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Praying Thy Will Be Done

1/14/2020

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you know that I keep confidences and protect people’s privacy. Sometimes that makes it hard share, because telling someone’s story would help explain how God is moving in my life. I trust, however, that you will understand my point.
     For a few years I have been praying for a particular person. I didn’t know many of the details but I did know that she had been struggling in her life. I wrote her name in my prayer book and prayed for her every day. A few months ago, however, I began adding her name to my top ten daily prayer list—The List, as I call it. I just started do so with little forethought.
      Fast forward. The other day I heard that my friend is now in rehab for alcoholism and depression. Things are beginning to look up for her.
      And so I ask: What does this progress have to do with her being on The List? I don’t know for sure, but good is happening. She is getting professional help and friends and family are rallying and connecting. Prayers are being asked for and are being received and appreciated. From the beginning, when I first wrote her name in my book, my prayer has been for God’s will to manifest so my friend will find peace and purpose. That prayer will continue: Thy will be done.

Hearing God's call

1/9/2020

For those of you perseverating on God’s call, I say: Keep listening and keep having birthdays. In turning 80 last month, God has given me a new clarity of faith. My hearing may be compromised, but God is still speaking and I am still hearing: be with those nearing the end of their earthy life.
This isn’t a new message for me. I’ve been doing it for the past twenty years: working with hospice, accompanying my 101 year old mom in letting go, visiting people from church, praying for them. Doing it for years; now God is telling me to be it, be that person who is comfortable living into the mystery of what is to come after this earthly life.
Being 80 eliminates possibilities and thus elucidates others. God’s little way of speaking.

God's call

12/31/2019

It has been a busy Christmas week for all the usual reasons, which this year included an 80th birthday party put on by kids at the Wayside Inn. Family and friends added up to a gathering of 38 people I love. By the 30th, the actual birthday, family had departed and I was ready to get back to my usual routine. And what does that include? Visiting people. And so, off I went, making three visits. Definitely God’s call. Very grateful.

Here we come a caroling

12/21/2019

Our church carol sing was last night. We set off to an assisted living facility to sing to two long-time members, one whose wife died this past June; then to the homes to several members who invite us in or wave and sing along from the window; next to an over 55 condo village. Final stop, our minister’s home for pizza.
This marvelous event has been organized for years by one of our members; people come and go, situations change, different stops appear on the itinerary. The event is clearly intergenerational; children who joined us as toddlers, showed up again, home from college. Some things change, some things stay the same. The message is constant: Jesus is born, love is expressed.

A grace-filled walk

12/14/2019

A grace-filled walk. A perfect time to practice being with God in the NOW.

Be with me in the sadness

12/11/2019

Every Tuesday I volunteer at a local food pantry. Over the past two years I have become friends with many of the seniors who come during my shift. I use the word friend, but it’s a special kind of friendship. We exchange pleasantries and I listen to their stories, but I don’t share much of my life in return. However, they teach me compassionate ways to lead my life.
Yesterday, for example, I heard this Louise (not her real name): When someone is grieving, don’t ever tell them, “She’s in a better place.” Louise had just attended the funeral of young woman who had been killed in an automobile accident, leave two young children. This was another family tragedy that Louise had experience in the last two years—the deaths of two of her sons.
“You have to keep going, but it is tough. Just don’t tell me they are in a better place. Just be with me in the sadness.”

A "Thank you God" walk

12/4/2019

Coffee with God

12/3/2019

What do we do when we first wake up? What are our first thoughts?
I’m not someone who sleeps in, so if it is after 5 I am ready to get up. Sr. Vassa’s message this morning reminds me of the track I want to live on. I want my first thoughts to be of God, not of my plans for the day, or, worse still, of the day’s breaking news. Whether I lie there or put my feet on the ground and start the coffee, I want my prayer routine to begin.

Here’s a helpful passage (Eph 5: 14-20) for those of us who sometimes wake up before the alarm-clock goes off, and then proceed to lie there, thinking this and that, in the darkness of the early morning. I find this is not a good idea, to let myself lie there and think. It’s a better idea to pray, letting God into my day as soon as possible. Why? Because my own thoughts, when divorced from prayer in my most vulnerable moments, like the early morning, tend toward various forms of darkness and merely-human fears. “Awake, O sleeper,” the Apostle tells me in these moments, “and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

www.coffeewithsistervassa.com

I heard a bird sing

12/1/2019

Betsy Thompson

I heard a bird sing
   In the dark of December
A magical thing
   And sweet to remember.
“We are nearer to Spring
   Than we were in September,”
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
           By Oliver Herford

12 Steps to Humility

11/24/2019

    Humility leads us to God. Benedict’s Rule pulls together from ancient sources the twelve steps of humility. “Humility is right thinking—truth—and to be truthful to ourselves and embody that truth is to be in right relationships with others.” (Funk, Mary Margaret, Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life, NY: Continuum, 2001.)
    I’ve summarized Funk’s 12 steps, and printed them out, because I need an easy reminder to remember them, and, even just to remember that humility exists.

Step One: Be aware of thoughts
Step Two: Surrender our will
Step Three: Be accountable to another
Step Four: Carry out difficult tasks without weakening or          going away.
Step Five: Manifest thoughts to a wise elder.
Step Six: Practice manual labor.
Step Seven: Consider it a blessing if one has been humiliated
Step Eight: Be content with what is.
Step Nine: Restrain talk and remain silent.
Step Ten: Laugh only when you are in the same camp.
Step Eleven: Speak strait, “as is.”
Step Twelve: Recapitulate the above directives
The fruit of humility is that, through self-forgetfulness, we abide in the presence of God.
The fruit of humility is that, through self-forgetfulness, we abide in the presence of God.

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