Tending to the Spark of Life

I feel as if I were the guardian of a precious slice of life with all the responsibility that entails. There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze.  ~ Etty Hillesum

Joyce Rupp introduced me to Etty in The Cup of Life, at the time I was struck by her story as I Goggled to learn more.  This morning, again, I was struggling to take the time to sit down, to be still......... And I was reintroduced to Etty.

Kutless

God, Macrina's meditation on Etty's thought struck my heart, yet my heart remains clueless of how to begin. There is not a single song that comes to mind as I sit with my blanks. Still, I will go through the motions, but I need some guidance from you this morning! I need some direction as I go to Youtube...Lord, I need a song to get the blood pumping because coffee just isn't doing the trick. AMEN!


Everything I Need by Kutless

Would you believe, I prayed that prayer, opened Youtube and saw this song, listed as the first choice AND I nearly ignored it! I'm not that familiar with Kutless and I saw other artists I recognized.  I almost clicked on something by Mercy Me...and I stopped.

"Would it be possible that God actually is listening and gave me that song?"

"Nah."

"Can you be sure?"

: ) I moved the cursor back to the first song and clicked on to it...and felt as though I was given a gift.

I love this chapter 7 in A Tree Full of Angels.  I love how Macrina is taking sentences from a book or a single verse of a poem and uses them to discover Truth. Again, she is giving me permission to do the very thing that seems to happen so naturally, yet I often discredit the gift because it didn't come from Scripture of some spiritual teacher.

Using the practice of Lectio Divina, Macrina focuses on one sentence from Etty's diaries and then narrows her focus to just a few words, "...to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze!"

"What a precious responsibility! I had never thought of it quite like that before...But why not? If the spark of life in me is ablaze, that means I am full of enthusiasm, and to be full of enthusiasm means to be possessed with God." (Macrina Wiederkehr, A Tree Full of Angels, p 91)

Reading about Etty's life makes this insight even more soul shattering. Etty was a Jewish woman who lived in the Netherlands during the days of the Holocaust.  However, her writings reach across any boundary religion might impose. She journaled of her questions, her doubts, the things she discovered about human kind... She journaled about God and his presence midst such atrocities. Through her journaling she recognized the importance of "keeping the spark of life inside me ablaze."

Macrina writes: "...convinces me of an amazing inner strength we all possess. Have we ever met our inner strength? Do we know the secret of connecting with it? What do we do with the slice of life that has been entrusted to our care?" 


Yesterday I journaled about recognizing I am on Holy Ground...what ever I am doing, I am on Holy Ground! To recognize that with each footstep I take, I can strive to leave a blessing. (The Cup of Life) but, then this morning...I'm feeling a bit of apathy!

Again, I turned to Goggle Images and searched for an image of Inner Strength. I was surprised by some of the results, but the charcoal drawing of the lion, stopped my fingers.

Looking at this lion I remembered The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and the lion, Aslan. Aslan wasn't visibly present very much, yet the children mention him while they continue to fight battles.

Etty had her battle of hatred, death, fear... and within these battles, she knew she must keep the spark of life inside her ablaze. As I have walked along my garden, along the beautiful field of corn...it is easy to see God.  It is easy to keep that spark of life within me ablaze.  I wonder if I would have had the same fortitude to keep that spark alive in the conditions Etty lived?

Then, as I sit feeling a bit blah this morning, Macrina reminds me that I too live within a battle zone, it is just that the war going on around me are more subtle but just as harmful.

"There is the danger of apathy and complacency, living my life overly satisfied with things as they are. I have an amazing ability, at times to settle for shallow living...There is the danger of blindness, not seeing with my inner eye. How harmful it is for me to see only that which does not threaten me. Yet how often I refuse to look at the very things that would call me out of my frigid safety...the danger of negativism, becoming overly critical of every little fault. It is like being a living no to life's possibilities. All of these dangers eat away at me a little more each day, making the flame that I am a little dimmer." (Wiederkehr, p 92)

Maybe the images I discovered when I searched for inner strength were not that far off.  Just as it takes time and intention and TRAINING to build physical muscles and to keep them strong and firm, it takes time, intention, and TRAINING to develop my inner strength...to keep the spark of life within me ablaze.

The children in Chronicles of Narnia, did not just sit, waiting for Aslan to take care of them.  They were active.

Etty, in the midst of horrors I cannot imagine, did not just sit down and die.  She journaled, she cared for others while asking hard questions of God...and she determined it was up to her to keep the spark of life ablaze.

Kutlass expressed it..."When life is a mountain, you carry me...You are strength in my weakness...You're everything I need..." 


Spiritual Practices are the training weights to build my inner strength...to keep the spark ablaze, so that I know to call out to Jesus...because as I tend to that spark of life within me....I depend upon His strength more rather than my own ego in the "war zone" that surrounds me, that, as Macrina reminds me, is just as harmful as the war that surrounded Etty.

God, forgive me when I feel complacent and even a bit bored. Help me to stick to a regime of practice that builds my inner strength...which is You...it is my CONNECTION with You that is kept ablaze as I read, journal, sit still, pray...Spirit, thank you for the kick in the butt this morning! AMEN.

AMEN!

Many Blessings ~ Sandi

Gather Up the Crumbs - I - The Reason We Live So Dimly...

"...everything in your life is a stepping-stone to holiness if only you recognize that you do have within you the grace to be present in each moment." ~ Macrina Wiederkehr


Yes, EVERYTHING!

My Soul Sister reminded me that it is the "stuff" of my life that God uses to grow me...to transform me....

Francesca seems to have a smile with
all she writes and sings. 

This Is The Stuff by Francesca Battistelli I couldn't help but smile as I listened to this again this morning.  What a great song. Thank you, Sister!

Macrina hits fairly hard as she begins this third chapter:

"We stand in the midst of nourishment and we starve...In the light of such possibility, what happens? Why do we drag our hearts? Look up our souls? Why do we limp? Why do we straddle the issues? Why do we live so feebly, so dimly? Why aren't we saints?" (Macrina Wiederkehr, A Tree Full of Angels, p 26)

Makes me gasp, but I wonder
if I live like this far to often?

My head immediately responded, "Because I have not seen these possibilities. I am a Child of my World where it is acceptable, even normal to limp along. I am not sure what a Child of God is supposed to look like! I don't know if I've ever seen a Child of God!.................well.....I might have come across a few Child(s) of God but they were not all Christian.....  Now, that is putting myself in a hard spot first thing this Tuesday morning!

Macrina suggests that a common cause that we live so dimly and with divided hearts is that we have never really learned how to be present with quality to God, to self, to others, to experiences and events, to all created things.

No leftovers...

"We have never learned to gather up the crumbs of whatever appears in our path at every moment.We meet all of these lovely gifts only half there. Presence is what we are all starving for. Real presence! We are too busy to be present, too blind to see the nourishment and salvation in the crumbs of life, the experiences of each moment. Yet the secret of daily life is this: THERE ARE NO LEFTOVERS!" (Ibid)

Macrina continues, saying, "There is nothing - no thing, no person, no experience, no thought, no joy or pain - that cannot be harvested and used for nourishment on our journey to God."

This reminds me a lot of Joyce Rupp's thoughts on Disguised Blessings from The Cup of Life.  I never was able to completely brace those thoughts.

"Some of our greatest blessings have been difficult situations, uncomfortable ones we wanted to throw out of our lives as quickly as possible. Sometimes our greatest pain holds a gift for us that is hidden for a long, long time. The blessing is disguised amid the turmoil, confusion, heartache, and struggle. Sometimes we are unable to accept the blessing because we are still too hurt, too angry, too grieved, too overwhelmed, to receive it. It is only much later..." ~ Joyce Rupp, The Cup of Life

Macrina, like Joyce, believes that everything in my life is a stepping-stone to holiness if only I recognize that I have within me the grace to be present to each moment.

"Your presence is an energy that you can choose to give or not give. Every experience, every thought, every word, every person in your life (Sandi) is a part of a larger picture of your growth. That's why I call them crumbs. They are not the whole loaf, but they can be nourishing if you give them your real presence. Let everything energize you (Sandi). Let everything bless you (Sandi). Even your limping can bless you." (Wiederkehr, p 27) 

Remember when I shared a thought of Eugene Peterson's from "Eat This Book"? In this book he talks about watching his dog gnaw and enjoy a bone.  Chewing on it, licking it, holding it between his paws...and he began to wonder what it would be like to read scripture like his dog chewed on and enjoyed a bone.

Here is a great link to listen to Peterson explain the difference between "reading" and "studying".  It was a gift for me to find it since he articulates so well what I have been trying to say to others about Bible "study."  I'm not a big fan of Bible "study"....   (I would love to visit/stay Laity Lodge!)

Anyhow, I have never "read" a book as slowly as I am reading A Tree Full of Angels. Since I am journaling about this book and the thoughts and questions that arise as I read...it takes a long time!  And you know what? That is not how I am normally geared.  It is nothing for me to say, "I've read two books this week." But, if you asked me about those books four weeks later... I would be pressed to tell you what I "read."

This morning, I realized I am doing more than "reading or studying" this book....I am eating this book.  I am chewing on phrases, insights, stories...

This past weekend I participated in leading a Lead Like Jesus One Day Encounter, based on Ken Blanchard's book, Lead Like Jesus. Blanchard talks about there being four domains of leading like Jesus, The Heart, The Head, The Hands, and The Habits. (4-Hers...does this sound familiar?)

Withing The Habits he talks about different spiritual disciplines. There are MANY disciplines AND I am not expected to embrace/do/excel at all the disciplines.  What I want to do is to discover the disciplines that work for me and use them to help me grow deeper in my relationship with myself and with God. Journaling is a spiritual discipline that works for me. And, journaling online helps me to stay faithful, there is an invisible accountability group around me that asks, "Sandi, have you done what feeds your soul?" "Sandi, have you taken time to be present to God?"  If I didn't have to work, I would love to publish a blog
on Spiritual Disciplines and maybe one focused only on journaling... maybe someday...

Michael is a gifted worship leader.

Until then...Lord, Draw Me Near, and I'll Run After You... Michael W Smith

Again....Anyhow, this is going to be a much slower read than I had even anticipated, and that is okay.  God won't ask me how many books I read.  He may ask what I learned from my books, how they helped me seek his face, ....

Many Blessings ~ Sandi

Week IV - Day 3 - The Cup Brimming Over

Typing the title I immediately thought of the 23rd Psalm.  Somewhere I have a great rewrite of this familiar psalm. Maybe, if I am lucky, I will run across it today. Until then, Selah has a great rewrite...

Amen...and amen!

I love the stories Joyce shares of her childhood.  Today, she remembers visiting great-aunt Ida when she was around four - five years old. Joyce says she looked forward to this visits because her aunt was both generous and kind.  I had some generous and kind great-aunts, but I think my mom was afraid of what my brother and I might break in the homes of our "greats."

Anyway...Joyce remembers a time when Great-Aunt Ida took her coin purse, unzipped it, and put all the pennies in her hand.

Small children still love
a handful of pennies!

"The bounty of those few pennies sent me into a tizzy of happiness." (Joyce Rupp, The Cup of Life, p 140)

Joyce compares her feeling as a child with a handful of pennies to the feeling she has today when she thinks about God's generosity toward her. She writes,

Yet, another poem that isn't Christian,
but still I believe points to
the God we worship.

"I am ever amazed at how God keeps on extending care and kindness to me no matter how I feel or think, no matter what mood I am in, no mater how loving or nasty I am. God keeps offering welcoming love and abiding peace to me...In a way, God's love is like having a "bottomless cup." I can drink and drink from the abundance of God and there is still more love to be poured into my heart." (Ibid)

I can almost see Joyce as she continues...it is like she is sitting here in my living room with me:

I think I used this once before, when I had no idea where to
begin or where to end on choosing a picture of this world.

"When I lean back and reflect upon the gifts I have in my life, I realize that the generosity of God is beyond my comprehension. Nothing I could ever do would "earn" all of these gifts that are freely and lavishly given. I marvel at the gift of my inner and outer life. I am astounded at the daily guidance I receive. I am in awe at the way the world works and at how the intricate human body restores and renews itself. I look at the universe and wonder who this Creator Power is to be so generous with colors, shapes, patterns, and designs. I remember people...and I know without a doubt...I have been touched by Divine Love." (Ibid)

It feels as though Joyce is bringing all the weeks, the many devotions, the many images...and pouring them all into my cup as I sit and listen...

Romans 5:5

"The scriptures often speak of the abundance of God. This divine love is described as being poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5). The book of Joel tells of God's Spirit being poured out on all humanity (Jl 2:28). The psalms use many images to proclaim the generosity of God's gifts. Our lives, too, are a testimony to the generosity of the Divine Giver. Today is a day to step inside the abundance of God and to enjoy what you find there." (Rupp, p 141)

Breathprayer:
Breathing in: Brimming over...
Breathing out: ...with your love


Reflection:

My cup, my life is full to brimming
with God's blessings and love.

Set your cup before you.
Pour water into it so that it fills tot he very brim, ready to wash over the edge.
Sit and ponder how full the cup is.
Close your eyes and picture God's love filling you.
Let your entire being receive this love.




Scripture: Psalm 36:5-9

Journaling:
My cup brims over when...
I have difficulty receiving God's abundance when...
Generous God,...

 My cup brims over when... I began to write, "When life is going well..." and that would be true.  When life seems to be behaving without huge surprises or large bumps throughout my day, I have the sense that my cup is brimming over with blessings.  Yet, in hindsight, I have been able to identify those times when my cup was brimming over during the dark and difficult times of my life...but in that moment, I did not recognize my cup was even able to hold love...hold blessings. All to often in those dark moments I felt broken beyond repair, angry, sad, and so very lonely.

I have difficulty receiving God's abundance when... So, my question this morning, what do I need to do now, when life is not that difficult, that will sustain me when it becomes dark.  Because, the reality is we do walk through dark valleys again and again and again...

Because I am a child of God does not mean I will not know hardship or pain.  It does not mean I will not have times of extreme sadness.  It does mean, that I can continue walking...walking through that dark valley and not be afraid.  That is what it means to be a child of God, but how do I prepare my heart for those times?

I had piled so many "good" things
in my heart, there was not room for God.

In the past I would have been seen as a "good" Christian woman.  I served as an elder and a clerk of session. I sang in the choir and taught Sunday School.  I led lessons for women's study groups and I baked meals for those in mourning or hurting.  I "did" all the things a good Christian is recognized as doing....I was being Martha of Bethany.  But, when I could no longer "do" when it was I who needed the help... I became a lost child.  I had ignored my Mary's heart for so long, she was not able to find her way through the clutter that had become my life.

some of the spiritual disciplines that
work for me, enrich my life.

The journaling, the time of quiet, the music, the readings....all these things are spiritual disciplines that work for me...I KNOW they work because when I faithfully practice them, I am more sane, I am wiser, I listen better,...I am able to "be" in my do-ing or even inability to do. I do not know why this is so difficult for me to accept.  Partly, it goes back to my EGO demon that projects an illusion of control and I buy into it! I know that an athlete, a musician, a surgeon...whatever it might be...if they do not practice daily...they loose the muscle, flexibility, the mental sharpness...The same is true for me. If I do not practice the disciplines that make my heart strong and focused, then life will be difficult, even when the sun is shining. But faithfully practicing then even in the darkness, because I have "memory" that comes only from daily intentional practice, I can walk through recognizing my cup is brimming over with God's love, grace, and mercy.

Generous God,...  There is a part of me that is a bit afraid as I near the end of this book. Journaling online has been a new experience...a good experience! Yet, Joyce's book has made it easy by the way it is laid out in short devotions.  God, I am stronger for these weeks spent with Joyce! I celebrate that new awareness and the disciplines that have taken root over these weeks, but...I don't know if I can maintain this on my own...of course I can't.  Again, that is my EGO demon...suggesting "I" can do something.  Lord, it is only by your grace and your Spirit that I continue on this path.  Help me to stay focused on you.  Help me to see you in the brightness of the sunlight and in the darkest gloom.  And God, that darkest gloom bit? When it comes, help me to be aware that I am walking through the dark valley AND that you are with me. Help me to also be aware that I am walking through the sunlight and that you are with me. God, help me to 'be."

Prayer:
Extravagant God, Generosity beyond comprehension, Bestower of all that I need, Thank you for the immensity of your kindness. Praise to you for the endless out-pouring of your love. My being proclaims your goodness. 


Today:
As I pour liquids of any kind into a cup, a glass, or a bowl, I will smile inside as I remember how generous God is in filling my life with blessings.


As a little girl, college coed, and young adult...I LOVED Ed Ames. While I struggle to pull out the images of him as Don Quixote at Starlight Musicals the music has never left my heart.  Imagine my delight when I discovered this video from a PBS special in 2008.  Plus the songs on this video - Try to Remember and My Cup Runneth Over. After listening to these, I did find The Impossible Dream...oh my does that song speak to my idealistic heart...and he does it so well.

Question to self...how would you live and walk through each day, being aware that God sings this life song to me each day....watching me...with my cup runneth over with love...

Ed Ames - My Cup Runneth Over and Try to Remember: 

Try to remember when life was so tender and love was an ember about to billow....

He sings of remembering "deep in December", yet my prayer is that I remember through the dark valleys so that I might remain faithful.

Many Blessings ~ Sandi