Tag Archives: Common Prayer

Several Versions of Freedom and Whole 30 (Later)

Posted on 14 April 2012 | Leave a comment

I was supposed to spend today grading, but I decided to spend the day doing things I love, instead of the one thing I have to do that I don’t necessarily like to do. I started the day with a bike ride with a good friend and colleague. When we started riding, there was an almost non-existent mist that slowly turned into a full-on ice-cold rain. By the time we parted ways, we were drenched. We had great conversation and so much fun. It’s good to be adventurous, even if that only means two grown women riding bikes in the rain. Freedom.

After the bike ride, I took a nice, long, hot shower to warm up. I savored the warmth and the smell of my coconut body wash. Sometimes the smallest things make me smile. Mint shampoo and coconut body wash. Smiles. I won’t be needing the mint shampoo again any time soon, because I cut my hair.I just couldn’t take the fluff and stuff anymore, even though one of my high school students just told me on Friday that my hair was bad ass. I could be the queen of bad-assery, but it was also annoying, so the hair had to go. And, as another friend just commented on my Facebook page, maybe my this will “shave” a little time off my swimming laps! Freedom.

March 5: Mohawk

April 14: No Hair

After my hot shower, I put on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt and went out on the porch. I sat there watching the rain fall. I prayed the morning prayer for April 14 from Common Prayer. I read from Exodus where the Israelites are beginning to make the tabernacle in the desert and from Thessalonians: “We had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition. For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others […]. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.” (2:3-8) I love the last little bit there: sharing the gospel and our own selves.Is it freedom to share yourself?

Right there, early this morning, I was challenged to think about the ways in which I may share the gospel, but not necessarily share my own self.

I was forced to ask myself: how can you share the gospel and yourself?

I also spent a little time reading from Reluctant Pilgrim, and I ran across this passage, which so eloquently explains how I feel about communion, or the Eucharist: “I wish I could string together random beads of words to illustrate what it means to me to take Communion. Each time I walk up  the aisle to the communion servers, I always feel like I am walking up to meet Christ. And there’s a weird mixture of awkward embarrassment, longing, joy, relief, and anxious impatience swirling around my insides. I feel terribly unworthy, greedily hungry, and deeply grateful all at once.” Yes, that’s exactly how it is. Such a humbling experience. Tangible grace. Palpable peace. Freedom.

Throughout the day, I made guacamole and lemon-coconut chicken soup with kale, spent time with Bec grocery shopping, took a nap, and then cooked dinner. We had minimally-processed grass-fed sirloin steaks, broccoli and cauliflower, and salad. I had an Angry Orchard Ginger Hard Cider to drink, which wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t delicious. I give it a C. I love cooking the steaks on the grill, and we’ve been using nice hardwood charcoal in combination with some hickory wood, so the steaks taste like they’ve been cooked over a campfire. These steaks were particularly tender and juicy. Delicious.

Angry Orchard Ginger Cider

Yummy Din-Dins

Finally, I have decided to wait until school is out to try the Whole 30. I just can’t have the stress of no sugar and no alcohol on my body while I am in the most busy part of the school year. I know the end result will be much less stress on my body, but I’ve cut things out before and known the way it can fuck with your normal, every day bodily functions, and I don’t want to try to deal with all of that while grading, planning, and trying to discipline for the next to last month of school. I know it will be good for me, and I know my body will thank me once it’s cleansed, so I plan to spend the month of June detoxifying my body. I am hoping to lose another 40 pounds over the summer by eating amazingly well, organic, fresh, local, and all that. But I also hope to do two-a-days, running and swimming in the morning and in the evening. Not as punishment or even as “training,” but just for fun. I love using my body for the purposes it was intended for, and summer always seems to make me feel so much more alive. Freedom.

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Posted in Biking, Christianity, Cider, Cooking, Food, Goals, Grace, Hair, Mental Health, Paleo/Primal, Photos, Play, Religion, Spirituality, Swimming

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Lent Day 30: Silent? You Want Me To Be Silent?

Posted on 22 March 2012 | 3 comments

Those of you, who know me well, know that I love to converse. I have often said I should have gone into psychology so I could just sit and listen to people talk all day long, not to belittle what psychologists do, because I believe psychology is a noble profession. I just think I’d like to try to provide people with a listening ear that is attached to a thinking mind that can hopefully provide some insight or some tools to make life better or, at least, more cope-able for them. Perhaps I became a teacher, because for as much as I like to listen to other people talk, I also love to talk myself, not to myself. I went on a silent meditation retreat a few years ago, and as much I love to converse with others, the silent retreat was a refreshing change. I’m starting to think God wants me to revisit this silent retreat for some parts of Lent.

Contemplation

When I opened my Verse & Voice email from Sojourners Magazine, I found this quote from Hans Urs Von Balthasar: “The silence required of the Christian is not found fundamentally and primarily of human making. Rather, believers must realize that they already possess within themselves and at the same time in God the quiet, hidden ‘chamber’ into which they are to enter and in which they are with [God].” This was preceded by a Benedict of Nursia quote from my morning prayers: “How much more important it is to refrain from evil speech, remembering what such sins bring down on us in punishment. In fact so important is it to cultivate silence. After all, it is written in scripture that one who never stops talking cannot avoid falling into sin. Another text in the same book reminds us that the tongue holds the key to death and life.” Both of these quotes work together, serving as an excellent reminder to me that I need to stop and listen. To people. To God. To nature. I simply need to listen.

I am too quick to offer my opinions and my advice. Sometimes I sit in conversations waiting to say my piece, not necessarily listening to what the other person is saying, instead formulating my response to what it is I think they’re going to say (or are saying). I confess that I don’t always care what the other person is going through, because I am feeling so wounded myself, so I really only wanted to meet for drinks, coffee, lunch, or whatever because I needed healing. I forget that maybe they are feeling the same wounded way, maybe more so.

A Path in the Wilderness

If you’re someone who’s been slighted by me, I’m sorry, but I don’t just do this to other people. I ignore or have one-sided conversations with God, too. I have had the audacity to come to prayer with God with the sole intention of airing my grievances, my grief, my suggestions for improvements, and/or my angst. I have forgotten to listen to what God has to say to me, or worse yet, I have blatantly ignored God. Sometimes in my life I might say that I can’t feel or hear God, but I think that might just be an excuse I’ve used when I didn’t want to feel or hear. It also might be an excuse I use when I choose to talk too much and listen too little.

I think God is reminding me to slow down, listen hard, and shut my mouth for a minute. I feel like I should celebrate this with silence. While running? While swimming? While praying? But really all three of those are the same, right? How else can I celebrate silence this Lent? When can I be still and listen to God?
Peace.

*

I always feel like I am called to fast during Lent, but I never know exactly what that might look like until I get to where God shows me. I feel (because spirituality is a good portion intuition) that God is calling me to—and I am going to honor—a fast for Holy Week. So from Palm Sunday through Easter, I plan to eat one evening meal each day, fasting from breakfast and lunch. Once I’ve celebrated the resurrection of Jesus, I am going to participate in the Whole 30, which is a pretty strict version of paleo that lasts for thirty days and supposedly rejuvenates your bodies ability to digest food and feel its Circadian rhythms. My goal is to do the Whole 30 from April 8 through May 8.

The

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Posted in Christianity, Food, Goals, Grace, Lent, Paleo/Primal, Religion, Spirituality

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Lent Day 13: A Prayer

Posted on 5 March 2012 | Leave a comment

From Common Prayer:

Lighten our darkness, we beg you, O Lord; and by your great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of your only Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Lent Day 11: A Lesson in Love and Humility

Posted on 3 March 2012 | 3 comments

Without giving too many details, I will just say I have learned a lesson in humility and love this weekend at AWP. To make a long story short, my insomnia didn’t, in fact, go away. It only got slightly less ferocious, allowing me five hours of of sleep for one night instead of three. When I don’t sleep, I get mean, curt, short-tongued. I have been all of those things this week, which led to quite a large eruption of misunderstandings last night between a friend and myself. The quarrel led to me moving down to the lobby of the hotel for quite some time, so I could recompose myself and not put my fist through the mirror in our room. See I told you I have some anger management issues, and I felt as if I could beat my way with small, tight fists through the thickest, heaviest punching bag on the market. I didn’t.

Instead, for a change, I left the room to recompose myself elsewhere. By this morning, after a conversation with my beautiful and sensible wife, some coffee, a session on queer YA fiction, and some prayer, walking, and meditation, I was able to calmly and rationally initiate a discussion of the events of last night. And, of course, we came out on the other side with love and grace, because I am learning that’s how things work out when you practice humility and love.

Here is the photographic chronology of my day:

Walking North on Michigan Avenue

Walking North on Michigan Avenue

A Coffee Shop I've Always Wanted to Try and Finally Did

A Little Morning Reading and a Mexican Mocha

Buildings Dating from the Mid-1800s

Do You Need Some Art Supplies?

Capitalism Block on State Street

I decided to go to church tonight, but I wasn’t sure where to go, so I literally typed the address of the Palmer House in the first blank of the “Get Directions” feature in Google Maps, followed by the word Methodist in the second blank. I figured I couldn’t lose since I live four hours away, and I’d never see any of the people again. I mean, it’s always a crap shoot when you’re a lady-boy lesbian and looking for a church in a different city. Each time I risk rejection from the body to which I’ve belonged since the age of four when I “gave my life to Jesus,” a form of rejection that breaks my heart again and again.

I walked to Temple Church (a.k.a. First United Methodist of Chicago) with low expectations and hoping that I wasn’t dressed too shabbily. I can never accurately anticipate the dress code at a “First United Methodist,” because they are usually the big, old churches that are trying to stand guard and keep from dying out. But that guard-standing usually comes outfitted in whatever is the latest fashion.  I always assume that the dress code is on the upper end of the spectrum, not jeans and the sweater I was wearing. But, as I mentioned, I’d never see any of these people again, so I pressed on.

Temple Church's History in Stained Glass

Destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire

As I walked past the beautiful arts garden, pictured above, I looked to my right and got a glimpse of the Chicago Picasso. I could feel that this hour of my life was going to be an adventure. Electric Jesus was in the air. I strolled through the revolving door and up to the security guard. Yes, you read correctly, I walked confidently over to the security guard, and said, “Can you please tell me where the church service is meeting tonight?” She pointed me up the stairs and through some double doors.

I was a bit disoriented as I walked through the thick wooden doors, because I was released into a space that looked like a storage closet, only without anything in it, too big to be a closet, too small to be a respectable hallway. The space was a hallway nonetheless, and I began to search for what I was sure would be a large stone chapel or sanctuary. Instead I found the small, intimate chapel pictured here. In fact, I had to ask the lovely man in the picture if I was in the right place.

A Tiny Church Service in a Huge Church's Small Chapel

By the time the service started with a greeting and then a hymn that none of us really knew, I realized I was experiencing the Body of Christ in a very real way. The mix of people was diverse: various ethnicities, social classes, sexual orientations, gender identities, and abilities. There were people there with children of varying ages, and older people who were there alone. The bulletin specifically spelled out that we were all welcome.

The service followed the liturgy while still being personal: we confessed as a group and then offered silent meditations of our own. When it came time for the prayer requests, the congregants shared intimately and without reservation, and then we prayed for those concerns. We passed the peace! Finally, we collected tithes and offerings and shared the Eucharist together. We stood together around the communion table and celebrated the Great Thanksgiving as we looked each other in the eyes. I could feel the Holy Spirit hovering there in our midst, like the soft breeze that blows off Lake Michigan in the summertime, and as refreshing.

Jesus’ body was broken, His blood was shed, and we were redeemed yet again. A glorious miracle.

Several times the intimacy and the beauty of it all overwhelmed me to the point of tears. Here, four hours away, is the type of community I long for each Sunday. Here, in a church I assumed would be too uppity for my jeans and sweater, I met my Jesus in the realest way I have experienced in years. Here.

Today was a beautiful mess. Peace.

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Posted in Art, Christianity, Family, GLBT, Goals, Grace, Insomnia, Lent, Mental Health, Queer, Reading, Relationships, Religion, Spirituality, Writing

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Lent Day 7: A Day of Busy

Posted on 29 February 2012 | 2 comments

Today I was busy from 5AM until, well, right now. I had so much to do before I leave for Chicago in the morning, I wasn’t sure I would get it all finished. And, actually, I didn’t quite. I still have to get up early and go make copies of things for the substitute. I also need to finish filling out my student teachers’ evaluations, which will be easy because they are amazing this time around.

Spiritually, I am not sure there is anything I can think of to write about. I prayed, I read, I loved, I ate, I celebrated life. Simple things I do each day. I did get a little crazy and eat ice cream for dinner.

It was a toss up between this and Chunky Monkey.

This is why my serious thought about Lent or spirituality actually came this morning, during the morning prayer in the words of Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities, which are featured in some of Henri Nouwen‘s works:

Almost everyone finds their early days in a community ideal. It all seems perfect. They feel they are surrounded by saints, heroes, or at the least, most exceptional -people who are everything they want to be themselves. And then comes the let-down. The greater their idealization of the community at the start, the greater the disenchantment. If -people manage to get through this second period, they come to a third phase — that of realism and of true commitment. They no longer see other members of the community as saints or devils, but as -people — each with a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, each growing and each with their own hope. The community is neither heaven nor hell, but planted firmly on earth, and they are ready to walk in it, and with it. They accept the community and the other members as they are; they are confident that together they can grow towards something more beautiful.

More than any other quote I’ve encountered, this one exemplifies my relationship with Burris Laboratory School. I am (finally) in the stage where I think I can recognize that my colleagues aren’t “saints or devils,” but I can see them as people who walk the earth much in the same way I do. I know Vanier’s thoughts were written/uttered about spiritual communities, but in many ways I need to see my workplace as a spiritual place, not in the creepy “I want God back in schools” kind of way, but in the way Matt talked about on Sunday. I have been placed by God at Burris and I need to put my whole heart into my work, which for me means I need to see the spiritual relevance of the place. And what is more spiritual than shaping and forming the intellectual development and curiosity of our fellow humans? Thinking in this fashion helps hold me much more accountable.

Peace.

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Posted in Christianity, Grace, Lent, Relationships, Religion, School, Spirituality, Teaching, Work

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