Walking with Abram

 “So pack your bags. We’re moving to Alaska on Tuesday. I’m excited to see the auroras, and plus God told me to do it.” If my husband said this to me, I would call his doctor for an appointment quickly. You don’t move on a whim. Yet that in essence is what God asked of Abram, to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldeans to settle in the land of Canaan. And he obeyed. Just like that. That in itself is astonishing to me, but so is one other verse in Genesis 17:1. The Lord asked Abram to walk with him. “Walk with me and be trustworthy.” Such a short line, but what an impact! To walk with God! That could mean to keep the Lord in your heart and to lead a blameless life, as much as you are able to do it; however, when I first read it, I took it literally. That was how the verse affected me. It was an invitation to walk with the Creator of the Universe, whose mind conceived its galaxies, nebulae, countless stars, atoms, quarks, and strings, the whales, spiders, penguins, trees, plants, flowers, the microscopic world, and you and me! To walk with this Being of Infinite Power and Compassion, who wants to make a covenant with you! How could one bear it? I don’t think that people today feel the impact of that line. This isn’t only the God of visions, but the God who wants to accompany you in person on your life’s journey!

 The sad fact to me is that the Biblical writer did not leave a description of God. Was He a Being of Light or did He look like a regular person, dressed like a Bedouin? Perhaps God was felt as a Presence only. Why didn’t the author elaborate? Why did he think it unnecessary to do so? As a modern person, I would seize on the opportunity or perhaps Abram thought the less that he said about the encounter the better.

 I have a friend who believes that Abram created the story of God’s intervention in his reality to move his people to another land as a fiction to make his motives more legitimate. The move would be arduous and lengthy, a trip into the unknown. People might not complain so much if they thought that a higher power had ordained it.

 I’d like to think that my friend was wrong, that what was said here was not a metaphor, but an actuality. Why build parameters around God? Why can’t we accept his being with Abram at face value?

 My hope is that someday God will walk with me, not to change my geographic location, but on my deathbed to beckon me, just as He did to Abram, “to come walk with Him” into Paradise.

 Today think about God actually walking with you, and how that thought could make a difference in your life if you imagined Him by your side as your companion and friend.

S. Becker

Lenten Thought for Sunday, March 9, 2014

Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

Lent is when, for Christians, the rubber meets the road, where we offer ourselves to be tested as our Lord was tested. We are virtuous, but none are perfect. We are not taken into temptation by force. The Holy Spirit offers these weeks as a fire by which our faith may be hardened by resisting the temptations of this world, which are as many and varied as the circles of Hell. Fix your faith on the power of Grace and eschew, today, the lures of appetite, lust, sloth, and uncaring.

I recently learned that the word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon words lencten, meaning "Spring," and lenctentid, which means "Springtide" and also was the word for March. I believe that just as spring is a time for new growth, Lent is a time when we can prepare for new growth and unforeseen possibilities, so that our faith can blossom in fresh ways as we experience, anew, the joy of Christ’s resurrection.

I once wrote a poem entitled “Renaissance,” which describes how we are out of touch with the new life that surrounds us during the spring season. Part of that poem states, “Spring means to us only new profits or expenses, and we do not sense the freshness in the air.” Are we ready to breathe in the new life of the Spirit—“the freshness in the air”--during this Lenten season, or are we too busy with “life” to even stop and take a deep breath? Let us pray for God’s help, that we might be filled with the breath of the Holy Spirit during this holy time. As Christ was, may we be ready for new life, so that we might be able to carry out the work God calls us to do.

- Stephanie Stover

Sloughing

My husband was just freed from two months in a cast. Anyone who has ever been in a cast for an extended period of time knows what happens when it comes off: the startled realization that your skin has become….well….icky. Scaly and crusty with layers of shed skin. At best, it looks like lizard-skin. What a relief to have a scrub with some warm water and a soft cloth, adding a touch of fragrant lotion to start softening the tough calluses.

Sometimes I’ve let myself drift into creating a spiritual cast, surrounded by hard schedules, inflexible routines and to-do lists that scratch uncomfortably. Lent can be a time for me to notice the constrictions that have built up. The gentle presence of the Water of Life, which busyness hides from my eyes, melts away the hardness, and invites a heart of soft, new skin. Skin that rejoices with the warmth of the Sun of Righteousness, the Wind of the Spirit, and the cleansing of Forgiveness. It’s a joy to slough off the layers of transgressions. As wonderful as lizards are, I was not created to be one.

--Laura+

Mirror

The morning’s harsh light
And the mirror streaked with dust
Reveal too much of face and soul.
Yesterday’s ashes are washed away.
The lines of mortality remain.
There is another mirror
Framed and fashioned by God’s Love
That gives back the sight of life, not death,
Of splintered spirit made whole,
Of beauty re-created from the broken bits
Of dust from which all come and to which all return
And making them to shine like the stars from which they came.

Lord of all,
As I stand in this Lenten desert,
Bathed in the light of morning
And the light of eternity,
Give me a clear vision of myself,
But temper Truth with Love
So that both I and this barren land may bloom.

-- Kathleen Knaack

March 5^th, 2014

“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.”

-Isaiah 58:11

Today begins the 40 days of preparation for Easter; a time to reflection, a time for making a change, a time for walking with Jesus in the desert.  Today we put on ashes as a way of expressing sorrow for wrongdoings, of penitence for our sinful ways. 

But at my birdfeeder cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, and sparrows all sing a different song than the one they sang last week.  Somehow they seem to know that spring is not far off and their tune is more cheerful, more full of hope than it was just days ago. 

The trees, too, are releasing the sap that was once carefully guarded deep in the deepest parts of the roots.  Sweetness flows to the surface in preparation for the unfurling of leaves. 

This paradox of sweet and melancholy held at the same time is, for me, much a part of this end of winter, this precipice of the springtime world.   My body is ready to leap and frolic and yet my mind is trying to wrap itself around the defects that prevent me from full stature. 

Last week, taking a break from collecting bucket after bucket of maple sap, I lay in the snow and listened.  I imagined I heard the sap flowing from deep in the earth.  Up and up and up.  Nourishing the sleepy trees.  Preparing them for photosynthesis, for new life.  It is the deepest, sweetest joy I know. 

- Ellyn Siftar

I recently saw a group of robins--the first I have seen this year--and I was pleased to see that they all looked healthy and well-fed.  Some robins, I understand, do not migrate for the winter, but remain in more northerly locations and take a chance on finding enough food for the winter season.  Perhaps the ones that remain hide out somewhere when it gets really cold, because I can't recall ever seeing them in December of January.  These lovely birds, which give me such cheer when I first see them each year, make me think of the words that can be said at the Breaking of the Bread in Holy Eucharist, Rite II.  After the priest says, "The Gifts of God for the People of God," the following words can be added:
"Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving."  I love these words, and I think they are important to remember during the Lenten season.  Lent is typically a time for fasting and is also a time for deepening our personal journey with Christ.  It may seem like a "lean" time.  Yet, if we always "feed on him in (our) hearts by faith, with thanksgiving," we will never be hungry and we can always have hope, even during the darkest parts of our faith journey.  Christ will preserve us and sustain us.  Just as the robins seem to do with their winter food, we can trust that God's Gift to us, Jesus Christ, will always be there and will always feed us.  Let us take a lesson from the robins!