Blog Posts

February 24th, 2023

2/24/2023

“I am kind, except when I am not,” writes SSJE Br. Curtis Almquist in a February 10, 2019 sermon. He suggests that each one of us has a quality that we learned, most likely from someone from early childhood, which over the years defines who we are. Br. Curtis learned kindness from his paternal grandmother.
I learned to be hopeful from my mother. “I am hopeful, except when I am not.”
Br. Curtis names this particular way of being as our vocation, our calling from God. When I first listened to his sermon, “Vocation: The Call is Lifelong”, and then read it, I wondered what mine might be. And so, in longing and praying, the answer came. Hope has become the guiding light in my daily life because it is a God call. When I am stuck in negativity, confusion, anger, selfishness…, whenever I am not being hopeful, I stop and recall my vocation. The Holy Spirit leads me to turn back, and say, “I am hopeful.”
Email if you like an electronic copy of Hope Thoughts.
<bobbifisher.mac@mac.com>

www.ssje.org/2019/02/10/vocation-the-call-is-lifelong-br-curtis-almquist/

Invocation for Lent

2/22/2023

Invocation for Lent

Into the dark world
a snowdrop comes,
a blessing of hope and peace
carrying with it a green heart;
a symbol of God’s renewing love.
Come to inhabit our darkness, Lord Christ,
for dark and light are alike to you.
May nature’s white candles of hope
remind us of your birth
and lighten our journey
through Lent and beyond.
Kate Mclhagga

Dust to dust

2/21/2023

This prayer is from John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer, a favorite prayer book of my mom’s. And now, like she did every day, I pray the morning and evening prayers from it. I love these prayers written, so it seems, in a way-back era, although only published in the last century, the publication date being 1957. Baillie’s Christian message is clear. We need’s God’s grace and mercy because we can’t rely on our own our own strength. On Ash Wednesday tomorrow we will be reminded, ‘You are dust and to dust you shall return.’

O God my Creator and Redeemer, I may not go forth to-day except Thou dost accompany me with Thy blessing. Let not the vigor and freshness of the morning, or the glow of good health, or the present prosperity of my undertaking, deceive me into a false reliance upon my own strength.

Love, the prime ingredient

2/15/2023

I’ve been thinking these days that the only way of being that saves anything or anyone is love. Love is a stand-alone. It has no opposite. I can’t love and hate at the same time. I must chose one.
Debate about faith and works continues, but what speaks to me is not a dialectic between the two, but the primacy of love in each. Faith and works are two positives. Theologically I may chose the primacy of one over the other, but in living my life, love is the prime ingredient in both.

The reappearance of Rublev's Holy Trinity icon in my life

2/6/2023

This morning I listened to Br. Curtis’ sermon ‘Andrei Rublev, Opening the Eyes of Our Hearts,’ today’s SSJE’s selection of Brother, Give us a Word.’
I have had a long personal relationship with The Trinity, written by Rublev. Here is my picture history.
Every morning during my prayer time, I am inspired by this canvas piece that my son-in-law found at a yard sale.
www.ssje.org/2019/01/29/andrei-rublev-opening-the-eyes-of-our-hearts-br-curtis-almquist/

Every morning during my prayer time, I am inspired by this canvas piece that my son-in-law found at a yard sale.

When I was on Iona last July (2022), I walked into the abby and was greeted by this icon resting against the altar. Upon closer look I was in awe to notice that the Christ was black.

The next day the icon had moved (or was moved) to the Quiet Corner. The following day to another spot in corner. I wonder where it is now!

Last Friday, while visiting the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, I came across this one.

On Saturday a friend send me this photo that she had taken in May on Iona.

And today, Br. Curtis’ message along with the icon ‘written by departed Brother Eldridge Pendleton.

Brother Curtis asks, ‘What do you know about being visited by a messenger of God?’ That is what I am praying on as I sit with this icon that spans the years from Abraham and before and from now to eternity, and keeps appearing in my life.

Praying for love

2/3/2023

Today I am going with one of my most faithful friends to the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts (check it out on line; it is an amazing place). I will spend time praying in front of one of the beautiful icon that God will draw me to. I will pray that those who who carry a weapon of violence will lay it down and pick up the weapon of love.

Thank you God!

1/28/2023

We know about starting everything with gratitude. St. Paul begins many of his letters giving thanks. Gratitude is a popular idea these days. But, I forget. It’s not that I’m not grateful; it’s not that I’m complaining, although that does happen. No, I forget because I am busy going onto the next thing, the next activity that fills my life.,
Right now, as I sit in the Angel Room writing, I glance up at a sign in my window. I wrote it; I put it there. Thank you God!

Prayer and grace

1/24/2023

I feel, I believe, I know that prayer works. I don’t know how, nor do I know that even though I don’t get the result I want or even pray for, I still believes prayer works, or to be specific, it is working.
   Wow, what a wordy sentence! I’m not even going to attempt to edit it. It is the best I can do to explain about prayer, because, in my heart, I know that prayer is unexplainable. My heart also lets me know when prayer is making a difference. My heart, touched by grace, tells me that I have to pray, and so I do.
   Theophan the Recluse (1815-94), saint in the Russian Orthodox Church expresses it this way.
      “—the turning from the outside world to one’s inner self, and the subsequent turning from self toward God." Theophan the Recluse say we can do this 'when we are quickened by grace,' but WE HAVE TO DO IT.

Prayer works

1/15/2023

I want to tell you what I have recently learned about prayer. Not only what I learned about prayer but what I now know! Prayer works. Prayer makes the difference in the hope we can feel and in what has actually happened.
Last week my grandson was randomly attacked in broad daylight on a city street. The assailant got away, my grandson was helped and taken by ambulance to a hospital to get stitches. He is now under the care of a skilled physician and will be back at work this week. That is only the skeleton of the his story, but it is enough for my purpose here. One might say that his story is my testimony.
When I heard this news I started praying and then I began contacting my prayer friends—a group in my church and a small group outside of church. When I say prayer friends, I mean friends who really pray. That’s what was needed, PRAYER. The responses from these friends showed me their different prayers, wording, emphasis. One was not better than the other. Each was from the heart, human heart to the heart of God’. Intercessory prayer, heart to heart, prayer working.

Raven's Bread Ministries and private vows

1/11/2023

In the November issue of ‘Raven’s Bread’ we readers were invited to respond to the following question for the February 2023 issue:
Do people find being in private vows liberating or do they find the lack of recognition upsetting? How were they professed? Who witnessed their vows?
Here is my response: When I read the question for the February 2023 issue, I was intrigued. I longed to respond, to say something, to have an answer. But I have never taken vows, private or otherwise. As I prayed on the question, it came to me that this might be something I want to do—privately, not publicly, perhaps with God as my only witness. But it is not what I want, but what God wants of me. I will know what to do by how often and with what intensity this idea of professing vows keeps coming to me.
www.ravensbreadministries.com