes and realized just how much time I sometimes put into meal preparation.

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THE BLIND AND THE ELEPHANT

There is a Buddhist story I love and would like to share with you this week. It is, as the title suggests, about a group of six blind men and an elephant. Whenever I think about practicing vision, this story reminds me how our vision is shaped by the perspective we are. It limits and shapes what we see and what we do not. I know I have shared this story before in the past, but some stories are worth sharing again. 

Long ago six old men lived in a village in India. Each was born blind. The other villagers loved the old men and kept them away from harm. Since the blind men could not see the world for themselves, they had to imagine many of its wonders. They listened carefully to the stories told by travelers to learn what they could about life outside the village.

The men were curious about many of the stories they heard, but they were most curious about elephants. They were told that elephants could trample forests, carry huge burdens, and frighten young and old with their loud trumpet calls. But they also knew that the Rajah's daughter rode an elephant when she traveled in her father's kingdom. Would the Rajah let his daughter get near such a dangerous creature?

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

What form does devotion take in your life?

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

IT’S PAY ATTENTION TIME!

When I was pastoring, one of the least listened to parts of the service was the announcements. One of the young girls in the congregation came to talk to me about how disrespectful the adults were being. I asked her if she had any ideas on how to get the adults to pay attention and she said yes. The next Sunday, this powerful 7 year old got up in front of the congregation and loudly proclaimed, “It’s pay attention time!” The adults immediately paid attention and then she explained that announcements were not a time to talk to their neighbors, but a time to pay attention to the announcements. It has been years since she taught this lesson and took over that part of worship, but I still remember her telling everyone, “it’s pay attention time!”

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LET’S DANCE!

Faith, for some, is about the relationship they have with their Higher Power. Faith is about one’s level of awareness and attunement to the presence of the Higher Power in our everyday lives. So deepening one’s faith is like developing any relationship. That deep knowledge of what the Divine can do in and through our lives develops over time. It is about our constant interaction with our spiritual partner. Through our interactions we

Practicing faith, then, is like developing any relationship. You have to give it time and attention. We have opportunities to interact with the Divine in every aspect of our lives and with all of our senses. 

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IF IT DOESN’T TASTE GOOD ___________

A few months ago, we became aware of a new restaurant in our area that delivers. We became excited when we saw they had fried chicken. We decided to try it. I ordered the fried chicken dinner, which came with salad and French fries. After having waited patiently for over an hour for the food to arrive, I learned an important lesson. If it does not taste good, do not eat it. Those who know me understand I am one to look for something positive in every situation. In particular case it was a challenge to do; the delivery was amazingly slow, the soda we ordered for Zoe came with a puncture hole in the bottle and was spraying soda at us. They made no effort to even go back around the corner (1/4 of a mile away) to bring us a new one. Then we opened the food. What can I say, the salad was made with lettuce that was limp and brown, the tomatoes smelled bad, and the onions still had peel on them. It neither looked nor smelled good enough to want to eat it, so it went in the trash. The fries were still partially frozen and unseasoned. The chicken, well, the first bite told me that I did not even need to swallow it. Not only was it overcooked and under seasoned, but also it tasted as if the chicken might not have even been healthy to eat, it tasted that bad. It did not taste good, so I did not eat it.
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THE BRACE FOR YOUR BROKENNESS

Recently, I shared with someone that every step I take is in faith. They did not fully understand what I meant. Sometimes we hear people talk about walking in faith. For me, it is not just a spiritual faith walk, but also a physical faith walk. On October 15 2007, as I was opening my office door at the church I was pastoring at, I felt a pain shoot down my right leg, followed almost immediately by numbness and a sense of shock. I also found myself going why now God as within minutes, a special guest and his entourage arrived and I was bracing myself to figure out what was going on, how I was going to lead worship, and how I was going to manage to look like a calm, cool, collected leader in the midst of this storm that was suddenly and unexpectedly raging in my life. The words which kept floating through my spirit were peace, be still. Peace, be still. Through the grace of God and the support of my wife and good friends, my car and I got home safely. 

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