prayer

The Practice of Walking in Circles

The Practice of Walking in Circles

Six months in a global pandemic can mess you up. Or maybe it’s just me. (Please tell me it’s not just me.) Most days, I feel like I’m going around in circles. Which day is it? What am I doing again? The days run together, and I feel lost and disconnected and disoriented. My emotions run in circles, too. Grief, then anxious, then sad, then happy and content break in for a bit. Then grief again, and the cycle repeats. It’s like a very emotional Groundhog’s Day.

And then finally, because it still takes so much longer than it should, I remember. I remember to get out of my house and out of my head. I return to the prayer labyrinth by the river. This place is familiar, sacred space to me. On the grounds of this Jesuit spiritual center, I have a history of holy moments with God.

Here I begin to walk in a new circle.

But God

But God

I’ve had it. I’m over it. I’m empty. Or at least that’s how it feels. This pandemic is taking its toll, and my bounce back is no longer bouncing. I feel more like a deflated balloon.

Part of the problem is, well, life. Because the things of life that might feel manageable--you know, when we’re not in a pandemic--just keep piling on. Uncertainty. Loss. Grief. Conflict. Care for children and elderly parents. (I am dealing with the latter.) Decisions feel nearly impossible to make, because what we know today will most likely change tomorrow.

And life is loud right now. So loud. Protests and the urgent need to listen, to learn, to stand against injustice. The divide over basics like masks and the protection of life. (Why this is debatable escapes me completely.) The divide over defunding and reforming law enforcement. Oh, and the very loud divide over a certain upcoming election. Which will only get louder. The fear mongering. The misinformation. I am only stating the obvious now. And the obvious is enough to send me straight to bed for a nap.

I need the quiet desperately these days. Stillness. Rest (and not just the nap kind, although that can help). In this kind of space I remember. I remember the goodness of God. I remember Christ in me. I remember I am held in an unyielding embrace with great tenderness. And I can start to breathe again.

What Are We Pausing For: Finding Rest in the Pause of a Pandemic

What Are We Pausing For: Finding Rest in the Pause of a Pandemic

I tend to focus on all I’m pausing from. All the normal, all the things I love and need. And I feel the sadness of missing all the things. And we need to feel the sadness, because it’s real. The loss is real. Let’s just take a moment to acknowledge that.

But it helps when I change a word, and I ask this question: “What am I pausing for?”

What if there’s something in the world, something in me, that needs rest to be renewed or maybe to be born for the first time? Maybe there’s something that will only open up in the pressure of this pause. Something in me. Something in the world. Something we desperately need.

My Greatest Covid Fear: What If I Miss the Invitation?

My Greatest Covid Fear: What If I Miss the Invitation?

We’ve all felt it. The fear and anxiety that come with the word “pandemic.” The word turns our world upside down, and with the turning comes fear. It’s our human response when our safety, the safety of those we love, is threatened. Also the fear of the unknown and whether I can get Clorox wipes and toilet paper at the store. Or even go to the store. And now we’re wearing masks in public. What is happening? The list changes daily—what feels most compromised and uncertain today?

But as this has gone on for weeks now, I’m aware of a different fear. Because in the middle of all the slowing and the stopping and the trauma of these days, I sense an invitation. And I’m afraid I will miss it, afraid we will miss it.

What if something is trying to be born, to be made new, to be healed, and we miss it altogether?

Mercy in the Wilderness: Prayer for a Pandemic

Mercy in the Wilderness: Prayer for a Pandemic

What if this time we share in the wilderness offers us a gift? The gift of our own undoing. What if it opens the doorways to our souls? The place where we find our true selves again. Where we find one another again. Where we find God again. Or maybe for the first time. Or maybe in a new way. What if we find a new way to be ourselves? To be together? What if there’s mercy in the pruning?

Honestly, it feels like it’s too soon to offer the words “gift” or “mercy” into the chaos. Because there’s so much pain right now. So much fear, anxiety, uncertainty. All of this is real. We feel it deeply, the groaning in our world. We can’t rush or push or work our way past it (although some will try). We must first hold this space together, acknowledge the fear and loss, and find a way to walk together through it. Loving, serving, praying, we will find the way through.

A Way Back to Trust

A Way Back to Trust

Now conscious of my turning, I consider the way back to trust. And I ready myself for the tussle. Because this trust requires honesty. It requires that I look straight into what is real today and pray. Not a flowery prayer that defies reality, but raw, visceral prayers of lament. That cry out for encounter. And in this place of prayer — talking, crying, listening, thanking, releasing — God’s goodness becomes rooted in me again. Because I begin to remember his character, his faithfulness. And I begin to see his face more clearly, the expression of love and kind knowing. In this place, in the light of Love’s face, I can rest. I can wait. I can trust.

The Power of Doing Absolutely Nothing

The Power of Doing Absolutely Nothing

What an honor to be invited to write for the Global Leadership Network! Here’s a brief excerpt from my blog post. Click here to read the full article.

As leaders, it’s imperative that we craft a way of life for ourselves that is responsive to body and soul.

Jesus observed this rhythm, withdrawing often to lonely places after productive ministry seasons (Mark 6:31). Sustainability was more important than their stories of success.

What does practicing moments of stillness look like in your organization?

Perhaps you could take time in meetings, at the beginning and at key junctures, for prayer. Or you could establish a norm for you and your staff to take a day of solitude each month. Or consider scheduling regular periods for personal silence during your work week. Or perhaps you could make it normative to take all vacation time and completely unplug.

During strategic planning days and retreats, it is a regular practice for our Roots&Branches team to begin with an extended time of quiet. We each pray silently and listen for the ideas, thoughts and priorities that rise in our minds and hearts. When we come back together, each person shares what they’ve sensed in this time.

Without fail, we begin to see themes arise. Clarity comes. And we have a unified sense of direction.

Befriending Desire

Befriending Desire

It seems inevitable that part of maturing and growing into adulthood is a process of coming to terms with our earnest desires. You could rightly say that children and adolescents are wanting, needing, longing beings. Just take a three-year-old through the checkout counter at the grocery! As we enter young adulthood, we begin to learn that some of our larger desires and needs will require that we forgo certain immediate desires and needs. In other words, we learn to moderate or deny some desires in the short run, which is evidence of growing maturity.

The Present Is the Gift

The Present Is the Gift

Because here’s the thing. This present moment, the breath I’m taking now, is the only thing that’s real. While I still feel the effects of the past, the past itself is, well, past. And while I anticipate the future with a mix of hope and doubt, the future itself is unknowable. The only place I can know and be known, the only place I can live rooted in love, the only place I can experience God, is in this very messy moment. Rooted in the reality that there is enough, right here, right now. Me in God. God in me. In the now, there is enough.

(IN) Darkness

(IN) Darkness

Last Friday, my mom called 911. She was having trouble breathing, much more trouble than usual. She’s 80, and she has COPD. Her already weak lungs were compromised by viral pneumonia. She is recovering slowly, feeling the limitations of her body. We are in a new season, a season I would never choose for her, a season of loss. Loss of independence. Loss of control. Loss of even breath. We are bumping around in the dark. Praying and feeling our way through. Trusting we will find God present with us, even as God is present (IN) us. Maybe, like me, you’re feeling your way through a dark space in life. If so, I offer you (and me) some words from rooted (IN).

Life Is in the Roots (or how I began writing rooted IN)

Life Is in the Roots (or how I began writing rooted IN)

This place of connection is the place where truth and wisdom break in.  So I lifted a question.  Why is connection so important to you, God? Connection with you, with ourselves, with others? The response came—every point of connection is a connection with him. God in us.  God in others.  God in everything he’s made.  Not in a pantheistic, the tree is God, kind of way.  But in a sacramental, seeing and touching the holy, kind of way. 

Frozen Peas and a Fragile Ego

Frozen Peas and a Fragile Ego

Crazy, the things we believe about ourselves, about others, about who we’re supposed to be. And Holy Spirit comes to remind. You, me, we are fully loved. Fully held. And I can show up in life fully me. Saggy eyelids. Bruised eyelids. Ever-so-slightly lifted eyelids. This place of showing up as is, this is the place of grace. The place we begin to live more rooted in love for God and for ourselves. Less tangled up in judgment. More tangled up in the love of God.

A Heartbeat Away: Reflections on a trip to India

A Heartbeat Away: Reflections on a trip to India

I think that maybe Jesus knew, if we’d just break some bread together, have a little wine, and share our stories, the distance between us, all the things that divide, would begin to shrink. That we’d discover our shared humanity and fall a little in love with one another. Not in a mushy Hallmark movie kind of way. But in a heart to heart, connected kind of way that would bind us together in love. Maybe this is the point of communion, a union shared in Christ, in love, that spans continents and political parties and our deep desire to be right about pretty much everything we believe.