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fasting

Lenten Reflection Day 3 (Feb 24): FASTING  (from Joel 2:12-17).

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Calendar, Home, Lent & Easter, Weekly MeditationsTagged , , , , ,

SONG: Fasting Song by James Ironshell: https://youtu.be/TLcqpegeI5o

POEM: Jorie Graham: Fast (excerpt). Fast or starve. Too much. Or not enough. Or. Nothing else?

QUOTE: Terry Pratchett: Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil … prayer, fasting, good works and so on.

Reflections on preparing for a journey: themes from trials in the wilderness scripture

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Weekly MeditationsTagged , , , , , , , ,

Not all those that wander are lost. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. — Anatole France Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. — Matsuo Basho

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
— Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

To travel is to live. ― Hans Christian Andersen

Dream Big. Start Small. Act Now. — Robin Sharma

The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself — Wallace Stevens

51. “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road. — Jack Kerouac

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.— Marcel Proust

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.— Lewis Carroll

Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled. — The Prophet Mohammed

SONGS about WILDERNESS:

For Those Who Have Far to Travel
— Jan Richardson

If you could see the journey whole,
you might never undertake it,
might never dare the first step
that propels you from the place
you have known toward the place
you know not.

Call it one of the mercies of the road:
that we see it only by stages
as it opens before us,
as it comes into our keeping,
step by single step.

There is nothing for it
but to go, and by our going
take the vows the pilgrim takes:
to be faithful to the next step;
to rely on more than the map;
to heed the signposts of intuition and dream;
to follow the star that only you will recognize;
to keep an open eye for the wonders that
attend the path; to press on
beyond distractions, beyond fatigue,
beyond what would tempt you
from the way.

There are vows that only you will know:
the secret promises for your particular path
and the new ones you will need to make
when the road is revealed
by turns you could not have foreseen.

Keep them, break them, make them again;
each promise becomes part of the path,
each choice creates the road
that will take you to the place
where at last you will kneel
to offer the gift most needed—
the gift that only you can give—
before turning to go home by
another way.

That Journeys Are Good — Rumi
If a fir tree had a foot or two like a turtle, or a wing,
Do you think it would just wait for the saw to enter?
You know the sun journeys all night under the earth;
If it didn’t, how could it throw up its flood of light in the east?
And salt water climbs with such marvelous swiftness to the sky.
If it didn’t, how would the cabbages be fed with the rain?
Have you thought of Joseph lately? Didn’t he leave his father in tears, going?
Didn’t he then learn how to understand dreams, and give away grain?
And you, if you have no feet to  leave your country, go
Into yourself, become a ruby mine, open to the gifts of the sun.
You could travel from your outer man into your inner man.
By a journey of that sort earth became a place where you find gold.
So leave your complaints and self-pity and internalized death-energy.
Don’t you realize how many fruits have already
escaped out of sourness into sweetness?
A good source of sweetness is a teacher; mine is named Shams.
You know every fruit grows more handsome in the light of the sun.

JESUS in the WILDERNESS COMMENTARY

Throughout the scriptures, the wilderness represents a place of preparation, a place of waiting for God’s next move, a place of learning to trust in God’s mercy. For forty days and nights Jesus remains in the wilderness, without food, getting ready for what comes next. — Working Preacher

Like Jesus, we experience both The River and The Wilderness.
     At The River, whatever that represents for us, we are surrounded by community and given new life and called beloved.  God is near.  And it’s beautiful.  And we need it. But it’s not the whole picture.
     Yet it can feel as though we treat Christianity, or being “spiritual” as a Wilderness avoidance program.   As though finding oneself in the Wilderness is a failure. I know for myself, when I’m struggling with depression or I am in a period of hardship where nothing seems to be working, then I find that I label that time as “bad”.  Or more often than not I’m ashamed because after 20 years of sobriety and a seminary degree, shouldn’t I really have it all together?  So clearly I must be doing something wrong. Sometimes that’s true but sometimes … it’s just the wilderness.  And I can promise you this.  As much as I need to hear that I’m beloved and be surrounded by community and be made new, and we all need that, but as much as I need that, I never gained any wisdom from things going really well at The River. Because The River might fill the heart and that’s important, but it’s The Wilderness that brings wisdom.
     I mean, I’d love it if spiritual wisdom was distributed in the Personal Growth section at Barnes and Noble but that’s just not the way it goes. It’s always been found in The Wilderness. Because if we look at the order of things – at The River Jesus is baptized and called God’s beloved, (before he even does anything cool or enlightened or special by the way) after which he’s cast into The Wilderness for a good long while. And it’s only THEN that he begins teaching and healing. See, Jesus doesn’t begin teaching and healing until after he’s gone through 40 days of Satan, wild beasts and angels. So why do I think my Wilderness to be a personal failure if Jesus’ Wilderness gave him what was needed to heal and to teach? …
     I think maybe because some of us have been taught a rather anemic view of God.  That God is only found at The River times in life – only found in the moments of renewal and elation and blessedness.  In other words, God is only close to us when we feel close to God.  But that’s not true.  Your feelings about God have precious little to do with God’s actual nearness to you. Because Sometimes God’s nearness to us is also found in the way that God creates wisdom out of our wilderness experiences.  God’s nearness to us, is just as real in the blessings of The River as it is in the struggles of The Wilderness.  And Oprah would kill me for saying this, but how we feel doesn’t really matter.  Not in this case…
    Maybe tonight you are struggling with depression, or unemployment or divorce or addiction.  Maybe you are in The Wilderness of wild beasts and angels. But the wisdom is coming.  And after that, The River so that your heart might again be filled. That’s the life of the baptized. The River, then The Wilderness, then The River. In other words,  this whole thing has always been about daily death and resurrection. — Nadia Bolz-Weber, full article: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/01/wild-beasts-and-sheet-cake-a-sermon-for-baptism-of-our-lord/

Can we let God be God for us? If we face down our demons, can we trust that God will hold us?
      It may be helpful to consider Jesus in the wilderness as a coming of age story or coming into your own story that most people face. All around the world there are ceremonies and traditions young people in particular undertake to move into adulthood. Jewish young people have bar or bat mitzvahs and Christian young people have Confirmation. In Latino cultures, young women celebrate their Quinceanera. Some Inuits go out into the wilderness with their fathers when they’re 11 or 12 to test their hunting skills and get acclimated to the arctic weather. The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania have a number of initiations young men most undergo before they become warriors in the tribe. …
     Human beings are meaning-makers. We tell stories and have rituals that help us mark important moments, moments when we move from one part of our lives into another. Perhaps this wilderness story is about Jesus moving from those safe and beautiful waters of baptism in the Jordan River to encounter the harsh realities of the world in the wilderness. Knowing that not everyone was going to believe he’s God’s Son, some people would want him to use his power and influence for their own purposes, and some people would want him to test God or be the Messiah they wanted him to be. All of this going against God naming Jesus and claiming Jesus as God’s own. All of this going against God being the One who tells us who we all are—beloved people of God.  So that’s one way to consider Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness—that it’s about Jesus coming into his own. …
     The other understanding we can glean from Jesus tempted in the wilderness is that the wilderness environment is not unique to Jesus in the least. We will have times when we are there too. Not necessarily physically speaking, but in a spiritual wilderness. The wilderness by definition is an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region. The wilderness is wild and natural—where few people live. In our spiritual lives, the wilderness is when we feel pretty isolated from one another and perhaps even from ourselves and from God. Though perhaps the wilderness provides the landscape for us to do some profound spiritual wrestling with God.…
In the end, when we’re in the wilderness, we can trust that God is with us, and that we are not alone. We can trust that we belong to God and that God has named us and claimed us as God’s own. We can trust that evil never gets the last word, and that love wins—always has and always will. Let us keep trust in our hearts as we journey with Jesus in the wilderness. — Mary James

…. If in Christ we have been tempted, in Him we overcome the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in Him, and see yourself as victorious in Him. He could have kept the devil from himself, but if He were not tempted He couldn’t teach you how to triumph over temptation. — St Augustine

ABOUT JOURNEYS

Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. – Jane Kenyon.

And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself? — Rumi

A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.— Tim Cahill

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page. — St Augustine

Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow..— Anita Desai

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.― Martin Buber

Journeys bring power and love back into you. If you can’t go somewhere, move in the passageways of the self. They are like shafts of light, always changing, and you change when you explore them. — Rumi

I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way. — Carl Sagan

The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.— G.K. Chesterton

Do not follow where a path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. — John A. Shedd

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.  — Yogi Berra

If we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet. — Rachel Wolchin

All you’ve got to do is decide to go and the hardest part is over. — Tony Wheeler

You don’t choose the day you enter the world and you don’t choose the day you leave. It’s what you do in between that makes all the difference. — Anita Septimus

Wilderness— Carl Sandburg
  There is a wolf in me . . .
fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . .
a red tongue for raw meat . . .
and the hot lapping of blood—
I keep this wolf because the wilderness
gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.       There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . .
I sniff and guess . . .
I pick things out of the wind and air . . .
I nose in the dark night and
take sleepers and eat them
and hide the feathers . . .
I circle and loop and double-cross.   There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a
machinery for eating and grunting . . .
a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—
I got this too from the wilderness
and the wilderness will not let it go.   There is a fish in me . . .
I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . .
I scurried with shoals of herring . . .
I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . .
before land was . . . before the water went down . .
. before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.   There is a baboon in me . . .
clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . .
yawping a galoot’s hunger . . .
hairy under the armpits . . .
here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . .
here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . .
here they hide curled asleep waiting . . .
ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . .
waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.   There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . .
and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains
of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . .
and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon
before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope,
gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—
And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.  

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs,
under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—
and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

Reflections on being curious and asking questions … the experience of the holy season of Lent.

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Weekly MeditationsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In the holy season of Lent, we are called to the spiritual discipline of preparation. Some part of this is the practice of curiosity and questioning. Entering Lent is wandering into  the metaphorical  ‘wilderness’ … where everything is primal and makes a difference and you’re likely to be at risk and to get lost … it’s about life and death, about getting down to core values. From that deep place arises the deep questions, the underlying ‘why’ that shapes how we live. So Lent is about living close to the wellspring of creativity and tension, beyond the context that usually makes us comfortable, safe, and secure. Paying attention to Lent becomes an invitation to go into an emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual place where we have permission to wonder and doubt and explore and grow. — Rev Gail (with credit to Rev Sean Dunker-Bendigo of Madison Church for the inspiration to approach Lent as a series of questions)

Music Video Link: Question by the Moody Blues

Be present.
Make love. Make tea.
Avoid small talk. Embrace conversation.
Buy a plant, water it.
Make your bed. Make someone else’s bed.
Have a smart mouth and a quick wit.
Run. Make art. Create.
Swim in the ocean. Swim in the rain.
Take chances. Ask questions.
Make mistakes. Learn.
Know your worth.
Love fiercely. Forgive quickly.
Let go of what doesn’t make your happy.
Grow.
— Paulo Coelho

On Asking Questions: Being Curious

Always the beautiful answer / who asks a more beautiful question. —e.e. Cummings

Be curious. — Stephen Hawking

Don’t be afraid to look again at everything you’ve ever believed … I believe the more we search, the more we delve into the human teachings about the nature and God of life, which are in fact are the teachings of all the great religions traditions, the closer we come to a mature understanding of the Godself … In other words, doubt, questions, drive us to look at how we ourselves need to grow in wisdom, age and grace.  The courage to face questions is the first step in that process. — Joan Chittister

Instead of anxiety about chasing a passion that you’re not even feeling, do something a lot simpler: Just follow your curiosity. — Elizabeth Gilbert

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea. — John Anthony Ciardi

Curiosity isn’t the icing on the cake. It’s the cake itself. — Susan Engel

We live in the world our questions create. — David Cooperrider

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not to answer them. — Anton Chekhov

I was looking for myself and asking everyone but myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. — Ralph Ellison

Ever since I was a little girl and could barely talk, the word ‘why’ has lived and grown along with me… When I got older, I noticed that not all questions can be asked and that many whys can never be answered. As a result, I tried to work things out for myself by mulling over my own questions. And I came to the important discovery that questions which you either can’t or shouldn’t ask in public, or questions which you can’t put into words, can easily be solved in your own head. So the word ‘why’ not only taught me to ask, but also to think. And thinking has never hurt anyone. On the contrary, it does us all a world of good. — Anne Frank

Judge a man by his questions, rather than his answers. — Voltaire

How do I create something out of nothing? How do I create my own life? I think it is by questioning. — Amy Tan

My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, “So? Did you learn anything today?” But not my mother. “Izzy,” she would say, “did you ask a good question today?” That difference—asking good questions—made me become a scientist. — Isidor Isaac Rabi

On Lent: Surrendering Ourselves

The reality is that I cannot free myself from the bondage of self.  I cannot keep from being turned in on self. I cannot by my own understanding or effort disentangle myself from my self interest and when I think that I can …I am trying to do what is only God’s to do. To me, there is actually great hope in admitting my mortality and brokenness because then I finally lay aside my sin management program and allow God to be God for me.  Which is all any of us really need when it comes down to it … —  Nadia Bolz-Weber

… another Lenten season, a time of lengthening days…not just in hours but in slowness, in taking time to linger over our spiritual lives, over our identity as a people of faith, over the texts that form us and the quiet places in which God speaks to us, still. — Kathryn M. Matthews

The big rub is that to surrender my “singularity” (John 12:24) and fall into this “altogether new creation” will always feel like dying. How could it not? It is a dying of the self that we thought we were, but it is the only self that we knew until then. It will indeed be a “revolution of the mind” (Ephesians 4:23). Heart and body will soon follow. This is the real “try harder” that applies to Lent, and its ultimate irony is that it is not a trying at all, but an ultimate surrendering, dying, and foundational letting go. You will not do it yourself, but it will be done unto you (Luke 1:38) by the events of your life. Such deep allowing is the most humiliating, sacrificial, and daily kind of trying! Pep talks seldom get you there, but the suffering of life and love itself will always get you there. Lent is just magnified and intensified life. — Richard Rohr

I think it is good news–because even if no one ever wants to go there, and even if those of us who end up there want out again as soon as possible, the wilderness is still one of the most reality-based, spirit-filled, life-changing places a person can be … What did that long, famishing stretch in the wilderness do to him?  It freed him–from all devilish attempts to distract him from his true purpose, from hungry craving for things with no power to give him life, from any illusion he might have had that God would make his choices for him. … But it would be a mistake for me to try to describe your wilderness exam.  Only you can do that, because only you know what devils have your number, and what kinds of bribes they use to get you to pick up.  All I know for sure is that a voluntary trip to the desert this Lent is a great way to practice getting free of those devils for life–not only because it is where you lose your appetite for things that cannot save you, but also because it is where you learn to trust the Spirit that led you there to lead you out again, ready to worship the Lord your God and serve no other all the days of your life.  — Barbara Brown Taylor

But the historic practices of Lent are Christian. There are three of them: praying, fasting, almsgiving. These are three things that Christians should consider doing all the time, but the 46 days of Lent provide us with an explicit invitation to do them more intentionally. I say an invitation, because we don’t have to do them, not during Lent, not ever. … I am going to make an unabashed case for Lent, myself. …  Lent is a chance to uncork the bottle, to unclog our spirits from what is stifling them, to sample the mystery. It is a chance to own that we do not wholly own ourselves, but acknowledge that God has a claim over us. We work so hard for radical equality in our lives—for equal marriage, equal pay for equal work, an end to bigotry of all varieties—and we sometimes delude ourselves, as religious people, that radical equality extends to our relationship with God … Taking on a Lenten discipline means surrendering to a higher power, it means placing ourselves under God’s authority and protection. But here’s the rub: to place ourselves under God’s authority is a reminder that we are under no other authority, or at least that all those other authorities are less than God’s. The church, the state, our remote fathers, our overbearing mothers, our inept boss who gets paid more than we do, our snarky coworkers, the popular crowd, the opposing football team, the opposing political party, Al Qaeda, alcohol, fried foods, chocolate, caffeine, porn, late-night cable. Whatever our addictions, whatever our self-medication devices, whatever our overlords of fear and control, none can match the power of God our Father and Mother, if we choose God as our God. To claim that we are in a direct relationship with our Creator, to join with that Creator and Sustainer in an act of self-disciplining, is an act of resistance. It’s a boycott of all that is body-wounding and soul-killing. It is a radical re-ordering of our priorities, and a reclamation of our God-given will and strength …  … What might you do, this Lent, to rend your heart, to give God an opening? What might you do to make God-shaped space within your heart, a space that will invite you to call on the name of God more frequently, to share the experience of your brother Jesus in the wilderness, to uncork the Spirit and let it flow freely, to release yourself from rage or addiction or the tyranny of lesser gods? What can you give up, or take on, as an act of resistance against the authorities that don’t deserve any claim over you?  — Molly Phinney Baskette

LENTEN RESOURCES

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Adult, Home, Justice & Activism, Outreach, Weekly Meditations, Worship, YouthTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Acts of Kindness & Giving for Lent
(guides and calendars sourced from several organizations)

Reflections and Meditations

  • Coloring the Psalms Devotional Guide and Coloring Pages.
    *Already printed and available* at front of church, which is always open. Or accessible as downloadable multi-page PDF files from Jackson Community Church’s website. Due to licensing, the link will be sent by email to all church friends and members … if you want to participate, and didn’t receive this email already, sign up on this site to receive our email and we will forward the links to download the PDF files. Or email us directly for the link.
  • UCC (United Church of Christ)’s Still Speaking Daily Devotional messages. Sign up to receive these.
  • UCC (United Church of Christ)’s Still Speaking Podcast. Sign up for podcast
  • Mindfulness Applications for computers and mobile devices from Thich Nhat Hahn’s Plum Village (in the engaged Buddhist tradition)
  • Jan Richardson’s Painted Prayerbook blog entries
  • Maren Tirabassi’s Gifts in Open Hands blog with daily Lenten posts
  • Daily Meditations by Fr Richard Rohr, sign up to receive these
  • Living Lent Daily: Ignatian Spirituality daily meditations for Lent . Sign up to receive daily email meditations and devotional activities.
  • Social Justice Lectionary: Downloadable guide to readings and activities surrounding social justice issues. Extension of MLK Day initiatives.

Reflections on ashes and dust: themes from Ash Wednesday & Lent

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Justice & Activism, Weekly MeditationsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ash Wednesday is the starting point of Lent. We are marked with ashes as we begin the season. We go from feasting to a season of fasting, praying, and giving.

Or perhaps we can think of Lent as a season of personal training, of discipline and preparation, to return to spiritual fitness. It’s a time when, through confession, we admit and wrestle with our issues, vulnerabilities and weaknesses … and get to know ourselves better. We seek healing and balance.

This is also an opportunity to understand that we are beloved for whom we are: messy and imperfect and broken. Just as we are beloved for whom we may become. Because the gift of this season, ultimately, is grace. We can prepare, we can focus … yet we cannot earn the boundless love toward which we are reaching. It is simply offered to us, regardless of how perfect or imperfect we are. Just because.

Ashes symbolize mortality, as well as humility and contrition. The proudest members of society, in many faith traditions, don sackcloth and wear ashes as signs of humility, to express sorrow, or to demonstrate a desire for reconciliation and forgiveness. Ashes represent, like “dust to dust”, our elemental origins and remind us that our bodies will return to the earth. Within our faith, we also believe that while our bodies are formed from organic materials, our living selves are filled up with and energized by Breath, Wind, or Holy Spirit, which animates life and connects all of us.

Traditionally, people receive ashes today, Ash Wednesday, as a smudge or cross on the forehead. We come to this season in a messy way, wearing our imperfection on our faces. Messy, sad, sorry, tired, angry, grateful, hopeful, happy, curious … we enter into this time of preparation, on the journey toward Easter.

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