Consider the Flowers

in , , , ,
Rock garden.

As you are sitting on that large and sturdy rock from yesterday’s meditation, I want to invite you to notice the small flowers springing up from the ground at the base of the rock. 

Can you see them?

Take a moment to really look at those flowers. What colors are they? Are there different kinds? What are their petals like? What about their centers? What are their stems like? What do you notice about the soil they grow from?

Sit with the image for a few moments and really notice the flowers growing below you. Then consider Jesus’ words: 

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin.

— Matthew 6:28

The flowers are quite beautiful, aren’t they? And they are beautiful simply doing what they do: growing from the ground, being gorgeous and worthy of our care and admiration without even trying. 

You are beautiful that way too. 

Can you allow yourself to receive that same care and admiration from God as you sit upon that rock, simply for existing and being who you are? 

How Do You Experience God's Love?

in , ,

Today I had planned to share a video clip of one of my favorite songs with you that talks about God’s love. It’s a song that I play on repeat pretty often inside my home, and the words from some of the verses offer deep and helpful meditations on the nature of God’s love for us. Sometimes I like to steep inside that knowledge, so I play the song over and over.

However, the more I looked at each video clip available for that song, the less that offering felt right for today.

Instead, I began to wonder: how do you experience God’s love?

Rather than offer you a song and words that declare God’s love for you (which may be a great offering for another day), let’s first spend time reflecting on the way we experience that reality.

Do you, in fact, experience that reality? What does love look like to you, and how is your current connection to God a reflection — or not a reflection — of that experience?

God Adores You

in , ,

This morning I caught a glimpse of how much God adores you. 

You may know that Kirk and I have two kitties — their names are Solomon and Diva — who bring a lot of delight and laughter into our household. They also teach me a lot about God on a regular basis. For instance, I wrote once that Diva is my teacher on contemplative prayer. 

Sometimes in the morning, when I sit at my desk, Diva will follow me there and beg for attention. 

I can hardly resist petting her, and sometimes she makes it impossible for me to do anything else. She’ll circle around at my feet, make little squawking noises, look up at me with her plaintive blue eyes without blinking, stand on her hind legs and paw my arm, or jump directly onto my lap without any warning. 

She knows exactly what she wants, and she’s not afraid to ask for it.

Sometimes her persistence and fearlessness teach me how we’re welcome to approach God, but this morning, on the flip side, I caught a glimpse of God’s great love for us.

Like I said, I can hardly resist petting Diva — not only because she makes it nearly impossible to avoid, but also because I delight in her so much. I find her beautiful. I love stroking her soft fur. Her blue eyes always arrest me. Her vulnerability only increases her preciousness to me. 

But there’s something about Diva, being a cat, that will never fully satisfy my own desire for love while loving her. She loves me, but in a trusting, dependent kind of way. She can’t reciprocate — fully — the love I feel for her, and she never will.

I think that’s part of the joy God had in creating you and me. 

Just as parents pour out love for their children in abundance and selflessness over years, I can imagine there comes a point in time when their joy becomes even more full when their children start to love them from a place of maturity, as adults. The parent begins to receive love not simply for having been parents but also for who they are. What grace.

God must have felt pride and incredible affection for all he had created in the world before humans came into the mix. But once humans entered in, the potential for requited love did too. We can talk and reason and relate and grow in maturity and our capacity for love. 

I think the potential for receiving that kind of reciprocal love from us really excites God. 

Given the love and joy that overflow out of my heart toward Diva each day, I know that God dearly adores you. But even more than that, I know he’s eager to enjoy the mutuality of love that is uniquely possible with you as a human being.

In light of that, what kind of response can you offer God today? What does it look like for you to enjoy your uniquely human ability to talk and be in relationship with God right now?

If Only They Knew How Amazing You Are

in

I love this time of year.

I love the variation of colored lights in all the neighborhoods. I love the colder weather that requires sweaters, scarves, and coats. I love the smell of a fire burning in a chimney in some house further down my brick-lined street.

I love wrapping gifts and stacking them in neatly arranged piles. I love addressing cards by hand and affixing them with postage stamps, then dropping them through the proper slot at the busy post office. I love the bustle of a store full of people shopping for the special someones in their lives.

I love watching Patrick Stewart’s version of A Christmas Carol. I love cozying up in pajamas while Christmas music fills the house with soft melodies. I love the Christmas incense smells. I love watching the person I most love open the gifts I picked especially for him and read the words I wrote only for him.

But this time of year also comes with its share of anxiety-provoking moments.

During these days we dress up for holiday gatherings. We descend on spaces full of people we know and don’t know. We catch up with folks we haven’t seen all year. We put our best foot forward in the way we look and the things we say. 

These moments are hard for me.

Perhaps they are hard for you, too. If so, I hope the following words encourage you.

Earlier this year, a dear friend of mine spent extended time at a retreat with a group of women she didn’t know. She went as a favor to someone she loves. About halfway through the first evening, she sent me a text message that said being with this group of strangers was hard. She felt unknown and unseen, and there was still a full day left to go. 

After thinking for a moment, I replied with the most sincere words I knew to say: 

If only they knew how amazing you are. 

I knew that any person in that room, if they really knew my friend, would count themselves lucky to know her. I knew this because it’s the way I feel about knowing her. I am lucky to know who she really is.

In the last week or so, I’ve had my share of awkward moments, social anxiety, and self-doubt in large social settings. I’ve dressed up for holiday gatherings and wondered if I looked okay. I’ve entered spaces full of people, unsure whether I would know anyone else. I’ve introduced myself to strangers and scrambled to keep the conversation going. I’ve wondered if what I had to say was interesting at all.

Read More

Dying Means Adoring Him Utterly

in , ,

In late August, Kirk and I joined a contemplative prayer group through a local Catholic church that is walking through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius over a nine-month period. Each day, we are given a passage of scripture to read and then asked to engage in a prayer exercise concerning the passage. Then on Monday nights, we meet in small groups to discuss our experiences with each exercise.

Toward the end of this past week, one of the prayer exercises concerned a passage in Ezekiel. It was a rather lengthy passage in Ezekiel 16 that describes God’s relationship with Israel from her infancy as a nation through her growing-up years and on into adulthood in a covenant relationship with him.

Truthfully, it is a rather graphic passage, full of visceral and sensual images. For instance, Ezekiel describes the way God found Israel as an infant, abandoned on the side of the road naked and covered in blood. Passing by, God looks at Israel lying there and says to her, “Live and grow!” So she does. 

Years later, God comes upon Israel a second time. She has reached “the ripe age for love” and is yet still naked and alone. So God throws his cloak around her, choosing her for himself. He cleans her up and dresses her in his finest linens. He puts rings on her fingers and jewels around her neck. He feeds her with his choicest foods and then places a crown on her head. He has fitted her to be his queen. 

And then the story turns.

Read More

Of Stars and Wildernesses

in , , , , , , ,

As an intern spiritual director, I have a supervisor I visit once a month. She is there to provide support for me in my work with individuals on their spiritual journeys, and she is truly a gift from God. 

Usually during our sessions together, we talk about my growing edges as a director, the places where I stumble or falter when working with others and the places I’m finding my stride. But this particular time, we ended up just talking about me. Not me in the role of director, but me as Christianne.

I found myself telling her about my struggles through the dying process, and specifically my struggle to feel surrounded and loved by God and others. I told her I feel alone and that I wished there were more people I could look to for guidance on how to do this. I told her that I feel the need to be strong in all my respective spheres of life, and I shared examples of how that shows up in my life right now. I told her that this need to be strong and have something to offer feels particularly pronounced for me right now.

Read More

How Does the Beloved Learn to Die?

in , , ,

When I look out over the landscape of my spiritual journey for the past ten years, I can see that it has been one long journey into the depths of my belovedness in God.

As I share on my About page, this process began with one simple, honest prayer: “God, I don’t understand my need for grace or my need for Jesus Christ. Please, help me understand.” God heard that prayer and began to teach me. He helped me get to know the heart of Jesus I’d never seen before in the Gospels. He led me to the practice of contemplative prayer that brought incredibly healing mercies into my heart and life through the presence and words of Christ spoken directly to me. He brought communities of quirky, idiosyncratic people into my life that taught me about God’s delight in the variety of humanity and the grace and love that can be found in imperfection. He brought individuals into my life that would change me forever, simply by sharing the journey in love with me and letting me share the journey in love with them.

It has not been an easy road by any means — one’s deep-seated propensity for perfectionism and performance is not something unlearned overnight or even over a period of years — but I would not trade this long and determined road to learning the truth of God’s grace and love for anything at all. Through it, I have found freedom and joy. Through it, God claimed my heart for himself.

I thought for the longest time that this was the fullness of life God has for us: the learning of our belovedness. Through my own process of growth, I have seen that this learning brings about the fruits of unabashed love for God and great, compassionate love for others — the two prongs of faith Jesus said we are meant to be about (Matthew 22:36-38).

And to some extent, I still think this is the cornerstone of our faith that must undergird everything else. If we don’t experience the truth of our belovedness, then all that we say we believe will be mere words we recite because it is knowledge in our heads, not in our hearts, and we will find ourselves moving toward God and others because it is what we know we’re supposed to do, not because we can’t help ourselves from doing it. If we don’t experience our belovedness, we won’t have a well from which to draw out love and offer it back to God or extend it to others. The experience of our belovedness in the deepest places of our entire being is where the faith journey must take its root.

But I’ve recently been learning there is more.

Read More