It's all good so far

“silent surrender, quiet and still, come into my life, open to your will”.

The first part of the Examen exercise, stilling oneself, you make yourself open to find the presense of the Lord and welcome him in.

The opening hymn is paraphrased above. The choral arrangement was a little hard to hear and then we had a lesson which was the parable of the word as seed. I don’t know why it just wasn’t working.

Perhaps it was the traffic in my commute, I just could not figure what I was supposed to find today. Was this going to be a work session similar to an uninspired physical workout, one where you go through the motions?

Then I heard the instructions for the reading reflection, given before the reading is replayed. The instructions were to listen for the first and last word of the parable.

Great I thought, Cliff notes. Then I heard the words, the first was “listen” and the second was “hear”.

It hit me Many times I am guilty of listening and not hearing. Perhaps I need to spend more time in silent surrender, diminishing my ego, spin, interpretation, complaints about the production of the podcast, so I can listen and hear more.

2 Tim 1:7-9
for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline…

…. relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose and by your grace.

I have a meeting tonight. It’s purpose is to learn more about the process that our Church will follow to call a new Priest. The process includes revisting the core values and vision of our Church. Evaluating and updating them to reflect who we are, where we are now, and where we want to go.

There is much to be done, and many need to be involved. May all involved be gifted with the spirit of power and of love, boldness and empathy.

Well – there is no podcast for Pray as You Go, on Saturdays and I had spent Friday evening and Saturday in the Vestry Retreat. We are blessed with an enthusiastic group with a great new Senior Warden to lead our Church.

Today I got serve as Worship Leader for the service and was very pleased to hear the teaching sermon that Fr. Scotty provided. Our Church is a liturgical Church and the service has traditions that are two thousand years old. I lead the declaration to a creed that has been recited as a statement of belief since its origin in the Council of Nieca in the 3rd century.

We are trying to our new members and our youth that inspite of the appearance of a rote service, the words are more than that, it is a connection and continuity with the Community of Christ that stretches back 1700 years.

A connection to people that have experienced hardship, hunger, war, poverty, disease. A connection to people that have celebrated life, births, weddings, and deaths. All sharing the same beliefs, the same message, hope of salvation.

Yes there are going to be challenges keeping the distribution and application of this message in order to reach the next generation. A lot of life’s distractions make it easy to stay away from the pew. I don’t have the answers, but I am willing to work at it, to see what I can learn, what I can share, and find out where it takes us.

Today the Church celebrates the Conversion of the Apostle Paul. His conversion story shows that God has a special calling or purpose for each of us. His conversion story is the central them around the God & Life program for teenagers that I have helped teach at Episcopal Scout Retreats and I look continually to it for inspiration in my role as a Church leader.

It comforts me that there is a plan for me, that I will be equipped with the gifts or armor that I need to do take on a task that He has for me. I have said before that He is messing with me, because sometimes I find that the call is taking in places that I would not have gone on my own.

I have been serve on discernment committees and listen to people describe their call to ministry and I have always been amazed to hear the strength of conviction when someone has truly received a calling.

Sometimes the results are difficult, like our Priest being called away from us, and sometimes they are challenging, thinking about what the effect of our calling this Priest would be to our Church.

These callings all have something in common. These callings come through Prayer and they don’t go away. They are not whimsical, those “that would be neat to do” thoughts, these calls come and sometimes you have to struggle with them to understand them.

But the great thing is, it does not matter who we are, the life we have lived up to this point, when the call comes, it is for us , it changes us, it takes us places we did not think we would go, it stretches us, teaches us, and we are better for it.