Balancing Act

Welcome and Good Morning!

Life is a constant balancing act for me and maybe, for you, too. Right now I'm trying to find my spiritual balance. It's funny how something not so big, like a friend on vacation, can throw you off balance spiritually. But when it is a spiritual mentor, well it just does.
This spiritual quest I am on is being fed by God, in one way, through a series of meditations by Fr. Richard Rohr. They are speaking to me in a deeper part of my soul. I like when that happens. I feel full; like I've eaten a very satisfying banquet. This year Fr. Rohr is focusing on the Divine in Nature. I'm sharing today's meditation with you. I hope if feeds your soul as well.

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Eleven

The Natural World

The Substance of God
Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Many indigenous spiritualities, Franciscans, and Celts saw creation as good, as a theophany or revelation of God’s very being, just as Genesis taught. How did Christianity come to be so divorced from nature? John Philip Newell (b. 1953), a poet and scholar known for his work in the field of Celtic spirituality, traces the roots and impact of the doctrine creatio ex nihilo. He offers an alternative, still orthodox, view of creation based on the writings of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon:

Irenaeus [130-202] . . . taught that the whole of creation flows from the very “substance” of God. [1] All things carry within them the essence of the One. Irenaeus . . . signaled his concern about the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing. . . . This was to become the standard of Western Christianity’s approach to creation. Creation would be viewed not as coming forth from the substance of God but as fashioned from afar by a distant Creator, made out of nothing from on high.

Irenaeus intuited that this would be a disaster, that to neutralize matter, to teach that creation does not come from holy substance, would lead to the abuse of creation. It was a convenient “truth” . . . [meaning] that the empire could do whatever it wished to matter. Matter was not holy. It had not come forth from the womb of God’s Being. Rather it was made from nothing. It was essentially devoid of sacred energy. So, every imperial mind could ravage the earth’s resources with impunity. It could disparage the rights of creatures and subordinate the physical well-being of its subjects. Religion had become the accomplice of the state’s subordination of the earth. It had sanctioned the separation of spirit and matter.

Irenaeus . . . passionately taught that the substance of the earth and its creatures carries within itself the life of the Holy One. God, he said, is both “above us all and in us all.” [2] God is both transcendent and immanent. And the work of Jesus, he taught, was not to save us from our nature but to restore us to our nature and to bring us back into relationship with the deepest sound within creation. In his commentary on the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, in which all things are described as spoken into being by God, Irenaeus sees Jesus not as speaking a new word but as uttering again the first word, the sound at the beginning and the heart of life. He describes Jesus as “recapitulating” the original work of the Creator, as articulating again what we have forgotten and what needs to be repeated, the Sound from which all life has come. [3] Jesus re-sounds the beginning. He resounds with what is deepest in the matter of the universe.

. . . The Christ story is the universe story. The birth of the divine-human child is a revelation, a lifting of the veil to show us that all life has been conceived by the Spirit in the womb of the universe, that we are all divine-human creatures, that everything that has being in the universe carries within itself the sacredness of Spirit.

 "Just as Genesis taught." 
That is what Genesis teaches us, isn't it? He gave everything he created to Adam and Eve to care for. As a whole, we are not doing a very good job of that command, are we? Many individuals, yes. As a whole, not so good.
Good food for thought.

I happen to agree with this meditation that says nature comes from God's very being, His sacred energy. How could you read Genesis any other way?

And the Psalms tell us that, too.
Psalm 33:6  By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth.
Heady stuff.

Gratitude
1. God's creation of nature.
2. Starry nights
3. Animals

Blessings,
Deborah

Proverbs 31 - Lesson 21

Welcome and blessings on this chilly Thursday morning in the mountains!

Proverbs 31:30
Charm is deceitful,
and beauty is vain,
but a woman who
fears the Lord
is to be praised.

Woman of the Bible - Rachel

This story is really about Rachel and Leah, her sister and sister-in-law.
Jacob, who we met in our last story of Rebekah, meets Rachel and falls madly in love with the beauty. He asks her father, Laban, for her hand in marriage and Laban says yes, but tells Jacob he must work for him for seven years first. Jacob complies and marries Rachel, who is really Leah covered in veils. Laban has tricked Jacob. Laban is not a very nice man. When Jacob realizes what has happened, he demands to marry Rachel and Laban tells him he must work another seven years to have her. Jacob complies once again. Finally he marries Rachel and then takes all that is owed to him and runs away from Laban. Rachel steals her father's idols, which Laban comes after and Jacob denies having. Rachel sits on them and covers them with her skirts so they cannot be found.
Between the two sisters, the 12 sons of Israel are born. Leah gives birth to several sons before Rachel finally conceives Joseph. (The story of Joseph is one of my all time favorite stories in the Bible.)
If you have never read the story of Rachel and Leah I highly recommend you do. You can find it in Genesis 29 - 48:7.
The story takes place in Mesopotamia and Canaan.
Mesopotamia is a historical region in West Asia, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and Iran-Iraq borders.
Canaan, the biblical name for the area of ancient Palestine, west of the Jordon River, the Promised land of the Israelites.

Once again, teacher Robin has provided beautiful background pages and graphics, lessons rich in tradition and information to enhance the story. You can find the link to her website in the last post.

Gratitude 

1. Biblical stories filled with mystery and intrigue.

2. History

3. You, my dear readers.

Ephesians 1:16

I have not stopped giving thanks for you,

remembering you in my prayers.

Blessings,

Deborah

Two Challenges, One Story

Welcome friends! Hope you are having a blessed Sunday.

I was doing my Proverbs 31 Challenge and was all caught up and thought to myself, "You really need to get caught up in the Deeper Still Challenge!" So I checked the lesson and, lo and behold, it was the same story!

Proverbs 31:23
Her husband is known in the gates
when he sits among the elders of the land.

When you think of this verse, who comes to mind? Sarai/Sarah? Yes. She is perfect for this verse.
This story is found in Genesis 18 and is about the time when three men/angels come to visit Abraham. One of them tells Abraham that this time next year Sarah will have a son. Sarah is listening and laughs, for she is an old woman beyond child bearing years. The man asks Sarah why she laughed and she denies having laughed. He tells her she did laugh and to believe all things are possible with God. Sarah had a son and they named him Isaac.

The Proverbs 31 Challenge, Lesson 14:

The Deeper Still Challenge , Lesson 6:

As usual, I verse mapped the story.
I used all my brown washi tape to make the tree. I love how it turned out. We were supposed to paint the tree, but that is not my cup of tea. :) 

Gratitude

1. A Lord who provides

2. My job

3. My marriage

Ephesians 1:16

I have not stopped giving thanks for you,

remembering you in my prayers.

Blessings,

Deborah

Life Began in a Garden

I see God.

I always find God in nature. In my own garden, walking along the road, in the mountains. He is there. It is a different feeling for me than being in church. Being out in His creation resonates with me. I look at all the different plant life and ask, "How can someone say there is no God?' I look at all the different animals and the differences in the same species, such as horses, cats, dogs and I ask the same question.

He exists, because I see it with my eyes and feel it in my soul and know it my heart.
It gives me hope and it gives me peace.

I guess finding God in nature more than anywhere else isn't too far fetched. After all, Life began in a Garden.

Genesis 2:15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden
to work it and take care of it.

Gratitude
1. Gardens
2. Lavender
3. Nature

Phil 1:4
In all my prayers for all of you,
I always pray with joy.

Blessings,
Deborah

Visits with a Ladybug and a Cow

     I wish I could remember to always have my camera with me. How many times have I uttered those words? Late yesterday afternoon I rescued a  Ladybug from the dog's outside water dish, not knowing if she was still alive or not and praying she was. Yes! She was, although quite soggy, she began to immediately fluff her apple-red-polka-dot wings.  I carried her out to the remains of our vegetable garden, thinking she might like to rest and finish her drying on one of the various leaves still out there. No. I gave her many different leaves to choose from, but  she seemed to want to stay on my hand, going up and down my arm, little black feet tickling, pausing to fluff every now and then while I thanked God for this miracle gift that was bringing me so much joy. The right under wing must have taken on the most water, because it was quite some time before it came loose from the red top wing. We spent at least 20 minutes walking around my tiny vegetable garden visiting, pausing every now and again to try a leaf. Still no go. I was loving every minute of this gift from God spent with one of His tiny creatures who was in need of help and company.  I never knew they had under wings. Did you? I had never been this blessed with so much of a Ladybug's time! I felt so honored and awed and thankful. 
     As we were visiting, God, Ladybug and I, one of the cows came close and began munching the tomatoes I had thrown over the fence. I introduced Ladybug and Lady Cow to each other and noticed that Lady Cow was quite large with child. I smiled. There are six calves out in the field. all male, and wished her a happy birth. She also stayed for the entire time I was out there and even came a little closer to the fence at one point. I love country life! 
     Ladybug eventually crawled off on part of the fence and Lady Cow meandered away to join the rest of the herd. I walked back to the house to begin dinner, smiling and content to receive two such gifts in one late, Sunday Autumn afternoon.

     113)  Polka-dot Ladybugs
     114)  Cows, full with child
     115)  Country life shared with God's critters
     116)  Bar-b-Q hamburgers
     117)  Wood ordered for winter warmth
     118)  Phone conversations with far away oldest daughter
     119)  Cliff, a collector of our recyclable bottles to supplement his retirement income and says God Bless you when he picks them up
     120)  My SILs safe return from her retreat
     121)  Homemade, spicy tomato juice

     Genesis 1:26  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

     Wishing you blessings on your Monday,  Deborah