iBelin

Where Shall I Read on Mondays?

// June 30th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Nashville

Mondays at the Downtown Public library are now like Mondays at my favorite eatery in East Nashville (which shall remain nameless as I do not wish to find you, dear reader, occupying my preferred seat…): closed.  This is sad news.  Sad because Mondays are the days when I have decided to read all the periodicals I do not want strewn across my desk, den or bathroom floor.  Reading periodicals in the Downtown Public Library forces upon me a discipline I cannot muster at home.  I make excellent notes and record reference information with efficiency.  This prevents me from having to remember which page of which periodical in which pile in which room is that bit of information for which I am desperate.  Too, subscriptions are expensive.  Of course, some of these are available online, but to be in the company of other readers and those seeking shelter offers a rich bite of community.

Being in the Library is like being in a favorite restaurant, though conversation is not as welcomed or expected.  Still, catching the eye of one, like you, who knows the great joy of public reading spaces is warming in an odd sort of way.  It is to share a precious secret hideaway in plain view.  Only very briefly do you allow yourself to wonder why more people are not aware of this refuge and the refreshment it provides to so many in so many different ways.  Inside your head, the movement of the idea to compel folk from the hedges and highways to come into this fold die for want of a second.  For here, too, you find a preferred seat.

While I still am perplexed at Nashville’s architectural predilection for some idealized bygone era over against an awe-inspiring articulation that portends our promising future, I love the beautiful spaces in the Downtown Public Library.  The Grand Reading Room is exquisite and could charm the most obdurate among us into reading.  A lovely courtyard provides respite for eyes weary from moving across the page, a perfect spot for a sandwich and a picturesque site for lush conversation.  Nooks here and there woo you to nestle in them with some deliciousness.

For want of money, the Downtown Public Library now provides neither shelter, refuge nor sustenance on Mondays.  Others will remain open, but what a sad and unwelcoming site those closed doors on Church Street will be as people seek to welcome the opportunities and possibilities of a new week.  As with other adjustments we have made because of similar constraints, we will persevere through this one and, hopefully, find in it the opportunity to open spaces in our homes and hearts we, perhaps, have only just now become aware are needed.

You can read the article from the Tennessean by clicking here .

Laughter, Wonder and Creativity

// June 30th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

Laughter, wonder and creativity are a powerful combination.  Laughter, wonder and creativity work together to birth something from nothing. These creative powers within us are ignited when we are looking for answers.  These powers burn with passion in the dance of doubt and faith, and their struggle to determine who will lead.

In laughter, wonder and creativity lie the power to create your own life.  Some people spend a lifetime searching rather than creating, rather than imaging and becoming…

Sometimes we have to break rules in order to be all that God has intended and has made possible for us.  What rules are you confined by?  What perceived limitations have you bound?  What chains are fettering you?  Laughter, wonder and creativity can break any chain!  Do not fight against them, they use the force of your struggling against you…
Just stand back and laugh at the rule.
Laugh at the limitations.
Laugh at the chains.
Laugh at the naysayers.
Laugh at sticks in the mud.
Laugh at the negative comments.
Laugh at yourself.

Laughter, wonder and creativity are a powerful combination.

LAUGHTER is
to loosen up
not to take yourself so seriously
to free yourself from the boxes we too often live in
to explode categories
to take off tradition
to transgress boundaries
Laughter is the freedom
to see
to dream
to vision
Laughter is the nerve
to reframe
to redefine
Laughter is loosening your halo a bit

WONDER is
to live a life of miracles
to sit by the water
to listen to the birds sing
to pay attention to the phases of the moon
to hear Leontyne Price sing
to watch a mother as she watches her child
to open the eyes of your heart to the move of God
to hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees
to see bushes burning
to meet God in a furnace
to trust God no matter what
to see how we are connected
to let yourself be yourself
to see from the aspect of God
to look for something you’ve never considered before
to hear almost an entire Pre-K VBS school class in crying in solidarity with one another for no apparent  reason until they simply got tired (this really happened).
to read poetry
to experience spoken word
to know there is more to us than what we see
to ask “is there anything to wonderful for the Lord?  Can there be anything to marvelous for God to accomplish?”
to sing, “He’s a wonder in my soul…”

CREATIVITY is
to bring forth something out of nothing
to make something new from disparate parts
to birth
to give life
to meet needs
to answer a question
to provide a solution
to come to life
to create your own life
to write your own story
to bring visions to reality
to be filled with the Holy Ghost
to bear much fruit
to love someone back to health
to lead someone into a relationship with God
to come to wholeness
to birth that sparkle in your eye into a creation
to be a conduit of God’s power
to manifest the Glory of God
to emulate His Excellence
to become the Story you’ve been longing to tell

Laughter, wonder and creativity are a powerful combination.  Prove it!

“Tell the Story!”

// June 29th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // storytelling

Storytelling is powerful.  I remember hearing, when a preacher was particularly passionate in her/his unfolding of the narrative that made up his/her sermon, those in whom the narrative had resonance shout, “Tell the story!”  This witnessing, this cosigning, as it were, is really the sounding of a chord struck within the heart of the listener.  Something in that story unfolding from the pulpit is speaking life to the one doing all that talking back to the pulpit.

It is a quickening, a life-giving experience to hear your story told, even to hear a scene of your life echoing in the life-story of another.  It is almost as if someone were peering into the window of your soul, elevating, making poetry of your secrets, singing the secrets of your soul…

• Telling the story is to affirm the lived experience of folk with some shared history.
• Telling the story is to lift the common, the mundane to the level of the spiritual.
• Telling the story is to bring into community those once isolated by the details of their lives.
• Telling the story is to restore those whose lives have been depleted, whose circumstances have siphoned off the force/fuel of their lives.
• Telling the story is to seek out and to settle lost ones into a sense of belonging.
• Telling the story is to repair those formed by a myriad of wrongs.
• Telling the story is to participate in making the wounded whole.
• Telling the story is to raise up those murdered by transgressions.
• Telling the story is to instruct the hearer, to inform the listener.
• Telling the story gives us the opportunity to see the world from the perspective of (an)other.
• Telling the story gives faith a vehicle, a means of transportation, a way to travel from one heart to another.
• Telling the story plants hope in the belly of the despairing.
• Telling the story has the power to resuscitate, revive, regenerate, rejuvenate, revitalize…
• Telling the story has the power to resurrect, to bring people back to life from the silence of death, from the death of silence.

Telling the story is powerful even when the story is a tragic story.  The poet Robert Pinsky in reviewing Kathryn Harrison’s book, “While They Slept: An Inquiry Into the Murder of a Family,” says that “the violations that destroy human lives, or maim them, seem to demand telling.  Possibly we seek such stories as ways to understand our smaller, more ordinary losses and griefs.”  Pinsky says that “literature…manifest[s] a profound hunger for narrating what is called, paradoxically, the unspeakable.”  Such narratives bring to our ears, to our hearts, “…the unspeakable isolation of ruptured lives, and the reparative need to speak of that isolation… [Telling the story] brings moral clarity to the dark fate of a family: the daylight gaze of narrative itself as a form of empathy.”   And this is a certain power of story, to give the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

It is the unspoken-ness our lives’ challenges and tragedies that empower them to be perpetuated in the lives of others, our neighbors, our children.  It is our silence, our unwillingness to speak about, to give voice to our tragedies that cause us to remain alone, apart from others, from family, from community.  Telling the story is to rejoin community.

Telling the story is powerful but not easy.  Telling the story is coming to strength.  You have a story to tell.  You need to tell it and we need to hear it.

Moleskine: An Encomium

// June 25th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized

The Moleskine Journal . When I first started using these quite a few years ago, I only saw them with black hard covers. Later I saw and acquired them with paper covers in black and the brown of a paper bag. Both still have the handy-dandy pocket in the back. My very first was a black hard cover with the very cool and useful elastic strap which tells the world the great importance of the contents it secures. It’s presence on the journal invites us to stick stuff between the pages: receipts, papers scraps with scribbles, an emergency $10 bill, articles stealthily ripped from magazines which do not belong to us, but no newspaper clippings as these are now stuck in Evernote whilst* we read our beloved NYTimes online.

Lines and grids are found in some Moleskines, but not in any of mine! I am uncertain what condition these guides comfort – I do not have such a condition.

These days Moleskines don covers of different colors and I have recently welcomed red and green ones into my life. However, I am giving most of my time to my blue. We have become quite close. It was the blue which recently and firmly nudged me through sermon transitions.

I wonder how many Moleskines have graced pulpit desks as my blue did 2 Sundays back. I always type my notes but the new blue begged to be seen, to lay ‘pon the pulpit with its leaves pressed into place whilst* offering me points to move the message along.

The moleskine is not haughty but humbly bears the occasional phone number or grocery list, though it silently prefers list of books waiting to be read and secrets we secretly want known.

I love my Moleskines. The Molekines in our back pockets call out to ideas, innovations and inspiration alerting them that we, the bearers, have open ears, eyes and hearts open and ready to absorb, experience awe and wonder in all. But more than this, the Moleskine impresses upon the muses that we are good stewards of what we receive.

*Do try to use the word "whilst" at least three times in the course of normal conversation today and PLEASE let me know what kind of responses you get. To increase the fun factor, give that final "t" on it all you’ve got: "whilsT"

How Is Your Soul Doing?

// June 22nd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Weekly review

How is your soul doing? Let’s start asking this question of ourselves and each other at least once a week. The soul is easy to ignore because it’s not visible to us. But the soul really governs our lives. Our inner life determines our outer life.

A Little History:
Many Methodists group members of their congregations into nurture / fellowship groups called classes. The main goal of the class to discern how each member is growing in their life with Christ and in relationship with others. This is a time of close examination, deep reflection, and passionate conversation. This weekly meetings provide inspiration and, when necessary, serious correction.

The ‘Class Meeting’ is very old and some have long abandoned the practice. The demands of modern life seem to make such an idea impractical. Moreover, folk don’t want others so intimately acquainted with their ‘business.’ However, there is no denying that regular examination of our inner life and how it affects our outer life is vitally important.

Practice
Let’s start with these questions (we can refine them on the journey):

• How is your soul doing?
• How are you progressing in the life of faith?
• What have you learned about yourself? Is what you’ve learned about yourself something to keep and emphasize or something to get rid of?
• Have you read and studied and absorbed meaning from the Bible?
• Have you put what you’ve learned into practice?
• How much time have you spent with God? Have you been in constant conversation?
• Are you feeling guilty about anything?
• Have you treated your family, friends and your neighbors right?
• What has made you happy?
• How are you doing on the love and laughter meter? Laughing much?
• How much have you been putting in your love bank?
• Are you giving love abundantly?
• How have you been a blessing to others?
• Is there anyone, including yourself, you need to forgive?
• Do you need to ask forgiveness of anyone for something you’ve done or left undone?
• Are you working to mark your corner of the world a better place?
• Are you making time to be quiet and still each day?
• Is your faith growing?
• Are you paying attention to what voice you’re listening to?
• Are you in a happy place? If not, can you do anything about it?
• Do you have peace? Joy? Love?
• What have you done for YOU lately?

"How is your soul doing?" is a question we should ask ourselves regularly. It would be even more wonderful to get together with someone who is growing in the faith for mutual encouragement and accountability. God is bound to show up when a couple of people get together to pursue a closer relationship with Him and each other.

Maybe our schedules are not conducive to such a practice but the demands of life make this regular examination necessary. But more than this, our relationship with God and His people grow stronger and stronger when set our intentions on Him.

So, leave a commment and tell me, how is your soul doing?

Stop and Smell the Flowers

// June 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

At the American Artisans Festival in Centennial Park, I saw this amazing flower.  It inspired me to share with you how important it is to stop and smell the flowers.  [How cool is it that I am writing a post on my iPhone and will upload it directly from here with my newly downloaded WordPress app. I'm loving this!]  Now to this lovely flower:

So, it’s not a real live fragrant flower but it did make me think. Taking the time to enjoy things of beauty feed the soul. With so much ugliness confronting us everyday, it’s a good idea to be intentional about feasting on things of beauty: song, poetry, art of all kinds, whatever inspires you or makes you smile.  Sure, you might look like the cornball to the right over here, but who cares?? Your soul needs beauty!

What beautiful things feed ur soul?

An Early Morning Prayer

// June 18th, 2009 // 37 Comments » // prayer

O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek thee… Psalm 63:1

O God, I come to you in the darkness of the morning

I come just as I am starting to hear the birds singing praise to you

I come before the phone starts to ring, before messages are texted or tweeted

I come to You, O God, before the flood of emails and voicemails

I come before I remember tasks left undone from yesterday

I come before the uncertainty of tomorrow becomes fear

I come before I try to live out my own plan

I come before temptation ripens

I come to You, O God, before competing voices can influence

I come before I can mistake my thoughts for Your voice

I come before I can remember all I want from you and all I want you to do for me

I come, early in this morning, to say I love You and I thank You for loving me

Thank you for giving me this day – now, I give it back to you:

live today in me

live through me

love through me

bless through me

empower through me

rescue through me

give joy through me

O God, I come to you in the darkness of the morning, like Jesus did, to make your will my will.

In His name,

AMEN

6 Ways to Simplify Your Life

// June 17th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Want to simplify your life? Trust God! You don’t have the physical stamina or the mental capacity to handle career, school, family, health, finances, secrets, failures, successes, enemies, loneliness, hopes, fears, relationships, aging, striving for love, hoping for peace, searching for joy and the unknown all by yourself.  Guess what? You are not supposed to!  You are not created to do it all.  You are created to rely on your Creator.

So, here are six ways to simplify your life:

1. Simplify your life by replacing worry with prayer.  Worry doesn’t help anything…least of all your forehead.  And, people won’t want to play with you.
2. Simplify your life by pleasing God and not trying to please others.  If you try to please people you will be pulled in all directions.  Your life is supposed to be pleasing to God.  This is where you find fulfillment.
3. Simplify your life by focusing on your goals and ignoring all negative criticism.  If you give time to the haters, your goals will always be far away.  Let the haters do what they do.  You do what you do!
4. Simplify your life by minding your own business.  Get it?
5. Simplify your life by cleaning out the clutter of anxiety and stress.  Whatever/whoever is causing you stress needs to be fixed or banished.  Harsh ain’t it?  Remember, stress can kill you.  But you don’t have to let it.
6. Simplify your life by trusting God.  Trusting God is ultimate simplicity.