Prayers of the People:  Third Sunday in Lent

Father, we have not believed that you are enough for us. 

We have not believed that you will satisfy our hunger. 

When we have lost hope we have turned to what we can get our hands on 

in the moment of our despair. 

We have not trusted your promise that if we delight ourselves in you, 

you will give us the desires of our heart. 

Father forgive us our adultery. 

Have mercy on our hunger. 

By your freely given Spirit renew our hope. 

Instruct our hearts to delight in you who is unseen and 

grant us courage to wait for your good things.

Lord, we wait for You.

Amen

LENT: BLUE LIKE JAZZ

First Sunday in Lent is tomorrow. 
A time of releasing things that bind us (the chains we choose) 
tired religion, apathy, stale worship, carved in stone thoughts and ideas
preconditioned responses and prejudices
worry, doubt, confusion, and  assumed identities....
and allowing them to drop at the foot of the Cross
and lift our eyes upward to the One hanging there, pouring His life's blood 
into the crucible of mercy for our redemption. 
And as we gaze into his wonderful face, all other distractions and loves grow dim. 
He is FOR us. 
Perfect Love in frail flesh. 
Our Saviour. During this sacred season, 
may we all turn our eyes upon Jesus and 
receive all the mercy 
and life 
he bought for us. 

FREEDOM!!

UNSTICK YOUR SELF

Also, please reference the new book, "UNSTUCK" by Michael Ross. (Barbour Books, 2012) 
I contributed some of the writing for this book!  I hope you read it!


Hello Friends,


I have been processing a lot the past four years.  God has used unusual, heart rending, incomprehensible timing to shake me to my core and to help me find new, unforeseen personal limits.  It took long enough.  


Many times during this 4-year season of my life, I've questioned my self, my decisions, and God.  Mostly God.  I have never stopped believing His promises to me, but I have stopped pretending that what I thought was His will...actually was.  I've been hurt, angry, defiant, rebellious, and sad.  I've also been happy, joyful, brave, persevering, caring and watchful of others.  Total schizophrenia at times.  Torn between restlessness and rest, resignation and determination.   And it wasn't until I was all those things that I saw some deep, harsh truths about the state of my soul and my identity.  It sucked.


My heart has been stripped bare...and it has been a painful unveiling in many ways, and a reassuring one in others.  There are many things I have learned, but one lesson is this:  keep going, don't stop, and if you get stuck, let other people help pull you from the "Slough of Despond." (The Pilgrim's Progress, Paul Bunyon)

I've started writing again, which is a sign for me that my heart has re-engaged in my own life and has stepped away from it's war waged against unmet expectations and disappointment and has decided to call a truce.  Interesting how the ear perks up and how much better you can hear when you're not screaming.    And as I've been writing again, I've noticed something:  

My computer gets stuck….a lot.

I’ve had it for four years now and even with extra room on my hard drive (thanks, Mac Superstore!) it still processes slowly from time to time when I have four web pages open, plus Facebook, Gmail, Word for Mac and iCal open at the same time.  That's a heavy load for my little computer.  It gets overwhelmed sometimes and heats up, it's working so hard.  If it had them, I'm sure it's little sweat glands would have those ugly stains under the armpits of its little red plastic cover.

I’ve noticed that when it seems to get stuck downloading, or buffering, or opening programs, it seems to "think" and “work” faster if I keep moving the cursor around than when I just sit there and let it stew, and think, and process some more, then stew a little bit more and think and….yep, it’s frustrating. 

Moving the cursor helps…why, I’m not exactly sure.  But I have a theory that keeping that little arrow dancing around the desktop helps to remind my sweet little Mac that it needs to keep going because someone is counting on it to work.  It’s a collaboration:  I won’t yell and throw it across the room, (not that I’ve ever actually done that…only threatened to) and it gives me what I want.

It’s a cautionary tale…what do we humans do when we get stuck?  We might sit, stall out, mope around, not move, and get absolutely nothing done because we are “stuck” processing and thinking about the thing that has us semi-paralyzed.  We can get overheated, and cease to function.  Some of us crash.  The past four years:  been there, done that.  

Something comes up and we are confused and can’t make a decision….we process.  And process.  And process.  When I was a kid, if your television station was having difficulties, it would say:  "Please stand by."  That was hard if you just about to find out who shot JR or whether or not your favorite soap opera character lived or died.  It was the last thing you wanted to happen.  

“Working” is what the old computers used to say…now it’s just spinning rainbow wheels and inverting sand glasses...but there is no visible evidence of result.  Stuck…with no results.  we get that way, too.  And as it happens, a lot of the time, there's someone waiting for us to figure it out and as Tim Gunn says, "make it work."

So I sit, waiting on my computer to finish thinking.  and when it starts taking too long, i start hitting the ESCAPE button trying to take things off its plate so it has less to deal with, or can ignore something I've asked it to do.  It’s frustrating.  If computers had feelings, it might be frustrated at having to process so much of my “crap” at the same time, too.  We have a lot in common there….

Everyone gets stuck.  We try to be patient.  We try to wait on God, (or Centurylink, in my case), or for our lives to straighten out, or that wonderful person to love us, or the weight to magically fall off, or our book to somehow write itself and our inspiration to rise from the dead.  

But sometimes in that process, we just can't stand it any more and start hitting the ESCAPE button....to run away from our overwhelming, overloaded lives, and just BE for a while.  Everyone has their own buttons they push to escape.  What is yours?  Sometimes they are healthy and give us life, and refresh us, and sometimes they make things worse...and cause us to become stuck or mired even more deeply.

What can you do?  I've discovered something true.  If you don’t want to founder on the rocks of indecision, or get stuck in the mire of too much analysis:  keep moving.  That's not to say there isn't something to be said for seasons in our lives when God wants us to STOP because He wants us to stop fidgeting and get quiet so we can listen and see what He is saying to us. 

Lent is a perfect time for stripping down to essentials, getting quiet and listening, rending our hearts to make them vulnerable to His work. 

But Lent can also be a time when we turn our eyes outward, away from our mire, our boggy narcissistic existence and "see with new eyes" as John Michael Talbot sings.  And it can be a time when we find life by moving in a new direction and giving ourselves to something or someone other than ourselves.  And in that movement become unstuck and renewed in some way.

Move SOMETHING!  It might be your feet, or your house, or your mind, or your car; your budget your dog or your job….just keep engaging in life somehow.  Volunteer, take a class, paint a picture, make some jewelry.  In NCIS, Gibbs builds boats in his basement.  Keep moving.  Keep working at something.  Create while you process.

Keep living your life, have some fun, spend some time with friends, and with God in extended worship or meditating on the Word.  Stay in conversation with Him even if you don't perceive that He hears or speaks back to you.  Keep talking.  Keep moving.  Don’t stop your life because you’re waiting for something to come along and kick you out of the bog.  

I love Dora's little song:  "just keep swimming, just keep swimming."  from Finding Nemo.  I sang that little song to myself many, many times over the past four years.  And it became a mantra.  It was a effective for me as singing, "God will make a way, where there seems to be no way."  It was my hymn on some very stuck days.

Just keep dancing…..you’ll come to an answer faster and a decision will become evident at some point, even if it takes years.  And in the mean time, you may have helped a friend, sung a song, realized some Heavenly Truth, and learned how to keep from getting too deep in confusion…or built a boat.  And who knows when you’ll need one of those to keep from drowning?  Or to save someone else?  

Keep moving somehow.  The answer will come faster.  And your heart will be better for it on the other side, when your download speed is a little more efficient and that episode of NCIS doesn’t take 10 minutes to buffer before you can watch it.  In the illustrious words of the Madagascar theme song, you've got to "move it, move it...." 

Just keep dancing....even if the music seems to have stopped.  It works to help you "unstick" yourself.  And friends help too...and sometimes, they can dance with you because they've had to dance to that tune before, too, and they already know all the steps.  Just keep your cursor moving to help point you in some direction, even if it makes no sense.  It will speed things up.  

blessings,

Tess

DRAMA

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

I’ve been processing quite a bit these past couple of weeks about a hurt I received at the hands of someone I thought was a friend.  And in the twists and turns of my head and my heart dancing in and out and around the facts and feelings, I have reached clarity about a great gift I have been given.


Back in Virginia Beach where I lived for 15 years, I was a part of a wonderful church community called New Life.  It was a cell-based church, comprised of many, many cells (small groups) which met as local church bodies all over south Hampton Roads and into North Carolina.


The group of deep friendships God blessed me with there is nothing short of a miracle…a spiritual anomaly it seems.  Some people have 1 or maybe 2-3 friends who are trustworthy and close enough to tell your secrets to.  I had 25.  I could name every one of them right now if I had to.  And that was just my close friends.  My entire circle of good friends comprised about 30-50 peeps.  


A distinguishing characteristic of this close-knit group was that we all walked through our lives together; everyone sharing and having things in common, eating, playing, crying, praying, walking together.  


The reason why these past two weeks have been so startling for me out here in Colorado is this:  I just realized that I now have a few friends out here who fit into this category, and I am very blessed.  But larger than that is my sudden realization that what made my group of friends in Virginia so special is that we were a living Body of Christ.


If one part hurt, we all hurt.  If one part rejoiced, we all rejoiced.  And, when one of us walked through the valley of the shadow of death….we were not alone.  In fact, there was a crowd, because we squeezed in and shuffled through that valley together.  We never walked that path alone.  Not only did we have Jesus(the Head) with us, but everybody else came along too….His WHOLE Body came along on the dark journey.  And if one of us fell or began to lag behind or crawl for lack of strength, there were those who were watching, and took notice, and lagged behind to bear witness, speak encouragement, and at times, carry the member who could no longer stand in their own strength.


And being a part of such a community taught me to open my arms wide, and my heart wider….it taught me to invite everyone in my life to come along with me on my journey…and to walk with others when they needed true companionship on the way.  We all go together.  We include one another in our lives, our hurts, our loves, our joy, our deepest sorrow and darkness.  We all go together down that path as the Body.  We all go together.  


I pondered over the past several days whether or not I was wrong to be so open about my journey with people here who do not have the history with me to understand where I’m coming from in my “inclusive” lifestyle…of including everyone I know in my journey and loving them and nurturing those relationships with everything in my heart.  It really bothered me to think that I was going to have to tone down who I am in order to be acceptable to those who are “sick of the drama” (to quote one email I got) of my life over the past year and a half (and still ongoing, I’m afraid).  


Then, I read this quote by William James found in John Baillie’s “A diary of Readings” (1955):  “If you say that this is absurd, and that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people’s lives; and that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big.”

I picked this book off my bookshelf, having not read it since I paid a couple of dollars for it at a garage sale a few years ago.  It has traveled across the country with me and from place to place.  But today was the first time I actually opened it…and this was the passage it fell open to in my hands.  And it woke me up.  My friend, Cisco, keeps telling me, “Be who you are…just be you and don’t worry about people.”  This passage was a message from God reminding me that I AM a person who loves everyone at once, takes delight in other people’s lives and stories, and that my heart is big….and that’s the way HE made me.  


And suddenly in the midst of anxiety and angst and worry and doubt…I was freed to be me again and to accept that I can go on doing what I do and being who I am, no matter whether or not it challenges other people in their lives because my adventure is filled with drama!    And what a life it is!


Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me….not just the Head (Jesus) but the whole Body comes along.  It’s a crowd.  Never alone in the valley.  Never alone.  And I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. 

Ashes to Ashes 2

Tomorrow is the beginning of the season of Lent for 2019.


Wednesday morning, I will stand to receive the ashes. The moment will remind me of my time in England when I received the ashes in the shape of a dark cross etched across my forehead as a boy's chorus chanted prayers in the little stone chapel where I stood.  While we receive this symbol corporately as the Body of Christ, it intimately marks the beginning of my own season of personal humility and repentance, thankful for what God has wrought in my life.


2019 brings new season, a new path, a new beginning in many ways.  Last year I bought my first house. It is a precious property on the Inlet and I each morning I am greeted by sparkling water and  the call of wild geese (and the sound of my neighbor's sweet Doberman, barking at them at the top of her lungs.) But more than the water and sun, and the endless opportunities to raise flowers and food, I find I finally feel that I am home. 


I am preparing my heart for Lent. It is my favorite time of the year. My heart is hungry for God. I know He will speak. 

This year, my hands are open. I'm returning to the basics: Nouwen, Rich Mullins, U2, and praying the scriptures; because sometimes you need to preach to yourself, and sometimes you just need to be silent to hear Truth. 

I believe this year there will be a lot of both. If Merton is right, then I feel somehow the hard journey on my seven-story mountain has brought me to a new path. 

Love can be experienced in real ways through the care and affection of others, the touch of God through the many small miracles day by day, and the power of the scriptures. I have come to realize that when I am the most lost and feeling far from Him, the Presence of God presses in to me in a way that defies description.  He disappears in all the usual ways, but becomes present in a way that is completely "Other." He becomes completely "unexpected."

This year, I seek the "Other." 

I see beneath my feet a million grains of sand and a sandy path that leads to a place I do not know and an adventure I cannot anticipate. A little scary, a little thrilling. And I am ready for the "next."