Category: Faith

Sabbath Quiet: Rooted

To be rooted is perhaps the most important but least understood need of the human soul. ~Simone Weil

For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour, of the day and of the night, hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth, and friends above, pleasures pure and undefiled,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For each perfect gift of thine, to our race so freely given, graces human and divine, flowers of earth and buds of heaven,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For thy Church which evermore lifteth holy hands above, offering up on every shore her pure sacrifice of love,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

~Folliot S. Pierpont

Photograph of Barrington, Rhode Island, where my roots keep drawing me back.

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Tags family, love, roots

Bible Studies Faith Life

Dream Keeper

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. ~Langston Hughes

A gift of dreams

It was a birthday gift, The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes–my first book of poems. Along with it, a black leather-bound volume of unspoiled pages, inscribed with these words, “The pages of this little book are filled with unwritten poems–your poems. May each be a true expression of what is in your soul.”

I thrilled to imagine myself as a poet, and spent long hours with paper and pencil stub in hand. But the book is not full, the last poem dated October, 1976. I’m not good at holding fast to dreams. I set them loose at the first sign of resistance.

Joseph, the dreamer

This summer I am writing a Bible study about Joseph, the one with a coat-of-many-colors. Joseph’s is a story shaped by dreams. Some are unspoken, like his brothers’ jealous longings, his father’s foolish hopes. But others are more literal–his vision of sheaves and stars and dominion, the Pharaoh’s troubled nightmares of cattle and corn.

And then there are God’s dreams. Joseph’s dreams almost kill him, the Pharaoh’s dreams lead to fortunes upended. But it is God’s dreams that steal the show. The nail-biter end of the story surprises me every time–in the fulfillment of God’s big plan, all lesser dreams come true as well.

I invite you to take a moment, away from demands; set aside the urgent and

Ask yourself :

What are God’s dreams for his world?
What dreams does he dream with you in mind?
What dreams do you hold close to your heart?
What dreams have you let go of before their time?
Have you let God be the Dream Keeper for you?

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Faith Life

15 Books That Found Me

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? …A book must be like an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us. ~Franz Kafka

Eugene Peterson shares Kafka’s startling thoughts in the opening pages of Eat This Book. The power of literature to leave us wrecked and shaken, or marvelously remade has been proven in me across a lifetime of inhaling words.

Hundreds of books have informed, intrigued or entertained me, but sometimes, with perfect timing, a book will plant itself like that ice-axe in my unsuspecting self, and I am changed.

I know I am not alone. Whose writing has crept up and caught you unaware?

I’ll start by sharing a necessarily incomplete list, in chronological order from childhood to today. Reading through the titles sends me on a fast-forward journey through the shattering and re-shaping of my heart by my story’s Author, who knew what was needed at each turn of the page.

15 Books that found me

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, by Langston Hughes
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown
Making All Things New, by Henri Nouwen
Inside Out, by Larry Crabb
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, by Eugene Peterson
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
Abba’s Child, by Brennan Manning
No Greater Love, by Mother Teresa
The Powers That Be, by Walter Wink
Lest Innocent Blood be Shed, by Philip Hallie
Embracing the Love of God, by James Bryan Smith
Descent into Hell by Charles Williams
The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Humility by Andrew Murray
The Gospel in Dostoyevsky, excerpts from the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky

I could easily keep going, but it’s your turn. What book has wakened you?

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Faith

Sabbath Quiet: Beauty’s Song

Post author By Janet Hanson
Post date June 3, 2012
2 Comments on Sabbath Quiet: Beauty’s Song

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from. ~C.S. Lewis

O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.

There go the ships and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand they are filled with good things.

When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.

When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.

May the glory of the LORD endure for ever; may the LORD rejoice in his works–who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD.

Psalm 104:24-35

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Faith Life

12 Ways To Live Truth

All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. ~G.K. Chesterton

An English teacher did not invent the sacred rule of fiction writing, Show, Don’t Tell.

God did.

It was his voice that first cried, “Don’t tell me what you believe is true, show me.” At the end of the journey we won’t be asked to recite a creed, we will listen to the story of our lives.

And as the plot unfolds, we will remember every moment, each encounter as a fork in the road. The tension will build as the story is told–did we walk in truth, or did we live a lie? Did we choose the path to the wisdom, character and purposes of God as revealed in Jesus, or did we pursue a dead end?

The road always divides, even now. At the end of this page an errand will be run, a person will walk in, a thought will cross our minds. If we listen carefully we can hear an urgent voice on the wind…live truth every moment of this day.

10 Ways to live truth

Choose mercy over judgment.
Choose kindness over indifference.
Choose generosity over greed.
Choose humility over self-importance.
Choose forgiveness over disengagement.
Choose trust over worry.
Be self-giving, not self-serving.
Be hospitable, not hostile.
Be an encourager, not a competitor.
Be slow to anger, not easily provoked.
Be teachable, not unyielding.
Say yes to God at every turn.

Which path will you take today?

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Matthew 25:31-46 James 2:26

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Faith

Sabbath Quiet: What God is Like

Post author By Janet Hanson
Post date May 27, 2012
2 Comments on Sabbath Quiet: What God is Like

The bridge of grace will carry your weight. ~Charles H. Spurgeon

Christ walked with men on earth that He might show them what God is like and make known the true nature of God to a race that had wrong ideas about him.

This was only one of the things He did while here in the flesh, but this he did with beautiful perfection.

From Him we learn how God acts toward people.

The hypocritical, the basically insincere, will find him cold and aloof, as they once found Jesus; but the penitent will find Him merciful; the self-condemned will find Him generous and kind.

To the frightened he is friendly, to the poor in spirit he is forgiving, to the ignorant, considerate; to the weak, gentle; to the stranger, hospitable.

The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him. To fear and not be afraid–that is the paradox of faith

A. W. Tozer The Knowledge of the Holy

Photograph by Kimberly Hanson

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Faith Life

What is Truth?

And diff’ring judgments serve to declare that truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where. ~William Cowper

I love truth. I imagine my role in life to be the troublesome child who announces that the emperor is wearing no clothes. Often, the “elephants” in the room are clearer to me than other humans nearby. I go for days accomplishing little because the inside of my brain resembles a disassembled toaster–nothing is left unexamined down to its smallest particle.

But, to my continual frustration, emperors avoid being faced with the obvious, elephants are perfectly comfortable where they are, and a toaster in pieces is not good for much.

Still, I am convinced of the beauty and priceless value of truth, and am ready and willing to do battle against its too common counterfeits:

Self-righteous offense–“How dare you believe differently!”
Pious platitude–“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hit you.”
Cynical sneer–“It amuses me to prove how deluded you are.”

Do you see yourself in any of those three? The tendency to moralize, to sentimentalize or to destroy any idea or thought left unguarded?

Or, to put it another way, is truth my fiercely guarded possession, silly putty to suit my fancy or a weapon of snarky destruction?

When I indulge in any of the three, I am holding truth hostage to lies.

What is truth? The Roman governor Pontius Pilate asked that question of Jesus, and it wasn’t because he was stupid or unfamiliar with the prevailing viewpoints of his day. There was a reason he failed to see.

And I think I know what it was. (To be continued…)

What have you noticed about truth’s counterfeits?

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Culture Faith Life

Truth and Love

The first reaction to truth is hatred. ~Tertullian

The relationship between Truth and Love is confusing. In a previous post, 7 Things Love is Not, I noted that biblical truth and love are inseparable twins. So why do I find it so difficult to live happily with both?

In recent years Truth has taken quite a beating.

What once was true is now in question, so you can no longer trust your beliefs.
What once was evident is now computer-edited so you can no longer trust your senses.
What once was reliable is now filtered and slanted, so you can no longer trust the facts.

Any truth left over, any perspective we all still share, is as tasty and invigorating as yesterday’s leftover coffee. We thirst for something so much better…

In contrast to tepid relativism, the Truth-tellers among us seem strident–more hostile and mean than accurate. Rigid lines are drawn and defined, with no middle ground, no grey areas allowed.

If the choices are Truth-as-hammer, or Truth-as-bias, most of us will choose neither. Both feel like the opposite of Love.

But the opposite of Truth is not love, it is lies. And the opposite of Love is not truth, it is indifference.

An indifferent liar is exactly what God is not. And therefore is the worst thing that we can be. So,

The impulse to pretend,
To refuse to care,
To keep our heads down and thoughts to ourselves is not from God and is not who he is.

The problem is not with Truth, the problem is with us. We’ve forgotten its meaning, we’ve misunderstood; we’ve become hardened, skeptical and afraid. But oh, the delight that awaits us when we rediscover Truth once more.

So, what is Truth? What do you think?

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Faith

Sabbath Quiet: Practice God’s Presence

Post author By Janet Hanson
Post date May 20, 2012
4 Comments on Sabbath Quiet: Practice God’s Presence

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. ~Brother Lawrence

Practice God’s Presence

Pray remember what I have recommended to you, which is, to think often on God, by day, by night, in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave Him not alone.

You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you; why then, must God be neglected?

Do not, then, forget Him, but think on Him often, adore Him continually, live and die with Him; this is the glorious employment of a Christian.

Brother Lawrence, from The Practice of the Presence of God.

Brother Lawrence c.1614-1691

Born Nicholas Herman, Brother Lawrence began his career as a soldier and footman. Unschooled, known to be clumsy and awkward, the young man entered a carmelite monastery in Paris as a lay brother, intending to sacrifice his life in penance for his faults and failures. Instead, Brother Lawrence found the joy and delight of living every moment, performing the most menial of tasks in the presence of, and for the love of, God.

Interlaken, Switzerland, photograph by Jamie Sladkey

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Culture Faith Life

Time and Eternity

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. ~Albert Einstein

We think we are time’s master and manager, but we live as if time has mastered us.

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis cleverly imagines the life of a Christian from the perspective of demons, relentlessly at work to pull us from the path of God. We want man hag-ridden by the Future, Screwtape, a Senior Tempter gloats. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy …(Letter #15)

Eighty years after that was written, I wonder if Screwtape has achieved his goal.

A moment in time

On a recent morning I stood in line at Starbucks. In front of me a family placed a lengthy, unhurried, exquisitely elaborate order. Impatient that the wait for a simple cup of coffee would take minutes, rather than seconds, I grimaced at the gentleman behind me. He smiled kindly and told me he never let such things bother him. Embarrassed, I let out the air of minor outrage.

We then engaged in a delightful conversation about coffee, family and life. It was a moment of connection that required both time and presence. And a decision on my part to stop being hag-ridden by the rest of my day.

We were made for more

Our Creator has made us for eternity, and the present moment is where time and eternity meet. The wily Screwtape knows that God wants us to concentrate on

“Obeying the present voice of conscience,
Bearing the present cross,
Receiving the present grace,
Giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

Planning for tomorrow, or the rest of today, is necessary, but we are not meant to give our hearts to a temporal future that does not even exist.

What keeps you from “receiving the present grace?” What have you learned to help us live in the present?

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