During the Lenten Season, I have a couple of 'go to' resources that I use for meditation, reflection and prayer. One is the Lenten booklet made available every year by the United Church of Canada. This year's booklet, Longing For Home is a wonderful collection about being at home in God's presence and working with God to create a just world where all God's people and creatures can be at home. The weekly online reflections by Gary Paterson, Moderator of the UCC are an added bonus this year.
Another resource is Around A Thin Place; a small book of reflections from the Iona community. I've always felt a certain 'kinship' with writings from Iona. Iona is an island off the coast of Scotland where for centuries pilgrims have traveled in search of the sacred. St. Columba, a 6th century Irish monk established a monastery there and since that time, there has been some form of Christian community on the island. What I like about the Iona community is that it links prayer, worship and spiritual renewal with the work of acting for peace and justice in the world. The term 'thin place' is a Celtic way of describing those times and places when the separation between the material and the spiritual, the secular and sacred is paper thin. The prayers and meditations from Iona remind me to be open to the 'thin' places in my own environment and in daily life. Here's a prayer that invites me to be open to the sacred in the everyday.
We thank you, God, for the enchanting.
For the things that pluck us
out of our everyday experience -
however briefly -
and tantalise us with glimpses of mystery.
For extraordinary wonders of angels,
shooting stars, impossible coincidences,
and things that go bump in the night.
And for ordinary wonders;
such as the way a plain cheese sandwich
seems like a gourmet banquet
when carried for miles and eaten outside.
Ordinary, extraordinary God,
thank you for reminding us that the world, and you,
are bigger than we can possibly imagine.
(Jane Bentley)
A third resource is a compilation of readings and meditations by Christian mystics edited by Matthew Fox, a contemporary mystic, theologian and spiritual teacher.
Today, my attention turned to this meditation by Meister Eckhart. Eckhart was born around 1260, in or near Erfurt which lies midway between Munich and Hamburg and north-east of Frankfurt, probably in a village called Tambach. He is thought to have entered the Dominican Priory in Erfurt as a novice when he was fifteen years old. He went on to become a Parisian Professor of Theology and took a leading role in the Dominican Order. His writings have a depth and universality that have appealed to Christians and non-Christians down through the ages.
Here's the quote I read today; an insightful comment for the Lenten Season:
God neither heeds nor needs vigils, fasting, prayer, and all forms of mortification in contrast to repose. God needs nothing more than for us to offer a quiet heart. Then God accomplishes in the soul such secrets and divine deeds that no creature can serve them or even add to them...The divine nature is repose and God seeks to draw all creatures with [him] back again to their origin which is repose.
Eckhart's quote struck a chord in me because I can quickly turn the Lent into a time of busyness and 'fussing'. I often don't take time for repose; time to rest my heart and mind in God's presence. I worry about things that don't need to be worried about, I stew about decisions I've made or about the future yet to come. And in doing so, I can stray from the One who can quiet my heart and mind; the One in whom is peace. Today in EMUC's Lenten discussion and study group, I remarked that during Lent I'd like to leave behind 'fussing'. I laughed when I noted later this afternoon, that one of the members of the study group taped the word 'fuss' to my office door as a reminder of my Lenten commitment. It is good to be part of a community where we support one another in our commitments as together we make this Lenten pilgrimage with Jesus.
Peace, Kathy Toivanen
Friday Message