Renewal Works

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, May 19, 2014

I read recently that when the missionary E. Stanley Jones met Mahatma Gandhi he said, "Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is it that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?" Gandhi replied, "Oh, I don't reject Christ. I love Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike him."

I've been intrigued with the spiritual journey of Mahatma Gandhi since my teens, when for several months I lived with an Indian family as an exchange student in Mumbai (then Bombay), an adventure for a teenager who had rarely left the bubble of suburban New York. I learned a lot from the deep spirituality embedded in that culture. In retrospect, it changed my life. I also learned about the history of how some Christians treated some people like Mahatma Gandhi, and so I was not surprised that he chose not to sign up for the newcomer's class at the local parish. On one occasion, after he decided to attend a church in South Africa, he was barred at the door. "Where do you think you're going?" an Englishman asked Gandhi. Gandhi replied that he would like to attend worship. The elder responded: "There's no room for kaffirs in this church. Get out of here or I'll have my assistants throw you down the steps." So much for radical welcome.

Thoughts about Gandhi's spiritual journey have been triggered for me recently by daily readings appointed by the Book of Common Prayer. In that lectionary, we're working our way through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus' discussion with his disciples about what it means to put faith to work in the world. Over the history of the church, that sermon has been transformative. It shaped the call of Leo Tolstoy to give up wealth for the sake of the poor. Gandhi applied Tolstoy's learning to his own context, bringing non-violence and soul force to the struggle for freedom and justice in India. Martin Luther King Jr. in turn, studied Gandhi and applied those same learnings to his context in this country. And so it goes, all the way to this Monday morning in May, when we are given the chance and the challenge of putting the teachings of Jesus to work in the world. Today, how might we increase love in our hearts, for God and neighbor (especially neighbors who might be hard to get along with, perhaps even enemies)?

It matters how we do that, not only for the sake of our relationship with God. It matters for the sake of our relationship with those around us, in our household, in our workplace, in our church, in the community. It matters for a grace-starved world. Our prayer book, when it speaks of the ministry that each of us have in the world, says that lay people, bishops, priests and deacons all share this call: To represent Christ and his Church. That's a responsibility, for sure. I remember a sermon I heard many years ago. The preacher asked: If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? What do our lives say about what we profess. Is there a gap between profession and practice?

It's also an opportunity, because we have the chance to reflect, indeed to magnify, the grace we have received. The early church grew exponentially because people looked at the early Christian community and said: "See how they love one another." A far cry from Gandhi's experience. Is it a far cry from our own?

I'm mindful this Monday morning of the gap between Christ and this Christian. But wherever we are in the spiritual journey this morning, there is always a small step we can take to close that gap, to grow in spirit, to follow Christ more closely, as he calls us to reflect his way of being in the world, so that the world will know the wonders of his love, so the world will know we are Christians by our love.

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, May 5, 2014

Last week, I attended a conference with about 20 rectors and a guest speaker, Bill Powers, author of N.Y. Times bestseller, Hamlet's Blackberry, Building A Good Life in the Digital Age. The book is described by one reviewer as an "oasis of serenity and sanity." The book resembles its author. Mr. Powers is a gifted journalist, a great guy. He's not a churchgoer, but/and he had a lot to teach us clergy, some of whom have been ordained and serving in congregations for a while. He sees the challenge of the digital age this way: We need to move from quantity to quality, from speed to engagement, from breadth to depth. He believes that communities of the spirit, communities that help mediate meaning, can bring that kind of growth.

As an alumnus of an Ivy League school, he has been asked to interview prospective candidates for admission. In conversation with one young woman, he asked about how she used technology. She responded that she had developed a "personal digital strategy" and actually produced a copy of this written statement, a covenant of how she would use technology, specifically social media, how she would limit and focus that usage in order to make it work for her, how she would balance its cost and promise.

Mr. Powers then talked about his family's practice, how he, his wife and son unplug for the weekend, how that can be both challenging and liberating. It sounded a lot to me like a Sabbath, an ancient divinely ordained spiritual practice that was mostly lost to our culture when blue laws disappeared (those antiquated laws that kept businesses closed on Sundays, active at a time before sports practices and games were scheduled on Sunday morning). I considered the practice of the Powers family against the backdrop of this past Lent, in which I heard of a number of people who gave up Facebook for the season.

I found myself wondering if there was a spiritual growth opportunity for me, because sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, say at 3 a.m., I check my email, as if someone was going to write me in that time period, or like there was something I really needed to act on in response. 'Fess up. Anyone else ever do that?

The conversation among the rectors, connected on ipads, phones, laptops throughout the conference, turned to the question of how to manage the marvelous resources of technology when they threaten to manage us. We discussed a call to mindfulness, intentionality about how much time we spend in the digital world, how we relate to others through these amazing devices, how we do that well, and how, well, not so much. It was a stewardship conversation, an exploration of what we do with what we're given. The thought of a personal digital strategy began to sound like a rule of life, another ancient spiritual practice of intentionality.

Here's a bit of coaching. (Newsflash: the preacher is preaching to himself.) Unplug, even for just a few minutes each day. Carve out silence. Start with a minute one day. Two the next. Three the next. Get to twenty. Then do twenty in the morning and twenty in the evening. Put the smartphone away. Press mute. Step away from the screen. Take your watch off. Sit in silence.

That kind of silence can be a most faithful prayer, marked by audacious expectancy that we will actually hear the God of creation, the Holy Spirit, say something if we shut up, that God will speak in the silence if we reduce the chatter, the static, the interference, the noise that we create. Give it a try. Give yourself (and the digital world) a rest.

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, April 28, 2014

A nimble faith

On this Monday in the Easter season, I find myself mindful of the different ways the gospels tell the story of the first Easter, and especially how the gospels describe the men and women who saw an empty tomb and met the resurrected Christ. Each gospel offers its own spin, but all four have this in common. The disciples have, how shall we say, mixed reactions to the news that Jesus is alive. Most famously, as we always hear on the Second Sunday of Easter (i.e., yesterday), Thomas gets stuck with the adjective "doubting", forever fixed to his name. He refuses to believe unless he gets physical evidence. That doubt, that skepticism makes him a hero to some. I sometimes think he is the patron saint of Episcopalians who are pretty good at celebrating the questions. But as I read the Gospel of John, it sounds like Thomas is getting called on the carpet, or in biblical parlance, he is upbraided for his doubt.

Lest we are too hard on Thomas, all four gospels indicate that he was not the only one with questions. The gospels describe disciples who doubted (Matthew), who fled the tomb in terror, amazement and fear (Mark), who were perplexed, terrified and startled, who thought they saw a ghost, who were comically clueless about Jesus' presence until he broke the bread (Luke). Let's just say that the first disciples did not immediately break into singing "Jesus Christ is risen today." Before they got to "alleluia", there were a lot of "I don't know about this." And along the way, I'm guessing there were a few ancient near eastern expletives uttered.

For the first disciples, those eleven guys and the several women on whom dawned news of resurrection, it took a while for the news to sink in. Doubt was part of the story. Which is good news for each one of us, because they are us. The news of Easter is amazing. But if it doesn't prompt questions and wonder and doubts, we may not be paying attention to its claims. The ways the gospels describe the event gives permission for us to embrace the news at our own pace. It gives us the opportunity to believe and disbelieve (a la Emily Dickinson) and thereby to develop a nimble faith.

That nimble faith is the goal, because doubt is not the destination. It is meant to lead to a deeper, more authentic relationship with God, and especially to an embrace of the hope of new life. It is meant to lead to mission, a call to service in a world that needs to hear good news. I don't know about you, but in a world where religious certainty often breeds intolerance, exclusion and division, I can easily linger, even loiter, maybe lurk in the place of doubt. I can easily take up residence there, gravitating to the religious sidelines, in a slightly defensive posture that says: "At least I'm not like those folks."

The doubts, the questions, the skepticism that Thomas courageously expressed led him ultimately to worship. We're called to the same journey. Celebrate the questions. God made us in such a way that we can't help but ask them. They are a gift. But as you ask them, also ask God to lead you through the questions to a place of deeper commitment, deeper insight into the mystery that surrounds us, into service as a response to the love that comes to us as gift.

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, April 21, 2014

Yes

One of the great privileges in my life: to administer communion, giving out bread or wine as the people of God receive the gifts of God. Whether I'm standing at the rail in a grand worship space, or moving from wheelchair to wheelchair in a nursing home activity room, or bending over to give communion to a toddler, or serving bedside in a hospital room, whether I know the people well or not at all, I find it an honor to connect with people in this sacramental moment.

When I was considering ordination, a wise counselor advised me to read the ordination service in the Prayer Book and see if anything grabbed me in the way that liturgy was shaped. I remember being moved by a question which was asked of the candidate for ordination: Will you nourish God's people from the riches of God's grace? It seemed to me that is what we do when we come to communion: We are nourished by God's grace. The priest or whoever is giving the bread and wine is simply an instrument. That's probably true of all ministry in the world, all the good we do, but to me it seems clearest as the bread is placed in open hands, as the wine is received.

Many if not most of the people who receive communion respond to the bread placed in palms by saying: Amen. But I remember one parishioner, a wonderful older woman who grew up in the mountains of Virginia and brought the softest, most beautiful accent with her from that region. Her voice was deep and each word was extenuated. On Sundays, as I moved down the altar rail handing out bread she would not say "Amen". Instead, she would say yes, which in her rendering of that word ending up with about four syllables. Her one word response to the bread placed in palm was one of the most elegant and eloquent (not to mention succinct) sermons I've ever heard. It spoke volumes to me about how we are to respond to God's grace in our lives. We are called to say yes, in word and action, with our lips and with our lives.

Easter is God's yes to us. As we move into the second day of the Easter season, we are called to give thanks and praise, we are called to alleluias, which have been on mute since Ash Wednesday. But I believe we are also called to say yes in return, yes to the new life, the resurrected life that God holds for us. That life comes as gift. But a gift, a grace only has meaning if we accept it and apply it. Abraham could have turned down the call to take his leap of faith. Moses could have taken a look at the burning bush and kept on going. Mary could have responded to the annunciation by saying "no thanks". Peter could have kept fishing. Paul could have imagined that the Damascus road experience was a hallucination or projection. Each of them said "yes", and that response not only changed their lives. That response changed the world. That can still happen.

What is God calling you to do and to be on this first Monday in the season of Easter? Can you experience this season as God's emphatic "yes"?  Can you pass on the grace of God, be an instrument of that grace in someone's life? How will you say yes to the new thing, the new life God holds out for you?

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, April 14, 2014

Praying shapes believing

That's one of the things we say about our tradition. The ways we pray, our requests and thanksgivings, our praise and confession, they shape our convictions and commitments, our beliefs and practices. We become what we desire. Or as Jesus said (always good to quote Jesus): Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So what do we pray this Holy Week? Take a minute of silence (if need be, set the timer on your phone) and read the collect for the Monday in Holy Week at the bottom.

Then note what we affirm in this prayer, that God's son suffered pain before joy. The mystery of suffering has been on my mind in preparation for Holy Week. It surfaces in great variety in the passion narrative: betrayal, isolation, indifference, expediency, questioning, violence prompted by religion and politics. Nothing new under the sun.

I've also been thinking about the subject of suffering since I read a N.Y. Times column last Monday. David Brooks contrasts the experience of suffering with our culture's focus on happiness. (He wrote that in one three month period last year, more than 1000 books on the subject of happiness were released on Amazon.) Brooks notes that while happiness is a good thing (Just watch the Youtbue of Pharrel Williams' Happy ), people feel formed through suffering. While he sees nothing intrinsically ennobling about suffering (i.e., we don't need to go looking for it), people can be ennobled by it. Suffering, he says, sets people on a distinct course, "dragging them deeper into themselves, finding new resources, discovering they are not who they believed themselves to be." As suffering gives a sense of our limits, insight into what we can control and what we can't control, Brooks believes that such insight can lead to a sense of call, "a sense that people are at a deeper level than the level of happiness and individual utility. They don't say, "Well, I'm feeling a lot of pain over the loss of my child. I should try to balance my hedonic account by going to a lot of parties and whooping it up." The right response to this sort of pain is not pleasure. It's holiness."

How many times have you heard the word holiness raised in a major newspaper, of anywhere in the media, or anywhere besides church? And it come just in time for Holy Week, a week set apart to explore the mystery of God's suffering.

We all know suffering. None of us go looking for it. All of us occasionally cause it in the lives of others. Each of us have to navigate our way through it. We worship a God who came among us to show us the way. That way has to do with love and grace. Pray your way through Holy Week, as we look suffering straight on, affirming the mystery that God's son himself suffered. God is well acquainted with the topic, and in some way, in the economy of faith, that mystery leads to a miracle, a way of life and peace. Let your prayer shape your believing this Holy Week, bringing confidence in the hope that will arise next Sunday.

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, April 7, 2014

It's a joy to travel to meet interesting people in interesting places in this new work I'm doing. It's also a joy to come home, the experience enriched by the unfettered, exuberant greeting which I get from our dogs when I walk in the door. Their excitement makes me feel swell. (Truth be told, I get just about the same reaction whether I'm gone for a week or if I just run out to the grocery store for a quart of milk. Dogs may be high on the ladder of spiritual evolution, but they lack a sense of time, which in this case, works to my favor.) On occasions when I've been asked to cite examples of unconditional love, I have noted the reaction of my dogs. I may have to rethink that.

Last week, I attended a conference with a variety of interesting speakers who spoke on the theme of our identity, specifically our identity as Christians. Woven throughout these conversations, a mosaic of perspectives, atheists and believers exploring the challenge of being a person of faith these days, was the persistent call to discover our identity in the unconditional love of God. In other words, it was a conference about the meaning of grace. As one speaker stated, that grace is the solid rock on which we stand and all other ground is sinking sand.

One of the speakers was church historian, Dr. Ashley Null. He said something which made me perk up my ears (not unlike my dogs) and perhaps unleashed a new way of thinking about grace. He said that there is a difference between unconditional love and unconditional affirmation. He said we get unconditional affirmation from dogs. In my case, they extend that affirmation without the slightest knowledge of the inner workings of my heart, soul and mind, the good thoughts and the petty ones and the ones that are even more unseemly. That affirmation feels good, for sure. In that respect, it's a good thing. But it is not the same as unconditional love. And it may not be enough.

More from this speaker, who said: unconditional affirmation never challenges your right to see yourself as the center of the universe. Unconditional love is different. It calls us into relationship, calls us to surrender at least some of our illusory autonomy for the sake of knowing and being known by God, by neighbor. It accepts us where we are, but invites us to a new place. As Dr. Null said, grace is the power of God's Spirit wooing us homeward. It is an alluring not a compelling force, triggering a synergy by which the divine graceful love inspires gracious human love. It causes us to change. It causes us to grow.

I believe that for the healing and wholeness of our souls (another way of describing salvation), for the healing and wholeness of our world, we need unconditional love, not just unconditional affirmation. (Sorry, pups.) The upcoming week which we call "holy" celebrates the urgency of that deep human need. Its narrative, sorrow and love mingled, is offered as annual reminder that we are on the receiving end of unconditional love. The week describes God's persistent, alluring outreach to us, stretching out arms of love on the hard wood of the cross to draw us into saving embrace. Unconditional affirmation may come our way. But unconditional love provides the foundation for our identity.

As you prepare for Holy Week, give thanks for the love that surrounds us, depicted in the hymn text in the column on the left. That love meets us where we are, without condition, and calls us to a new place. Let that love be the strong foundation on which you walk this week. And see how you can share it.

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 31, 2014

Lessons from the coast

It's only a temporary housing solution for us, but for a season, my wife and I (accompanied by the blessed dogs) are enjoying living about two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. Not a bad interim solution. A great privilege, in fact. As long as this arrangement lasts, I've committed to checking out the beach each day I'm in town. Sometimes it's a long walk. Sometimes it's a glance, just to make sure it's still there. It can be an experience with spiritual implications (perhaps an occupational hazard). I'm not becoming one of those spiritual-not-religious folks who replaces church with worship of God in nature. But I can see how that happens, especially when I read about the failures of the church, and from time to time, see those failures in the mirror (NB: material for another Monday message.) Let's just say that having the beach in the neighborhood for a few months is a gift and it's teaching me lessons about the life of the spirit.

Lesson One: It's great.

Annie Lamott recently wrote a book that said prayer can be boiled down to three words: Thanks, help and wow. I confess that on a daily basis there is a wow factor for me as I make my way up the dunes and discover, again, the Atlantic Ocean unfolding before me. It's so big, so mysterious, so beautiful, and new every morning. On many days, as I catch the first view of that expanse, I find myself by myself audibly saying "Thank you", an expression which is probably more praise than gratitude (There is a difference). I almost can't help doing it, which is probably the way praise is meant to happen. On some days, the water is peaceful and calming. On some days, the power of the waves is awesome (in the true sense of the word) and every now and then fearsome. I'm wondering where you find the wow factor as you look around you. Take a moment today for praise. See how it shifts your day.

Lesson Two: It's always there.

On days that are full, I often walk to the end of the street after I pull into the driveway, to see what I can see of the sea after the sun has set. On nights when the moon doesn't shine, it can be really dark. Not much to look at. Then it's a matter of just listening. Interestingly enough, the waves break all night, whether I'm paying attention or not. That movement is constant, as it has been for thousands upon thousands of years. That constancy reveals something to me about the nature of God, always there, whether I acknowledge that holy presence and power or not. The life of the spirit is not contingent on my attentiveness to it. (Thank goodness for that, because I'm spiritually ADD.) Maybe that's what the trinity is about, the idea that community, that relationship, that love is always there. We are graciously invited into that relationship. Take a moment today to consider the abiding divine presence, there whether you pay attention to it, that wherever you are and whatever you go through, you have not been left alone.

Lesson Three: It's a mystery.

There is so much about the ocean that has to do with not knowing. (That's probably what made "Jaws" so scary.) What's just under the surface? There's a depth beyond our understanding. One seminary professor taught about the doctrines, the dogmas of the church, the ways we put the mystery of God into words and concepts and images. He said they are like buoys that float on the surface of the water. They are not the reality themselves, but they point us, they mark for us the depths beyond our vision or understanding. As such pointers, they tell us how to move forward. And the affirmation of our faith, perhaps the greatest mystery of all, is that at the heart of the mystery, there is relationship. There is community. There is love. Take a moment today to recognize the holy mystery in which we live, and the ways that love has been revealed, especially in the person of Jesus, the one we follow in this season of Lent, the one who shows us what the mystery looks like in real life.

For what it's worth, those are lessons I'm learning from where I'm living. As you move through final weeks of Lent, as we move to Holy Week, take a moment today to the lessons the world is teaching you. Praise God for those lessons.

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 24, 2014

Rear view mirror

As I think about my own spiritual journey, as I've had the privilege of talking with others about their spiritual journeys, I've come to believe that sometimes the best way to make sense of the present and to move forward into a future is by looking in the spiritual rear-view mirror, seeing where we've been, how we've been led, how God has acted. The power of that perspective came to mind this past week, prompted by readings suggested for each day in the Book of Common Prayer. That lectionary takes us these days to the book of Genesis, and the story of Joseph, a novella found in chapters 37-50. This is Joseph of amazing technicolor dream coat fame. Indeed his story is so engaging that it provided fodder for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. If you've never done so, take the time to read Joseph's story. It's a roller coaster journey for sure.

It's been said that the Bible is just a story of sibling rivalry. There are many examples of how that is true, beginning earlier in the book of Genesis with the struggle between Cain and Abel. It's definitely true of Joseph and his brothers. As a boy, Joseph the dreamer annoyingly, cloyingly paraded his favorite-son status in front of his 11 siblings. It made them want to kill him. Instead, they sold him into slavery in Egypt. A low point. Joseph rose as a slave to a position of prominence. Joseph ascendant. But then was falsely accused of a crime and thrown in prison. Joseph on the skids. In prison, his gifts as interpreter of dreams caught the attention of the Pharoah. Joseph back in the game. He was elevated to become C.O.O. of the nation, wisely guiding the country through a time of famine. Then his brothers show up, asking for help because their nation was in the grip of famine. They don't recognize their brother. Joseph knows who they are, and has it in his power to exact revenge. Instead, he rescues his family from starvation. At the end of the story (sorry if I'm ruining it for you), Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers. They freak. Will he treat them as they treated him? Joseph takes a look back at his own journey, how the twists and turns have brought him to this moment and says to his brothers: "You meant it to me for evil, but God meant it to me for good." A crazy journey marked by head-spinning highs and lows, which Joseph would not have chosen, which no one could have predicted, but which gave meaning to his life, with all its challenges. It led to new life.

Lent, this season of self-examination, is a time for the retrospective view. It's an occasion to do what the children of Israel do throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, which is to remember how God acted on their behalf. It's a season to do what we do every time we gather for eucharist (a word which means thanksgiving), thinking about the grace and goodness we have received because Christ came to live among us and gave himself for us. The retrospection is not nostalgia, harping back to good old days. It's not resentment, feeling again the slights that have come our way. Instead, it reminds us of who God is and how God acts, when the changes and chances of life sometimes cause us to forget that. In other words, it helps us move forward.

The present moment can seem perplexing. Perhaps that's how you feel this Monday morning. The future can seem uncertain. We have no idea what will happen in the next five minutes. In order to move forward in the journey with strength and courage, with love in our hearts, we need to be reminded of the ways God has acted with grace and generosity in our lives. Take some time to look in that rear-view mirror, to write your spiritual autobiography. (Bullet points are fine.) Has God been at work in your life, in your choices, in the things others have done to you, for good or ill? How so? Have you been led? What (or who) were the instruments of that guidance? Can you identify even the slightest divine intervention? I'm guessing it's been there. Give thanks for these moments. Let the experience of those moments provide the energy and the guidance you need to move forward faithfully today.

And check out the story of Joseph. It's a good read.

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 17, 2014

What I'm working on

This Lent (and hopefully beyond), my spiritual practice is to focus on three things. Emphasis is on practice because I need to get better at each one of these. The longer I'm on this spiritual journey, the more distance I realize I need to cover, the more work there is to be done, the more learning lies out there, the more room there is to grow.

These three tools help me focus my ADD soul, my monkey mind. I share them selfishly, because if I put them in writing and send them out to a bunch of people, I automatically get some accountability about trying to live them out. And maybe there will be some resonance with the challenges and opportunities of your spiritual journey this Monday morning.

Here they are, slightly alliteratively presented:

1. Say thanks: 

Approach the day noting with gratitude the gifts that surround me. I can all too quickly focus on the reasons why things aren't the way I may have imagined or hoped, stuck in a loop of regret or resentment (literally "feeling again). So I'll try each morning to name at least five things for which I am grateful. The intentionality shifts the thinking, and just maybe changes the course of the day. As biblical warrant, hear what the Spirit is saying through scripture:

Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me. (Psalm 50:23a)

2. Savor the day:

Realize that today, March 17, 2014, is the only March 17, 2014 I'll ever have. How will I use it? How will I make the most of it? The answer does not necessarily connote activity or accomplishment, though it might. It does call for mindfulness of the gift of time, the present that is the present. It might be that the best use of the day would be to sit in silence the whole time I'm awake. That probably ain't gonna happen (After all, it is St. Patrick's Day!) but the point is, it's as much about being as doing. As biblical warrant, hear what the Spirit is saying through scripture:

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)

3. Serve somebody somehow: 

Ask each morning for the Holy Spirit to lead in a path of service, eyes open to opportunities to think less about how others can be useful to me, and more about how I can be useful, helpful, healing to somebody else. It may be somebody I know. It may be somebody I'm meeting for the first time. It may be some Mother Teresa/Pope Francis noble act of charity, touching the untouchable. It may be a simple act of courtesy, allowing someone to cut in line in traffic, thanking the person at the supermarket checkout, complimenting the barista, being kinder to someone in my family. As biblical warrant, hear what the Spirit is saying through scripture:

Happy are those who consider the poor; the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble. (Psalm 41:1)

That's what I'm working on this Lent, my practice,  a work in progress, a life-long pilot project. How about you?

- Jay Sidebotham

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org
www.forwardmovement.org

MONDAY MATTERS
Reflections to start the week
Monday, March 10, 2014

Reading other people's mail

It's bad form, but you can learn stuff by reading other people's mail. A while ago, a colleague gave me a copy of a letter written in the 1930's by Evelyn Underhill to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang. (Is that a cool name for an archbishop or what?) You may or may not know Evelyn Underhill. You might know Archbishop Lang  because he's the guy who shows up to do weddings at Downton Abbey. For my money, the more interesting of the two is Evelyn Underhill, writer, mystic, pacifist, Christian who thought a lot about spiritual practices. She wrote the Archbishop to express concern about the state of the church in her day. Focus had been lost. The church stood in need of renewal. She longed for a renewal of the "great Christian tradition of the inner life", a renewal that would take place among both clergy and lay people.

As I read this letter, I imagined the voice of Maggie Smith reading this hard hitting letter to the Archbishop, which begins with the words "May it please your grace", and perhaps a classic, withering Maggie Smith eye-roll. One line in the letter in particular leapt out at me. She wrote:

God is the interesting thing about religion and people are hungry for God.

She went on to say that the real hunger among the laity is not for halting attempts to reconcile theology and physical science, but for the deep things of the Spirit. It was so simple, so obvious, so bald, so bold. God is the interesting thing about religion. Did it even need to be said? Apparently so. Apparently the Archbishop, presumably an authority on things religious, needed to hear it. Maybe I do too, because the fact is that I spend a lot of life as a functional atheist, forgetting that God is there, that God is love, acting as if I'm in charge. Evelyn, write me a letter.

Welcome to this first Monday in the season of Lent. It's an opportunity to go deep in the life of the Spirit. Amid all the distractions, how might we return to the basics, to the understated recollection that God is the interesting thing about religion, that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God? What will you do to address that hunger? It's not too late in the season to adopt a spiritual practice, practice in the sense of committing to practical action, practice in the sense of getting better, going deeper as you do.

Don't think badly of me, but here's another impactful letter I read that was not addressed to me. It is St. Paul's letter to the Philippians, a letter that talks about the spiritual journey and how we can go deeper in that journey.  In it, Paul expresses this aspiration: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

This morning, what would you say is the interesting thing about religion?

- Jay Sidebotham

PS: A reading of Evelyn Underhill's letter in its entirety is well worth your time. Google "Evelyn Underhill letter to Archbishop" or some such and you should find it pretty easily. Let me know what you think. 

Contact:

Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
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