Would you care...

To dance?

Just this weekend Aeden was playing at CLBI welcome back coffee house. It was an original song of worship and my feet wanted to get up and dance around. I didn't.

Last year during a silent retreat with TREK one of the girls heard the word, "dance" for me. I barely picked up my pointe shoes at the MARK centre.

This year I was going to do "bollywood" dance classes, but they were on a day I couldn't attend.

Besides occassionaly dancing around my room or living room, I don't do much. For something that gives me so much joy, why can't I get myself to be part of anything? Why don't I dance?

I have never defined myself as a dancer, and I KNOW my skills are limited. Still, God can use me right? Is it even worth it? I battle between being still and flailing around. What would you have for me, LORD?

Just some thoughts today.

When the Children listen...

Since the beginning of coming to this Church, I have felt the need to encourage and introduce them to the world of listening prayer. Here I come with my head full TRA LA LA! I love kids because they are so challenging.

Some good signs though:

I was reading to my junior youth out of Brad Jersak's "Children, can you hear me?" book. We got to a point about Jesus speaking, and playing games like hide and seek. One of my girls eyes get really wide and she asked in amazement, "Does it really say that?!" They loved the pictures of Jesus booting the evil guys out the door.

I challenged my Senior youth to look for a fresh symbol in their lives...What does God say they look like? What is God like? They were all too nervous to do it, so I listened on their behalf (knowing they wouldn't share themselves what God told them) and every single one of them lit up and paid careful attention to what picture I had received in my head for them...As a whole I saw them as a pinata, that God wanted to burst open because they are so full of good things! I won't be surprised if I get fired once parents hear about this!

Without my youth really knowing about it, they have been listening to God,and hearing from him, every time we do a Lectio Divina. It is kind of like my little secret with God. Here they are, not really "believing" yet reporting what God has said to them all the while! And of course, their discoveries in Bible Passages I have done Lectio's with over twenty times probably, are FRESH INSIGHTFUL and uniquely PERSONAL. So beautiful. so exciting. I personally love that God reveals the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven to children and hides it from the learned. It is truly truly about time that adults started seriously learning and listening to children.

(the picture is of Malakai...a boy who has taught me immeasurably more than I taught him)

that old chestnut

Pablo Nerudo has a quote that says, "Whom can I ask what I came to make happen in the world?"

I can relate. I know I should ask God, but He doesn't answer my questions very speedily. Nor does He find it important to answer them at all! I'm probably swimming in a big chemical pool of sin by saying that. God has every right to withhold his intentions from me, and it is my little lack of faith and trust self that is worrying and frittering about my future. Actually, He has a specific command NOT to worry about tomorrow. Oh me of little faith!

It overwhelms me. I have a lot of half-interests: art, gypsies, travel, the environment, listening, letter writing, community, spiritual direction, trees... Nothing that I would want to do forever. Then you have to add on if I ever have a family I need to support them and what about medical coverage? Holidays? It is very easy to expand worries to include multiple levels.

Some people are born with a passion for something. Their whole life is built around the goal of becoming a _______ or doing __________. I don't want to accept that God may have made me the type of person that was born to be an example of "never finds out what they are here for". No thank you God!

For now, all I can do is live in this space where I am doing something I may not love. But I am dreaming, and paying attention to what stirs me. Like the monk off of Baraka, dressed in white. He walks against the stream of crowded streets slowly slowly ringing a small bell. Is he filled with purpose, or does it feel futile?

Deeper I go, into the metaphor that is a tree

You would think I would let go of the tree thing one of these days. I mean, what more could I say about them? I don't know what it is; it is just so helpful for me to think of life through the tree lens.
My friend just died. He was rock climbing and fell. God has been telling me to "keep looking up" lately, but this tragedy has been weighing heavy on me, creating a big huge ache that I don't have words or actions for. I do not feel peace or resolution; I do not have comfort that he is climbing up Mt.Zion with Jesus. I don't feel like crying to Jesus. I feel so disconnected from everything, sitting in my car alone so that it isn't just me and a lot of space with people buzzing back and forth with purpose and focus and tasks. I feel so weird.
If I don't feel like I can love much right now, I can at least look at the trees. They are indifferent to my particular state.They are just here. I went down to Indian Battle Park again, and sat at a bench. The wind was blowing fiercely. I looked up at a tall strong tree, the leaves blowing, clinging to their branch.
God reminded me that we use "Family Trees" to describe lineage and ancestors. Although I think we are considered branches in that, I thought about humans more as the leaves on a tree. We dangle in space, clustered together with family and friends. When autumn arrives, leaves start dropping. Members of our branch fall. This is sad. Some of us, we notice when a leaf from the other side of the tree falls and we are sad about this too. Even though we will all leave the tree as we know it, it is still hard. We fight the inevitable. As Erin Langager told me, when we fall, we become dirt again; we join with God. This is the season of fall. When winter comes the tree will be bare. But God promises to make things new. When the REAL spring comes everything will be alive. We will all be perfect, green, and new.
Life is fragile. Like a leaf. Death is painful for the living because it was never supposed to happen. It all came down to a choice. That choice involved a tree. And I guess, now that I think about it, so does following Jesus. When I can't go to Jesus directly, maybe I should remember a tree that he had involvement with. Maybe I could meet him there.

October

Down in the coulees between the west of Lethbridge and every other part is a little park. After a loooong day staring at a computer I decided to go there to watch the sun set. Driving down into Fort Whoop up is like going down a deserted secret road to the most beautiful sanctuary ever. There was so much beauty (okay, I'm a sucker for trees) I could hardly take it in. I watched a trio of leaves spiral slowly down in the air from their branch. I smelled FALL. As much as I wished I had my camera, God reminded me that He isn't really about self-preservation. He wants me to live now, to rest now, and to be present, listening now. I went down to the Old Man River ( that seriously is its name) and just noticed. I noticed how much I love rocks. I noticed how slow the river moved, lapping the rocks and curving this way and that. I noticed that this park was quite close to the road, where cars were quickly passing. Such a shame. God is always speaking to us, always revealing himself to us. Where did September go? We need to slow down. We need to slow our hearts and minds. We need to spend even an hour, in God's FRICKEN AWESOME AMAZING creation, listening. No agenda. Wonder what He's been saying to you?