Every time I get hungry, I think about Somalia.
Ten million people in East Africa are hungry. Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya have the lowest level of rainfall in more than 50 years. It's a crisis. Crops are dead, livestock have perished, and local food prices have gone up.
It's a famine: acute malnutrition exists among children (exceeding 30%); more than two persons per 10,000 die daily; and people are not able to access and sufficiently utilize food and other staples.
This causes thousands of people to flee to Kenya from Somalia, and now they have a drought and a refugee crisis.
Meanwhile, I will be attending a 25th anniversary party tonight for a couple I love. Tomorrow, I will be celebrating our church organist, Cathryn Wilkinson, at her farewell party. And finally this morning I put it all together.
Instead of buying an unneeded gift for my friends' anniversary, I will donate money in their honor to the United Church of Christ for famine relief in Somalia. Instead of giving a gift to Cathryn for her farewell, I will donate money in her honor to the Presbyterian Church disaster relief fund for East Africa.
This weekend, while I go to the refrigerator to get what I want for each meal, our denominations are at work in East Africa to provide family food packages, nutritional supplements for children, water for livestock, as well as emergency shelter, clothing and hygiene materials.
The United Church of Christ has issued a $250,000 emergency relief appeal for people in the Eastern Horn of Africa. The Presbyterian Church is at work with other partner agencies, including Church World Service, to help save lives.
If you'd like to be part of this, you may send gifts to:
United Church of Christ
Financial Services
700 Prospect Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44115
or
Presbyterian Church USA
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700
Mark your gifts for East Africa Famine Relief. Be grateful for the love of Christ and for the work of the wider church.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Learning Spirituality on You Tube
This morning I went to Blue Max for a breakfast meeting with our Faith in Action committee and ran into another church member buying a cup of coffee. This man (I'll call him Dan) had talked with me a few months ago about his spiritual life, saying he wanted to go deeper in his prayers but wasn't sure how to move forward.
I told Dan about centering prayer, and suggested that he look up a few books by Thomas Keating, who developed this prayer method. While Dan was in my office, I did an internet search on "centering prayer" and found a You Tube video of the man himself -- Thomas Keating explaining centering prayer! Nice. The world of technology is like a virtual church.
So this morning Dan told me that he uses centering prayer every day and it has changed his life. Thanks, You Tube.
I was part of a contemplative prayer retreat for clergy a week ago, and we were talking about the importance of humility in the life of a pastor. Our leader Tilden Edwards said we could think about our work in developing a sermon as being similar to making a Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala. I'd heard of these, but didn't know the details.
A quick Google visit brought me to a You Tube video of the Dalai Lama and other priests creating a gorgeous sand mandala, only to destroy it as soon as it was finished. This spiritual practice helps demonstrate the reality of impermanence. It helps Buddhists learn to let go of the results of their efforts on the material plane.
Who knew that You Tube could help us go deeper in our life with God?
I told Dan about centering prayer, and suggested that he look up a few books by Thomas Keating, who developed this prayer method. While Dan was in my office, I did an internet search on "centering prayer" and found a You Tube video of the man himself -- Thomas Keating explaining centering prayer! Nice. The world of technology is like a virtual church.
So this morning Dan told me that he uses centering prayer every day and it has changed his life. Thanks, You Tube.
I was part of a contemplative prayer retreat for clergy a week ago, and we were talking about the importance of humility in the life of a pastor. Our leader Tilden Edwards said we could think about our work in developing a sermon as being similar to making a Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala. I'd heard of these, but didn't know the details.
A quick Google visit brought me to a You Tube video of the Dalai Lama and other priests creating a gorgeous sand mandala, only to destroy it as soon as it was finished. This spiritual practice helps demonstrate the reality of impermanence. It helps Buddhists learn to let go of the results of their efforts on the material plane.
Who knew that You Tube could help us go deeper in our life with God?
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Keeping the Sabbath Holy
This weekend I am at a contemplative prayer retreat for clergy. We are staying at a Church of the Brethen conference center in New Windsor, MD. On my morning jog, I see more cows than people. The center is placed in a lovely farm community, surrounded by fields, and the sky here seems enormous.
We have had a silent Sabbath today, practicing silence together since 8:00 pm last night. All of our meals are eaten silently. I've learned to eat for pleasure, rather than just to fuel my body. I've learned that food tastes a lot better when you actually pay attention to what you're eating. I can remember every single thing I've eaten in the last 24 hours, because there were no distractions to my meals, and I was not in a hurry. I'd like to eat this way more often!
Tonight we gathered for a silent communion service. We have learned to sit in a circle in quiet reflection, and only the presider spoke during the service. We shared the bread and juice quietly, and passed the peace by grasping each other's hands and looking into each other's eyes, with no words. I could feel the joy of the sacrament, and my heart was full of gratitude at the end of the service.
I walked outside to watch the sun set. Clouds created shadows around the apricot and scarlet rays of the setting sun. And when I looked to the south, I could see lightning flashing across the sky. To the east, the sky was light and to the north, there were just a few clouds. Though the storm raged many miles away to the south, the rest of the horizon was peaceful. An image of life, when you take the time to keep the Sabbath holy.
We have had a silent Sabbath today, practicing silence together since 8:00 pm last night. All of our meals are eaten silently. I've learned to eat for pleasure, rather than just to fuel my body. I've learned that food tastes a lot better when you actually pay attention to what you're eating. I can remember every single thing I've eaten in the last 24 hours, because there were no distractions to my meals, and I was not in a hurry. I'd like to eat this way more often!
Tonight we gathered for a silent communion service. We have learned to sit in a circle in quiet reflection, and only the presider spoke during the service. We shared the bread and juice quietly, and passed the peace by grasping each other's hands and looking into each other's eyes, with no words. I could feel the joy of the sacrament, and my heart was full of gratitude at the end of the service.
I walked outside to watch the sun set. Clouds created shadows around the apricot and scarlet rays of the setting sun. And when I looked to the south, I could see lightning flashing across the sky. To the east, the sky was light and to the north, there were just a few clouds. Though the storm raged many miles away to the south, the rest of the horizon was peaceful. An image of life, when you take the time to keep the Sabbath holy.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
An Argument with God
A friend of mine I'll call David told me he has a few arguments with God.
When things in his life don't turn out too well, David has some pretty heated discussions with God. When David sees his loved ones suffer, he complains to God in prayer. When the world seems to be going in the wrong direction, David gets just plain mad at God.
David's faith has always been strong, and his relationship with God is passionate. But one day a few months ago, David came to the end of his rope. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and David just couldn't take it anymore. He took the gold cross necklace that he wears every day and he flung it out the window.
Now that's an argument with God. By throwing the cross out the window, David was stating in no uncertain terms that he was done with this relationship. God had disappointed him too many times. He was through.
Life went on, as it always does, and David wondered if anything would change. Now that he had rejected Christ and all the cross stood for, would God be angry? Would God punish him? Or would God even notice? David was tired of arguing, tired of fighting, and he really had nothing more to say.
About three weeks later, David went to check his mailbox. Right outside the mailbox was his cross necklace. There was no note on it. It was not in an envelope. But it wasn't the same cross. The gold cross was battered and bruised, as if a truck had driven over it. One bar of the cross was bent and almost broken. The metal looked distressed. But it was still in one piece.
David looked at that cross a long time. He saw it had been through a lot. And mysteriously it had come back to him. David has no idea who found it or how anyone knew it belonged to him.
But David put the necklace on again. Now he wears it every day. It's a little bent and a little broken, but it means even more to him than it did before.
This is how we know God loves us. After arguments, after conflicts, after the worst fights of our lives, God comes back to us and invites us to the dance of reconciliation.
"Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely." - Song of Solomon 2:10-14
When things in his life don't turn out too well, David has some pretty heated discussions with God. When David sees his loved ones suffer, he complains to God in prayer. When the world seems to be going in the wrong direction, David gets just plain mad at God.
David's faith has always been strong, and his relationship with God is passionate. But one day a few months ago, David came to the end of his rope. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and David just couldn't take it anymore. He took the gold cross necklace that he wears every day and he flung it out the window.
Now that's an argument with God. By throwing the cross out the window, David was stating in no uncertain terms that he was done with this relationship. God had disappointed him too many times. He was through.
Life went on, as it always does, and David wondered if anything would change. Now that he had rejected Christ and all the cross stood for, would God be angry? Would God punish him? Or would God even notice? David was tired of arguing, tired of fighting, and he really had nothing more to say.
About three weeks later, David went to check his mailbox. Right outside the mailbox was his cross necklace. There was no note on it. It was not in an envelope. But it wasn't the same cross. The gold cross was battered and bruised, as if a truck had driven over it. One bar of the cross was bent and almost broken. The metal looked distressed. But it was still in one piece.
David looked at that cross a long time. He saw it had been through a lot. And mysteriously it had come back to him. David has no idea who found it or how anyone knew it belonged to him.
But David put the necklace on again. Now he wears it every day. It's a little bent and a little broken, but it means even more to him than it did before.
This is how we know God loves us. After arguments, after conflicts, after the worst fights of our lives, God comes back to us and invites us to the dance of reconciliation.
"Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely." - Song of Solomon 2:10-14
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