We learn about who God is through many different means. As Christians we claim God is revealed to us through scripture. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, being both human and divine, walked the earth and is called God in flesh. As believers we look to the world around us, the beauty of God’s creation, and awe at God’s majesty evident in snow capped mountains, pristine sandy shores, and lush green forests.
There is no shortage of books that attempt to describe who God is and what God might be up to in the world, some of them better than others. Several of them have even opened my eyes to understanding God in Christ in new and amazing ways. I am grateful to the authors of those books as I include them in my list of teachers even though I have never met them.
I also believe that God has much to teach us through the presence of one another. As God’s creatures, we are created in the image of God. We are not God, but have the capacity to reveal God, or get a glimpse of who God is or what God is up to in and through one another.
Through this blog, you will be introduced to the stories of many people. You may know them, or people like them. They are everyday people, trying to get through each day like you and me. In the midst of the ordinary, I have found myself tested and tried. Yet, through our mutual struggles, God has been revealed. These people have become my teachers, whether they realize it or not. I did not go out searching for their insights. In fact, in some cases, my life would have been easier had the encounter not come to pass. But God is steadfast. God is true. God is present where two or more are gathered.
I invite you into the lives of these remarkable people. I call them remarkable not because they have accomplished great feats, or are news worthy, but because they are human, everyday, ordinary people. And God is there, in their lives, visible if we look.
I begin with a story about me.
Two years ago I took my first ever sabbatical. I prepared diligently for it by making goals, realistic goals. In order to aid in this transition from work overload to sabbatical, to aid in creating new rhythms in my life, I decided to go on a personal retreat. There was one goal in particular that I thought a retreat would help me with: How do I love God with my heart, not just my soul and my mind? How could I create new habits in my life that focused on this desire? How could I create habits that would be sustainable through reentry in my post-sabbatical life?
So I headed up to northern Wisconsin with a basket of books and my dog. I didn't know how long I was planning on staying, I just knew that I would know when it was time to leave. I knew I wanted to exercise each day, eat healthy, to read, and read, and read, and to reflect, if the occasion called for it. I was feeling pretty proud of myself after the first day. Eat healthy food-check. Walk with dog on the frozen lake-check. Read, read, read-check, check, check. I was off to a great start in accomplishing my to do list for this retreat.
Part of my reading list included a new genre for me, poetry. Specifically, I had brought with a volume of Mary Oliver’s work. Now, I am not a fan of poetry, particularly poems about animals, which Mary Oliver happens to write quite a lot of, but I was captivated by her ability to paint a picture with her words of things she could see with her eyes and in her imagination. She has an ability to tend to the moment and express that attending in thought-provoking ways.
While reading her work, I began to think about this business of attending - what it means to attend to myself and attend to my relationships with God and within God’s creation.
So, the next morning, on my daily walk, I decided to focus on my surroundings instead of how much time I had left before I could return to the comfort of my warm cabin and soft couch. I looked at the ice beneath my feet and the plants and trees along the shore. I hadn't gotten very far into my walk before I noticed the fallen birch tree. Around its trunk was a pile of shavings accompanied by a perfect circle of gnawing marks at the base of the tree. It had to be the work of beavers! I never knew there were beavers in our bay. So, for the next few mornings, I trekked on the ice in search of further evidence that beavers were there. By the third day I found it: a beaver dam, frozen in the ice. I had been walking within five feet of it every day and never noticed it before. It was so close I could touch it.
Riley, my canine companion, and I set out on our last morning of the week for a final walk. We had had a particularly warm night and so some of the ice had begun to melt. Staying close to the shore, as usual, the ice still felt solid enough to hold us. We had almost made it to the beaver dam when I heard what sounded like thunder in the distance. It caught me off guard since thunderstorms were not the norm in the middle of January in Wisconsin. After a few seconds I heard it again, then again. Soon I realized the thunder was not coming from the sky, but from beneath my feet. The warmer temperatures had caused the ice to weaken in certain parts of the lake. I closed my eyes, and there in the middle of nowhere, I listened to the most beautiful percussion symphony that I had ever heard.
The experience of these incredible sights and sounds would not have been possible if I had not begun to take seriously this notion of attending, of becoming aware of my surroundings, in new and exciting ways. Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, An Altar in the World, calls this kind of paying attention 'the practice of reverence.'
I invite you to join me in this kind of attending. Attend to the events and voices of the people you meet in this blog. Not just for the sake of attending itself, but attending in a way that allows you to hear and see God at work in new and surprising ways.
My hope and prayer is that in the weeks and months to come, you hear and see glimpses of God, and have new insights into who God is, in a way that shows nothing but reverence for both God and the people whose stories I share.
There is no shortage of books that attempt to describe who God is and what God might be up to in the world, some of them better than others. Several of them have even opened my eyes to understanding God in Christ in new and amazing ways. I am grateful to the authors of those books as I include them in my list of teachers even though I have never met them.
I also believe that God has much to teach us through the presence of one another. As God’s creatures, we are created in the image of God. We are not God, but have the capacity to reveal God, or get a glimpse of who God is or what God is up to in and through one another.
Through this blog, you will be introduced to the stories of many people. You may know them, or people like them. They are everyday people, trying to get through each day like you and me. In the midst of the ordinary, I have found myself tested and tried. Yet, through our mutual struggles, God has been revealed. These people have become my teachers, whether they realize it or not. I did not go out searching for their insights. In fact, in some cases, my life would have been easier had the encounter not come to pass. But God is steadfast. God is true. God is present where two or more are gathered.
I invite you into the lives of these remarkable people. I call them remarkable not because they have accomplished great feats, or are news worthy, but because they are human, everyday, ordinary people. And God is there, in their lives, visible if we look.
I begin with a story about me.
Two years ago I took my first ever sabbatical. I prepared diligently for it by making goals, realistic goals. In order to aid in this transition from work overload to sabbatical, to aid in creating new rhythms in my life, I decided to go on a personal retreat. There was one goal in particular that I thought a retreat would help me with: How do I love God with my heart, not just my soul and my mind? How could I create new habits in my life that focused on this desire? How could I create habits that would be sustainable through reentry in my post-sabbatical life?
So I headed up to northern Wisconsin with a basket of books and my dog. I didn't know how long I was planning on staying, I just knew that I would know when it was time to leave. I knew I wanted to exercise each day, eat healthy, to read, and read, and read, and to reflect, if the occasion called for it. I was feeling pretty proud of myself after the first day. Eat healthy food-check. Walk with dog on the frozen lake-check. Read, read, read-check, check, check. I was off to a great start in accomplishing my to do list for this retreat.
Part of my reading list included a new genre for me, poetry. Specifically, I had brought with a volume of Mary Oliver’s work. Now, I am not a fan of poetry, particularly poems about animals, which Mary Oliver happens to write quite a lot of, but I was captivated by her ability to paint a picture with her words of things she could see with her eyes and in her imagination. She has an ability to tend to the moment and express that attending in thought-provoking ways.
While reading her work, I began to think about this business of attending - what it means to attend to myself and attend to my relationships with God and within God’s creation.
So, the next morning, on my daily walk, I decided to focus on my surroundings instead of how much time I had left before I could return to the comfort of my warm cabin and soft couch. I looked at the ice beneath my feet and the plants and trees along the shore. I hadn't gotten very far into my walk before I noticed the fallen birch tree. Around its trunk was a pile of shavings accompanied by a perfect circle of gnawing marks at the base of the tree. It had to be the work of beavers! I never knew there were beavers in our bay. So, for the next few mornings, I trekked on the ice in search of further evidence that beavers were there. By the third day I found it: a beaver dam, frozen in the ice. I had been walking within five feet of it every day and never noticed it before. It was so close I could touch it.
Riley, my canine companion, and I set out on our last morning of the week for a final walk. We had had a particularly warm night and so some of the ice had begun to melt. Staying close to the shore, as usual, the ice still felt solid enough to hold us. We had almost made it to the beaver dam when I heard what sounded like thunder in the distance. It caught me off guard since thunderstorms were not the norm in the middle of January in Wisconsin. After a few seconds I heard it again, then again. Soon I realized the thunder was not coming from the sky, but from beneath my feet. The warmer temperatures had caused the ice to weaken in certain parts of the lake. I closed my eyes, and there in the middle of nowhere, I listened to the most beautiful percussion symphony that I had ever heard.
The experience of these incredible sights and sounds would not have been possible if I had not begun to take seriously this notion of attending, of becoming aware of my surroundings, in new and exciting ways. Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, An Altar in the World, calls this kind of paying attention 'the practice of reverence.'
I invite you to join me in this kind of attending. Attend to the events and voices of the people you meet in this blog. Not just for the sake of attending itself, but attending in a way that allows you to hear and see God at work in new and surprising ways.
My hope and prayer is that in the weeks and months to come, you hear and see glimpses of God, and have new insights into who God is, in a way that shows nothing but reverence for both God and the people whose stories I share.