Soul-Soothing

A couple of months ago I was at a training week for pastors that started each morning with worship. While we waited to start, the musician sang to help us prepare.  One of his songs struck a chord with me (pun intended), so I put it on my Spotify favorites playlist. Today as I was driving, I listened to that playlist, and this time I connected with that song even more than I had before.

The song is Weary Traveler by Jordan St. Cyr. It came out in 2022. Here's what the chorus says:

Weary traveler, restless soul
You were never meant to walk this road alone
It'll all be worth it so just hold on
Weary traveler, you won't be weary long

My prevailing status for more than a year has been tiredness, so you can see how this fits me so well. I have been working on relearning how to connect with God and how to feed my soul. Today it is this song. The words are exactly what I needed, so this song got some repeat plays.

There's another song on my playlist that also got repeat plays. It feeds my soul in a different way. The song is Symptoms of Life by Willow. The lyrics don't come through as much in this one, but the way the song is constructed is amazingly complicated and enjoyable. I have no idea how to classify it. It's on my playlist because one of my adult children sent it to me with the question, "What is the meter of this?"  After one listen, I decided not to try to figure it out,  and instead just to enjoy it.  Today I wondered if I could find sheet music for it, and if I did, would I be able to play or sing it? I think I would like to try. 

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with music.  Sometimes it soothes my soul, and sometimes it's a source of pain. Maybe someday I will be brave enough to dive into that with a therapist. Meanwhile I'm thankful for the days when music soothes, so, for today I will just say...

...thanks, God.

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True Confessions

Photo by Stephan Widua on Unsplash

My husband Rob is in the early days of addiction recovery and working on his "fearless moral inventory."  When I said I hadn't done my writing yet for today, he suggested I confess something. I didn't think I had anything to confess, but I have been reticent to tell people what I read just for fun.  

I read lots of theologicalish books, because it's my job to keep learning, and also because I'm curious about what I don't know, but I rarely finish those books.  I read what I need and then I move on to the next one.  But fiction I finish.  

I keep it light with romance or light mystery, sometimes both of those combined with some fantasy.  That's the case for the book I'm reading currently, Wild Irish Eyes by Tricia O'Malley. Her books are free on Kindle Unlimited, which is how I got started on her series. 

In this book, the main character Cait has the ability to read minds, something that has been a lifelong source of shame and concern, especially since her mother is convinced that Cait's ability is from the devil.  Her mother is being narrowminded and fearful, of course.  Cait discovers that she can use her gift to help people.  That's as far as I've gotten with this book, but it has me thinking about my own intuitive abilities.

In the book, Cait is tormented by everyone's thoughts until she learns to put up a mental shield.  This is something I work on as well.  I don't hear people's thoughts, but I feel their moods--their sadness or anger or joy.  It gets confusing when I'm experiencing a mood that doesn't match my own thoughts, especially in a group of people where there can be a variety of moods.  It would be easier to hear actual thoughts, in my opinion.

I do get a sense sometimes that's sort of like hearing a thought.  I've assumed that's the Holy Spirit.  It's not always clear, and I don't always pay attention.  When it is clear and I do pay attention, it can be quite helpful in navigating a situation.  Sometimes I get it wrong, though. And sometimes I just ignore it.

Is this what people sometimes call women's intuition?  Or is it like Isaiah 30:21 says:

 If you stray to the right or the left, you will hear a word that comes from behind you: “This is the way; walk in it."

Or maybe I'm secretly a Mandalorian.  "This is the way."

Nah, I don't like wearing helmets.

Prayer and Breathing

Day 3 of writing daily. I decided to use the analytics on this blog to see which post has had the most hits.  Turns out it's one I wrote in 2017 entitled Job One: Prayer.  2017 seems like eons ago, and the confidence and idealism of that post feels like a different person from the one writing this today.  I'm not as resilient as I was then. Maybe it's the effects of aging, or remnants of experiencing the COVID pandemic, or watching the genocide in Gaza and Ukraine, or the upside down nature of our current politics, or just plain old depression.

Honestly one of the hardest practices to sustain through all those years has been prayer.

It's not that I have lost my faith in God.  I've learned that even though there have been moments of wondering if God is real, I had a deeper sense that I didn't need to wonder about that, that God is still with me, being patient with me, even when I had trouble saying much more than "hey."

Over the past several years of trying to keep seeking God, I've found that shorter readings connected with me better.  My go-to morning app has been Everyday Sanctuary.  There's just a sentence or two of scripture, a thought, and a word or phrase for meditation.  Mostly just breathing.

Breathing is always my homework from therapy.  Practice breathing.  This goes well with the words on the wall of my office, "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10)

After I wrote that just now, I had to take a break and do some deep breathing with that verse.  Did you?

Maybe this is what Paul was talking about when he told the Thessalonians to "pray continually." (1 Thess. 5:17 CEB)  With every breath, be still and know that God is God.  With every breath, give thanks for life.  With every breath, let go of whatever gets in the way of joy.

To be honest, I was agreeing with myself wholeheartedly until I wrote that sentence about joy.  It feels a little self-delusional.  It's one of my sticking points. People keep telling me to work on finding my joy.  

Ugh.

It's much easier to practice breathing.

After all, breathing is one of those things that just happens anyway.

Maybe someday, joy will be like that for me, too.

Kansas Driving and Sky

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

Day two of my commitment to myself to write every day.  The fact that I started with that sentence tells you how it's going. I had the idea yesterday that today I would write about whether concentration camps are biblical, or in other words, whether there are concentration camps in the Bible.  But there aren't. So there's nothing more to say about that.

So instead let's talk about driving in Kansas.  I've had to go to Wichita twice this week.  The people I'm meeting with are quick to say how grateful they are that I'm willing to drive more than an hour to meet with them, which is nice.  It's not the most interesting drive because it's long and straight and flat, nostly fields, some trees, and a few buildings once in a while. But I'm often the only car on the road, or one of only two or three.  So it's not a hard drive.  It's actually quite nice. I can be alone with my thoughts.  I've got satellite radio and I like to flip around the stations.  I've got an FM transmitter so I can listen to the music on my phone, or books in Audible or podcasts (Hidden Brain is one of my favorites), and it's a bonus if I can hit NPR when Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is on.

Another fun thing about driving in Kansas is that the sky very often looks like the sky in the opening of The Simpsons. Deep blue with lots of little puffy white clouds.  We call it a Simpson's sky, and we never get tired of pointing it out to each other (my husband and I).

The sky is one of my favorite parts of Kansas.  I can't see it as well from my house because of trees, but I love the trees, so no complaints about that.  But out driving, there's nothing obstructing the sky.  Sunrises and sunsets are especially beautiful when you can see them right on the horizon.  And since we live in a small town (one square mile), most of our driving is on rural roads with no traffic and lots of sky.  What could be better?!

So there we are.  Today's ode to Kansas driving and the sky.

Thanks, God.

Faces

I hate talking on the phone. One reason is that I need to see faces. When I talk with people, their expressions tell me so much.  Nods and smiles are wonderfully encouraging.  Eye rolls are annoying but informative. Quizical looks help me know I need to explain more.  Then there's the sort-of blank and confused look.  I get that a lot.  It tells me that I'm sounding like someone from another planet to them, whatever that would sound like.

Yesterday I got that look from my therapist, followed by an eye roll.  She'd asked me to talk about how I decided to go to seminary and become a pastor.  I wanted to write, and considered going for an MFA, but, I told her, that seemed too self-serving.  That's when I got the look.

It does seem more silly now.  If I could go back and do it over, would I choose differently?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  At the time, I was writing lots of blogs about scripture passages that piqued my interest.  So seminary seemed like the more logical choice, I suppose.

Now all I write are sermons.  I rarely post on this blog, and I haven't been journaling much either.  Why?  It's complicated.

But today I am writing.  And my plan is to do this daily.  Anne Lamott, the beloved writing mentor (see Bird by Bird) says that's the way to do it.  Write every day.

So we'll see how this goes.

(face(s) did you make while reading this blog?)

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Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash, Photo by Zulmaury Saavedra on Unsplash, Photo by Jota Lao on Unsplash, Photo by nrd on Unsplash but not necessarily in that order.

What If

Photo by Quaritsch Photography on Unsplash

It seems glaringly obvious to me today that we the church who put most of our energy into a one-hour-a-week gathering have things upside down.  Maybe this is why little churches that don't have a full-time pastor are often healthier than the churches that have one.

Think about the gospels.  Jesus teaches, heals, prays.  If there's a worship service in there somewhere, Jesus isn't the one leading it.  The ones who are leading temple services are the ones that Jesus is arguing with, the ones that he calls "blind guides."

So why is the weekly worship service the biggest thing we do?  Its the primary focus of my time and my pastoral training.  I had classes in seminary about the Bible, Bible history, biblical languages, homiletics, and theology, all of which are geared toward preaching.  I had one class in counseling, and zero classes in social work.  If I could go back and do it over, I would get lots more training in counseling, social work, and administration.

Once in awhile I float the idea that we shift our focus away from worship.  What if we spent some of our Sundays in other ways?  Its not unusual for a church to have a day of service on a Sunday, but it's not a regular occurence. It happens once or twice a year.  We've had a Sunday where we have groups of two to four discuss things, but, again, not a regular occurence.  

I'm ready to make service and discussion part of the regular Sunday rotation.  How about you?

Star Word 2025 - This time for real.

Today I was going through things in preparation for a trip to Seattle tomorrow, and lo and behold I found my actual 2025 star word: enthusiasm. I haven't posted about this word until now, but I did talk about it in a sermon in January.  Here's what I said:

Last Sunday we got star words...

My word for this year is "enthusiasm." As I’ve said before, I often don’t like my word at first, but this year's word felt particularly inappropriate for someone like me who has been dealing with depression over the last couple of years. Enthusiasm is too much to ask.

But then I did some digging, and it turns out that "enthusiasm" comes from the Greek word Enthousiazein which means “be inspired or possessed by God." The root of this word is “en theos.” In God.

Enthusiasm is not something I need to try to manufacture. It is the Spirit of God in me. It brings me right back to my frogs. Fully Rely on God. Trusting that God is with me, loves me, wants the best for me.

What if God is doing something new, something greater in us?

To turn water into wine, Jesus asked that they fill the jars with water, then draw some water out of the jar and take it to the wine steward. Jesus used what they had and turned it into

something better.

What are we holding back out of fear that needs to fill the jars and become wine?

Are we willing to be enthused?

Enthusiasm is challenging.  But passion and whole hearted trust in God will carry us beyond our expectations because God will carry us beyond our expectations. 

Thanks, God.