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KATHY - follow me

Monday, February 8th, 2010

“One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.” “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking. When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him. His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed. Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!” And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus.” luke 5:11, NLT

this past saturday night we had a fun conversation about the calling of the first disciples in luke 5:1-11. part of the power in the Bible is being able to identify with the story, to notice the intersections with our own life & to notice what God might be stirring up in us in the midst. in our conversation together there were a few observations about the story that i want to highlight here for those of you who weren’t there and are just reading for the first time.

God always chose the least likely. these lowly fisherman weren’t the last pick, the ones left over. they were the first pick. i don’t think we can ever dismiss the message that Jesus continues to embody–the ways of the kingdom are totally counter-cultural to the ways of the world and many religious systems. when peter saw the loads of fish in the net, he cried out “i’m not worthy.” my guess is that many of us feel unworthy, too. what do we have to offer God? what do we have to offer others? maybe in the world we don’t have the skills or the talents or the put-togetherness, but in the kingdom none of that seems to matter. this passage cries out “the least, the last, the willing”, that’s who Jesus seems to continually point to.

to be a disciple means that we must become students of the Teacher. that means that we will have to humble ourselves and respect that we have a lot to learn. we can all say that in theory but actually submitting ourselves to the master’s teaching is whole other story. “following” requires humility & a softening of our pride, ego, and all things that keep us in control of our own destinies and comforts. also, students don’t learn everything at once; real learning is a forever process. we are more infiltrated with the worldly message of “quick, easy, success” than we probably even know, and i’m guessing it really affects our ability to lean into the long & never-ending work of ongoing transformation.

everyone’s “calling” is different & one isn’t more important or better than another. for some, it is a big one–God is asking us to make some big shifts in our life, give up something that is comfortable and familiar for an entirely new direction. for others, it might just be a prompting to risk ourselves in a way we aren’t used, a calling to trust God through action in a relationship, situation, or experience. and then there’s everything in between. the big idea is that if we each have to listen to what Jesus is stirring up in us individually. what is he calling us to that scares us, no matter how big or small.

if we listen to the voices rattling in our head or from the outside, we will always find ways not to go. we explored some of the voices that come rushing in when we hear the stirring, the call to “follow”, whatever that may look like some of these voices might say “what if you fail?” “you’re not good enough to do it”, “what if that’s not really God’s voice?” “it’s just not possible” “who do you think you are trying that?” “change is just too hard” “what if i heard wrong?” the list could go on and on, but in this passage it seems to me these first disciples didn’t spend too much time listening to the voices. they took a chance, they went.

marty shared a quote she had recently heard that is really worth pondering,

“fear, resistance and struggle is all in your head.  your heart is the part with the courage and the wisdom. live from there.  act from there.”

there were so many other thoughts shared. if you were there and have a few others that stuck out to you, please share them here.

this year i really want to explore what it means to humble myself & follow. to go where i’m afraid to go. to follow God’s lead to the low and scary places. to learn what it means to be a student of the master.

ps: at the end of our gathering, we had a little journaling exercise to take home and consider this week for those that wanted to explore this idea a little more. here are the questions:

  • Read Luke 5:1-11
  • Looking back, what are some decisions that you have made that have made you proud, that you are glad you took?
  • Is God stirring up something in your heart, a step you are contemplating to somehow ”follow him”?
  • How will this step require humility?  Courage?
  • What are some of the obstacles in the way (real or perceived or just things rattling around in your head) that might keep you from moving forward?  What would it look like to overcome them?
  • What would you like to see transformed in your life journey?
  • Read Psalm 138

Posted in jesus, journey, kathy | No Comments »

KATHY - the church calendar, refuge style

Monday, January 4th, 2010

when you hear the words “church calendar” what do you think?

when you hear the word “liturgical” what do you think?

different people have different reactions. some might say “i have no idea what either one means.” others might think “liturgical means something lutheran, catholic or episcopalian and it’s usually boring.” because we are a community with an extremely wide breadth and depth of faith experiences, we always want to be cautious about throwing in words and ideas and thoughts that could exclude or throw people for a loop. at the same time, we are deeply dedicated to filling in the space between all of our diversity and finding our common thread. that thread, i believe, is Jesus. sure, there are people who aren’t quite sure about Jesus or have all kinds of weird associations with him that typically come from wacky church experiences, but the one thing we seem to be fairly clear on is that we are trying to learn what it means to follow Jesus. i like to think of our life together as a community as a place to learn what it means to “love Jesus, others, and ourselves and learn to be loved by Jesus, others, ourselves.” it’s a place to learn, a place to practice.

this year together at our saturday evening gatherings we are going to do something we have never intentionally done together since the refuge started 3 1/2 years ago–follow the church calendar. this means that instead of us as a community randomly deciding which passages or themes to use each week, we will use what millions of other Christ-followers around the world are using at the same time. for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the new year of the church calendar starts with advent, which is the last sunday (saturday for us) in november. we’ve always celebrated advent as a community but then just left it there at christmas eve. this year, we’ll continue with the seasons of the church year all the way through until advent 2010 and see how we do. remember, everything will still be refuge-style. conversational, interactive, experiential, weekly communion and eating together. i think what will be really good for us is we’re going to learn a lot together. we’ll use the gospel passages–the stories of Jesus–as our guiding thoughts. we’ll intersect with the scriptures in ways that we might not have before. we’ll hopefully stir up some trouble–good trouble, the kind that moves us, transforms us.

here’s a helpful way to maybe think through the church seasons. it comes from the story formed calendar:

advent - the season of expectation
christmas - the season of celebration
epiphany (this is where we are now, the upcoming weeks are called “ordinary time”) - the season of illumination
lent - the season of listening
holy week - a time to remember
easter - the season of “hallelujahs” and the
season after pentecost becomes the season of intentional living in love, justice and mercy, in praise and gratitude

my take on it is that it is going to be a challenging & inspiring & fun year for us a community. i am excited about orienting my heart and my head toward the big story of God in a new way, to intersecting with the gospel stories from new angles and letting their power stir up new life in me.

i love that we are a community that is willing to try new, creative things on our faith/life journey together. so much beauty awaits.

i’ll close with this, i think it’s what our year holds for us, what our faith/life journey through the gospels will remind us of, point us to:

“it is in the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith, the deep-down wrestling match of conflicting ideas, that resides the motivating power it takes to become what we see in Jesus.  the world around us tells us that life is about money, security, power, and success.  but the Gospels tell us that life is about something completely other.  real life, the Gospels tell us, is about doing the will of God, speaking for the poor, changing the lives of widows and orphans, exalting the status of women, refusing to make war, laying down our lives for the other, the invisible, and the enemy.  it is about taking everyone in instead of leaving everyone out.” - joan chittister, the liturgical year.

here’s to a beautiful, challenging year together. i’ve got a lot to learn. i hope you do, too.

Posted in church calendar, church stuff, kathy | 3 Comments »

KATHY - thin places: validation

Monday, November 30th, 2009


God of the watching ones, the waiting ones, the slow and suffering ones, give us your benediction, your good word for our souls, that we may rest.
- celtic advent blessing

this past saturday we entered into the season of “advent” in preparation for Christ’s birth.  for those not as familiar with church-y terms, advent is the season of expectation, waiting, and hoping–all leading up to Christmas.  this year at the refuge we will be following our advent tradition by using urban skye’s advent guide to bind this month together.  this year the four weeks are focused on the celtic tradition; it’s called “thin places.”   thin places are certain places where the distance between the human and the Divine feel particularly thin, where God feels near.

God touches us in all kinds of mysterious ways.  one tangible way God’s spirit moves is through people–through the touch and  love of an “anam cara”, which is the celtic word for “soul friend.”  the passage this week from luke 1:39-45 focuses on mary, the mother of Jesus, and her interaction with her cousin elizabeth, who is the mother of john the baptist.  they share a special bond, a connection.  elizabeth validated mary in a moment she really needed it.  the Bible doesn’t go into all the ins and outs of the relationship, but what rises is to the surface is that God touched  mary through elizabeth.

this season is especially difficult for so many.  lack of money, health, jobs, family are just a few of the reasons some dread this holiday.   but  here’s my hope for all of us–let’s intentionally strip away all of the man-made trappings of Christmas and focus not on what isn’t, but what is.  to recall the beauty & mystery of the Jesus story–who came not as a powerful king but as a homeless baby in a dingy manger.  that the “incarnation”–God made flesh–is real.  available.  now.   through each other.

so this advent i hope we can cling to slivers of hope–the small, mysterious, sometimes almost imperceptible ways God is trying to show us love, hope, and peace in the midst of our circumstance.  may we somehow experience a “thin place”–an intersection with God, an outburst of peace & hope, no matter how big or small.

and in the spirit of week one’s conversation, may we notice God speaking to us through people, through “anam caras”–soul friends.   touching us through the unexpected phone call, the loving hug, prayers, the kind words, some tangible presence in a weird unexpected moment.

may we notice.  may we let good in.  may we receive.  may we give.  may we have hope.

i’ll close with the prayer that wrapped up our saturday evening together–it’s a friendship blessing written by john o’donohue:

may you blessed with good friends.
may you learn to be a good friend yourself.
may you be brought into the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.

may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey.  amen.

Posted in advent, hope, kathy | 3 Comments »

KATHY - gratitude heals

Monday, November 16th, 2009

for the past few saturdays we have been focusing on the word “gratitude”.  for some, i have heard that it stirs up bad feelings–“here we go with the guilt–yeah, no doubt i’m probably not thankful enough.” for others, it is a reminder of how easy it is to forget how much we have to be grateful for–that life, circumstances, and all kinds of other things can block us from noticing what is good, what we do have to be thankful for despite what’s hard.

personally, i like the focus on gratitude.  i am not ashamed to say that i like the good ol’ cheesy alcoholics anonymous saying to cultivate “an attitude of gratitude.” i think there’s no downside to this principle.  but i also fully recognize that it’s not always easy to do.  let’s face it, sometimes we just don’t feel it.  we can’t see what is, we can only see what isn’t.  we can’t muster up a feeling that isn’t there.

still, regardless of the obstacles to gratitude, i think it does something powerful inside of us.  gratitude heals.

karl facilitated a couple of saturdays ago & focused on this passage in the gospel of luke 17:11-19:

As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria.  As he entered a village there, ten lepers stood at a distance,  crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” He looked at them and said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy.  One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, “Praise God!” He fell to the ground at Jesus’ feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan.  Jesus asked, “Didn’t I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” And Jesus said to the man, “Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

what he shared really struck me.  first of all, only one out of ten thanked Jesus for their immediate and powerful healing.  one out of ten. i think that’s telling.  i have no idea what was going through the other leper’s minds, but i find it interesting that the one that went back to offer thanks was the “foreigner”, the “outcast”, the “less-than.”  hmmm.  something to ponder.  i wonder if the others felt entitled to the healing?  or maybe they just got busy and went home and meant to say thanks but forgot?  i have no idea, but i do love that this one leper returned and offered his gratitude.

we will never know the ins and outs of what happened in that moment or what part of the leper’s heart Jesus saw, but karl pointed out an important thought:  maybe, what Jesus meant when he said “your faith has healed you” is “your gratitude has healed you.” he was already healed when he went to Jesus, cleansed of the ravages of leprosy.  but maybe, just maybe, the gratitude he held in his heart provided some healing power, too.

to me, the word “healing” can be interchanged with “transformation” or “change” or “shifts in our hearts.”  i think when we are thankful, when we give thanks–either out loud or in the quiet places of our hearts–that something changes, transforms, shifts inside of us.  it somehow heals.

it is so easy in the midst of dark, dark places to focus on what isn’t instead of what is. of all the things we don’t have instead of the things that we do. of all the things we wish were different.  i am also keenly aware of people in the midst of horrible, ugly, seemingly unredeemable situations who somehow can find light & be thankful for it.  i do think things are better for them.

i believe the scriptures help remind us of God’s heart for us, of a better way than we would conjure up on our own.  i am not so sure that God needs our thanks.  yeah, i am sure he appreciates it but really he’s probably okay without our strokes.  i really think God calls us to thankfulness because somehow he knows it will change us, transform us, heal us.

and that’s God’s heart for us–healing, transformation, change, hope.

yeah, gratitude heals.

Posted in healing, kathy | 2 Comments »

KATHY - a doubter’s prayer

Monday, September 28th, 2009

as we continue our conversations on faith & doubt, may we stay in, hold on, and remember that

“doubt is not the opposite of faith, but one element of faith” (paul tillich)

God, sometimes i’m not sure

i don’t understand. i can’t understand. i don’t know what i’m supposed to understand.

i am trying to let go. trying to hold on.

learning. growing. stretching. leaving. coming. going.

what do i leave behind?

what do i move toward?

God, grow my faith, whatever that means.

not in man, not in systems, not in what-someone-else-tells-me-i-am-supposed-to-believe

but in you.  the living God.  the one who heals. the one who reveals.  the one who restores.  the one who turns the ways of this world upside down.   the one who calls me to mercy and justice and love.  the one who stirs us to move.

yeah, that’s all i really want.  more of you in me.  more of you in us.

amen.

Posted in kathy, prayer | 7 Comments »

KATHY - my love-hate thing with community

Monday, July 6th, 2009

heart drawn on wallover the upcoming saturdays this summer at the refuge we will be focused on the word “community.”  i wrote this post way back when in august 2006—at the very beginning of the refuge.  sometimes it’s fun to revisit past thoughts and see how they apply today.   one of the most important things about the refuge, in my opinion, is how we are learning about God & ourselves through being in community with each other.  i think that was always the idea of “the church”.  and yes, we can probably all agree—true community, real redemptive relationships with each other, learning the ways of both giving & receiving love, will always be hard  to do!  let’s keep learning together.

Everyone who knows me knows I love community. I love relationships. I love people connecting with God and each other. I love to see someone who thinks they are unlovable start to feel loved because I remember how much that meant to me a long time ago. But it’s not just a love thing. Please do not think I have some crazy idealistic view of community, thinking it’s a piece of cake to pull off. Real community is brutally hard, maybe one of the hardest things we can do as human beings.

Every church values community, this is nothing new. Look on every church website and you will see a list of small groups and ways for community to “happen” at a church. Why are so many strategies necessary to pull off “community”? Why is it not just our natural bent to want to be together, love each other, share our lives with each other, and reach out to others and love them, too?

Because we are all messed up. Most of us have a love-hate thing with community. I know I do. I want it. I want people in my life, to know how I’m really doing, to care about me, to pray for me, to carry my burdens when they are too heavy for me. And I also don’t want it. Why? Because it’s hard. It’s easier to go solo. Having people in my life exposes me. They see things I don’t really want them to see. They force me to think about things I don’t want to. It means I will have to sacrifice time, myself. It means I will have to trust, risk, and I’m a scaredy-cat at heart.

Like most of us, I’m sort of in this double bind. I love community. I want it. And at the same time, I hate community.

Here’s why I hate community:

1. It’s time consuming. I’ll have to be inconvenienced.

2. I am sure to get hurt.

3. It forces me to think about things differently. Everyone won’t agree with me (what’s wrong with them?) and that stinks.

4. It messes with my self-centeredness.

5. I’m asking to be annoyed, irritated, frustrated, angered, disappointed.

6. I’ll let others down, fail them, disappoint them; I’m a tried and true people-pleaser, so this is asking for trouble.

7. I’ll actually have to ask for help.

8. I won’t be able to fake it.

9. It won’t be neat and tidy (what I’m always longing for). In fact, it’ll be messy, crazy, hard and unpredictable.

Okay, so with all of these negatives, is it really worth it? I think so. For me, the loves are definitely starting to outweigh the hates.

Why I love community:

1. It’s worth the time. Jesus was about people, bottom line. Relationships are what matter. At the end of the day I won’t remember my job, my house, my stuff. I’ll remember the people I loved and that loved me.

2. It’s a place to practice becoming a better lover—of God, of people. I definitely need a place to practice. How can we live out the 2 greatest commandments Jesus gave us…“love Him, love others” without at least trying for close, intimate relationship with each other?

3. It inspires me to keep going. The courage you have—to keep fighting, living, trying—makes me want to, too.

4. The laughter. Without it, I don’t know where I’d be. It is sustaining. Life is too hard without it.

5. I can talk grace and forgiveness until I’m blue in the face, but unless I have to give it, receive it, it means nothing. I want it to mean something.

6. It keeps pointing me toward God. The more I hang around other people and listen, I am forced to think more, ask more questions, seek, wonder, question, wrestle.

7. It is glorious to be up close and personal with Jesus moving in a life, changing a person, healing, bringing hope. Nothing is more beautiful.

8. You seem to keep loving me no matter what, and for that I am very grateful.

So what do you hate about it? Love about it?

Posted in community, kathy | 1 Comment »

KATHY - bread

Monday, April 6th, 2009

breadlast week karl facilitated a conversation around the upper room table at our weekend gathering about bread.  Jesus said ‘i am the bread of life. whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” john 6:51.    i missed part of the conversation, but got to catch up a bit on this thought when i finished reading “take this bread” by sara miles this past weekend (one advantage of being layed up with extreme back pain: lots of time to read!)  what a great story about what can happen when an atheist walks into a church, takes communion, and enters into the wild and crazy journey of following Christ.   an open table.  food for the hungry.  tasting and seeing God in unexplainable ways.  creating a food pantry where hundreds come every week to get food, break bread together, and practice what radically inclusive community can look like.  there were so many powerful images in the book that resonated with me related to community, “church”, and what it means to be the body of Christ here on earth corporately, individually.

with easter week upon us it was exactly the reminder i needed of the power of Jesus’ body & blood to transform. and for us, the “church”–his body here on earth–to touch and heal, too.   there were so many great lines in the book, too many to mention, but here are a few highlights:

“what i heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty.  it proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new.”  (prologue, xv)

“all of it pointed to a force stronger than the anxious formulas of religion:  a radically inclusive love that accompanied people in the most ordinary of actions–eating, drinking, walking–and stayed with them, through fear, even past death.  that love meant giving yourself away, embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for others.” (p. 93)

“you can’t be a Christian by yourself”  (p. 119)

“but faith working through love:  that could mean plugging away with other people, acting in small ways without the comfort of a big vision or even a lot of realistic hope.  it could look more like prayer:  opening yourself to uncertainty, accepting your lack of control.  it meant taking on concrete tasks in the middle of confusion, without stopping to argue who was the truest believer.” (p. 162)

“i remember what a sad, drunken visitor to the pantry had told me once.  ‘thank God,’ he said earnestly, ‘thank God for Jesus.  because, you know, he was here like us, so he knows how hard it is to be a person. he must have a sense of humor about us.” (p. 172)

“this is where i found my faith:  a faith expressed in a wild conceit that a helpless, low-caste baby could be God. that ugly, contaminated and unimportant people embody holiness.  that my own neediness and misfitting, not my goodness or piety, were what God intended to use.” (p. 222)

“they wanted, in fact, church: not the kind where you sit obediently and listen to someone tell you how to behave, but the kind where you discovery responsibility, purpose, meaning.  they wanted a church where they could bring their sorrows, their gifts, their entire messy lives:  where they could find community.”  (p. 214)

which ones resonate with you?

i’ll end with this, a prayer sara miles wrote for her community that is the desire of my heart for our little refuge community, that we’d be bread….

“O God of abundance, you feed us every day.

rise in us now, make us into your bread.

that we may share your gifts with a hungry world,

and join in love with all people, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (p. 163)

Posted in body of Christ, community, kathy | 2 Comments »

KATHY - to love and be loved

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

wooden heartat the refuge on saturday nights we have been spending some time in the “upper room” with Jesus in the texts of john 13-17 leading up to easter. these are some of my favorite passages of scripture. so challenging. so beautiful. as most of you know, i spend a lot of time thinking about “church”—not church as in a building and a meeting time and 3 songs on power point and a wow! sermon, but church as in the body of Christ, people on the journey, learning to practice the ways of love together. one of the things i always say is that “the church” is a place to love and be loved.

the other night at the refuge we talked about john 13 and how Jesus modeled sacrifice and serving one another in love as he washed the disciples feet. while i do think Jesus demonstrated to us the importance of a life of humility and servanthood as part of following him, i also think sometimes we miss out on the other side: a life of receiving love and care from other people, from God. we talked together how it is probably easier to give than receive. when we receive, sometimes there’s this feeling attached to it that somehow we are supposed to “give something back to make things more even.” we don’t want to be beholden to someone else’s love and care because it makes us so vulnerable. i can so relate to this. i am a much better giver than receiver. i am doing better at receiving, but it is utterly against my prideful nature and shows up not only in my relationship with people but also in my relationship with God.

receiving requires even more humility than giving. the tension between pride and humility will always exist in us as human beings, and i believe part of our spiritual transformation is the ability to love AND be loved. just loving, giving, serving, caring will not cut it and we’ll miss out on so much. just being loved, receiving, being cared for will not cut it and we’ll miss out on so much.

i don’t think it’s formulaic, that if we just learn how to do A and B and C, we have “loving” mastered (and oh how i wish it were that easy!) but i do believe that it is in true community that we have a place to practice. that it will be in relationship with others that we’ll rub against our tendency to harden our hearts, judge, protect, resist, run, hide, and do whatever we can to avoid the kind of intimacy that Jesus modeled at the last supper. and it will also be in relationship with others that our hearts get stirred in ways that we might not have ever imagined, that we’ll see Jesus in the poverty of our friends’ spirit, that we care in ways we never expected to care, that we are somehow supernaturally propelled to step in and love in places that somehow surprise us.

i think relationships with people and relationship with God are all tangled up. as we learn to receive from others, we learn to receive from God. as we love others, we love God. and as we love God, we learn how to love others. it really is a beautiful mess! and none of these relationships are clean and simple and definable and manageable. that night in the upper room i think that is what Jesus was somehow communicating—the tension between pride and humility will always exist and we’ll need his spirit to help us reconcile this tension and let God and others “wash our feet”, whatever that looks like, as we learn to wash theirs.

oh, we all know that is easier said than done! but thankfully, spiritual transformation is an ongoing journey, little experiences along the way where we notice God moving, prompting, challenging, changing us, softening our hearts, and revealing things that probably need revealing.

i’d love to hear some of what God has been stirring up for you lately when it comes to the tension between loving and being loved, giving and also receiving. let’s keep practicing together.

Posted in God's love, body of Christ, kathy | 2 Comments »

an evening of hope

Monday, February 16th, 2009

post it noteslast sunday, february 8th, we had an evening of reflective stations to wrap up our series on hope.  it was a beautiful evening of hope & connecting with God in all kinds of ways.  several of the stations had questions about hope. here are some of the collective responses:

What causes you to lose hope??

When something goes wrong
Looking at me. Focusing on my stuff
Human forgetfulness
When I take my eyes off Jesus
That I am not forgiven
Feeling isolated and overwhelmed
When circumstances don’t change and I pray and pray
Forgetting I’m just a small part of a big beautiful picture
Circumstance after circumstance going awry, going awry going awry
Fear
Life circumstances
Circumstances, bad luck, other people
Depression, The past (at least the ugly parts), struggle without relief
Time
Death

What does hope look like?

A child’s laugh
A baby’s laugh
Others willing to listen
It looks like a ray of sunshine piercing acloudy sky
The kingdom is real and present
A strong urge inside to perpetuate anything good
It looks like a smile, a smooth easy path
Like an unexpected phone call, someone wondering how I’m doing out of the blue
My daughter that is her middle name
It looks like a hug
“The love that fills my heart after forgiveness”
A way through the desert
Friendships

Where does hope start?

It’s like a light at the end of  a dark tunnel
The rock–God
Hope begins when any journey begins
In the beginning God
I think it starts in unexpected and different ways. Sometimes inside and sometimes outside. Always God.
At the bottom
Something unexpected
Smiling eyes
No fear rather being confident in what I’m doing and God has my back
With a ray of God’s presence in your life at that moment of despair
God uses friends and a word to light the fire of hope
Hope starts with introspection and maybe analyzing God’s goodness and faithfulness
Honest safe friends
Belonging in something that is bigger than me
Hope starts with Jesus
With a conversation with a safe person that later may turn into talking with God
A tree full of crisp, sweet apples, just ready to be eaten
One more step one more breath one day closer to heaven
Waking up

When hope is lost, how can it be regained?

Crying out to Jesus
In everything with praise and thanksgiving.  God know your needs
By asking safe people to remind me of what is good
Ask a safe person. Ask God. Ask and it will be given seek and you will find
Reaching out and letting others know your feelings
By crying myself to sleep and asking God questions and being still
Staying in community   The Bible
Through the eyes of community
Never ending? looking away from ands toward God, like Mack did in The Shack book. Community with Safe real people on the way
Consciously seeking glimpses of God
Looking to the word of God and praying
Spend time with God and in prayer and in His word
By looking to the Author of Hope-Jesus
Making a decision to receive hope by remembering
I’m still working on this one
Staying in and crying out

After communion, here are some things people wrote on stones about how they were feeling:
peace    hope    solace    weak    despair    healing    Jesus    loved    fear    new puppy    comfort    grace and love    cherished    very grateful    ok together    reserved hope    love is the key    my hope is his blood flowing in me    freedom    thankful for grace from my friends    willing    wanting real bread    total    immersion in Jesus    there is hope    not alone

thank you, God, for your Hope.



Posted in community, dreams, hope, karl, kathy, the refuge, theology | No Comments »

KATHY - hope is dangerous

Monday, January 12th, 2009

hope is dangeroushope. it can mean all kinds of things for different people, but i think it mainly implies “expectation.” a possibility that maybe things could be different, that there’s more to this life than just what we see, that there’s something better ahead. many of us, for all kinds of reasons, are afraid to hope. we have seen many of our dreams dashed. jobs lost. relationships crumbled. addictions destroy. God-not-delivering-the-goods-the-way-we-had-hoped. so we hunker down our hearts and do whatever we can to protect it against believing that good is really possible—again, or maybe for the first time. we settle for loneliness. we settle for disconnectedness. we settle for going-through-the-motions. the thought of something more hurts too much. what if we make ourselves vulnerable and hurt again? what if we try and they all get dashed anyway? what if we risk and lose again? the “what if’s” mount, hope gets held at bay, and we miss out on the thing that Jesus kept pointing to over and over and over again—life now. love now. hope now.

and it remains utterly consistent that pretty much everything Jesus calls us to is quite dangerous. so why would hope be different? hope will require a risk. it will require sacrifice. it will require working against our reflexes to run, hide, self-protect, self-medicate. it will require believing in what it unseen. it will mean we will hurt. it will mean we will be afraid. it will mean taking steps on a path we are unfamiliar with.

it will require us letting God’s spirit move in a way in our hearts that is mysterious and scary and maybe unfamiliar. so how do we get over our fear of hope’s dangerous-ness?

here are just a few thoughts:

admit what we’re really afraid of. is it being afraid to fail? are you afraid of your heart hurting? are you afraid that you’ll just end up mad at God again? what is it that freaks you out about hope? real relationship requires honesty.

seek courage in the small steps. we sometimes have such a high expectation of ourselves, that we’re supposed to somehow “take the hill” tomorrow, having conquered all that holds us back. that usually just leads to failure & shame & anger toward ourselves for our lack of faith and courage. small steps keep hope alive, especially when we celebrate them together in community.

expect it to hurt. hope’s gonna hurt. it’s supposed to. it means we are still really alive. Jesus made very clear that following him would mean pain. hardened hearts do not hurt. but soft open hopeful ones are sure to. i think we need to get better at bracing ourselves for hope to hurt.
recognize that hope in circumstances is not the same as hope in God. over and over in the scriptures the psalmists cry out “we hope in YOU, God…our hope is not in the world, but in YOU.” it is so easy to rest our hope in outcomes, tangibles, things-the-way-we-want-them-to-turn-out. this is why real hope is so dangerous, because it means accepting somehow that things may not be how we had hoped but that our hope in God mysteriously supersedes circumstances.

strain to see God, feel God, hear God wherever you can. i really think we get so blinded by our pain, our fear, our busyness, our self-centeredness that it becomes difficult to experience God’s spirit moving, revealing, challenging, strengthening, encouraging, pushing. especially when hope is waning and our anger or ambivalence is getting the best of us, we will need to strain to see him in small wacky ways that might normally be missed. in the eyes of a friend. in a word of encouragement. in a song. in the mountains. in a crisis. in a scripture. in where-ever-we-feel-a-flicker-in-our-heart-that-reminds-us-God-is-with-us.
yeah, hope is dangerous. i am afraid of it, too, but i sense God nudging me in all kinds of ways to let him fan more and more of it into flame. to risk my pride, my heart, my safety on hope’s behalf. i love romans 15:13 in the message:

Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!

this month, as we focus on hope as a community, i pray that we will be people willing to open ourselves up to its dangers. to risk on its behalf. to take steps toward life that scare us. to let God’s spirit move in ways that make our hearts come painfully alive. to let hope propel us to love.

Posted in hope, kathy, spiritual formation | 3 Comments »

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