Monday, February 29

“Who is like the LORD our God, who sits enthroned on high, but stoops to behold the heavens and the earth?” (Psalm 113:5)

This Psalm 113 excerpt is a basis for my reflection: God “stoops to behold... the earth.”

I found this on Christmas Eve, in the booklet, “Forward Day by Day” in 2014.

It is rather simple, but for some reason it caught my attention and I find it very helpful in my “spiritual” life. The reflection is included in my morning prayers.

There are many issues which affect me. One is straightforward: God is here - He comes to us, all the time, in every way - He shares our life if we let him - He even has made the supreme Sacrifice by dying for us.

Then, three days later, Jesus comes back as a human to remain with us, sharing the Good News - the Gospel messages that God Loves us. 

Thus, this reflection is simply a reminder that no matter what happens, Jesus is here right alongside of me, sharing the good things in my life, and helping me over the bumps in my spiritual and physical lives.

The complete reflection from “Forward Day by Day” December 24, 2014:
God is infinitely beyond us but even so comes to us. 
God comes to us in ways we think we can understand. 
Jesus can laugh and can cry; He can and does speak;
He is able to embrace - and is also able to die on a cross. 
One who loves accepts equality with the beloved.
God’s love has no looking down on us.
God comes to us on “our” terms and in ways we can see and
understand.
God rejoices with us and suffers with us.
God doesn’t withhold from us, even when love requires sacrifice. 
Love is meant to be shared. Love offers freely, abundantly, and
never on condition.
Love speaks in ways the other can understand. Love is attentive to
the other and gives in ways the other most needs.
Love forgives the other’s shortcomings, without recalling old
mistakes.
Love raises the other up when fallen and delights in recovery. 
Love invites wonder and suggests new paths to explore.
God comes to us in love and moves us to love God’s many friends.


Charles A. Strauss of Nelson County, Virginia
Catholic Church of the Incarnation, Charlottesville, Virginia
  

Sunday, February 28 - The Third Sunday in Lent

SIGHS OF MERCY

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:26-28)

Paul’s letter to the Romans has many words of grace to bring us strength and peace. Within the wisdom of Romans we read how the Spirit helps us in our weakness: “for we do not know how to pray as we ought.”

It’s comforting to know that God knows our hearts and helps us through those times when we are too troubled, confused, or distracted to find the “right” words. Prayers come easily at times when we believe we know exactly what we want. When we worry about a health concern or other troubling matter, prayer can even help us sort things out - especially when we aren’t sure what the best answer should be.

But there are times we might feel so troubled or undeserving that we stand speechless before God. Paul’s good news to us proclaims that God loves us enough to help us through those times. When we can’t seem to find the words, our Advocate, the Spirit, intercedes for us, “with sighs too deep for words.” Just being there is enough. And that’s helpful when we stand beside others in their time of need. We don’t need to have the right words for every situation, because it is our presence with those we love that truly matters.

Merciful God, you sent your Spirit to be among us so that we would never be alone, especially during those times we feel helpless. Thank you for standing beside us, for your sighs of love and mercy, and for your guidance along life’s way. Amen.


The Rev. Keith Dey 
Pastor, Emanuel Lutheran Church 
Southern Shores, NC 

Saturday, February 27

I’M A STEAMROLLER FOR YOU, BABY

An image that has been useful to me in various situations is that of having my figurative brain/heart/soul rolled out as flat and wide as possible. Were I much of a cook, the image might include a rolling pin and cookie dough; instead, I picture a heavy, mechanical roller such as is driven over fresh asphalt in creating a new roadway or parking lot - or, in my vision, a huge playground.

One reason for spreading it far and wide is to squeeze out old assumptions, allowing room for fresh ways of seeing. That large surface area is meant to catch as many new ideas as can fall onto it. The process needs time and should happen without my interference. The desired result is that I am freed from thoughts that limit me - those arising from self-focused ruminations as well as our noisy, often skewed world - and become receptive to New Perspectives that I hope will better reflect the Love of God.

I don’t want to stay locked into the same ideas my whole life. While I believe every stage we go though is valid, I want to continually grow into a greater understanding of God’s Way. To the extent we can live IN the world, but not OF the world, perhaps we ironically will CHANGE the world to be more in accord with God’s will. Isn’t that what Jesus taught, what we’re supposed to be doing here?


Leckie Conners 

Friday, February 26

A WINTER WONDER

Gliding through the woods on a snowy winter’s day, 

A friend by my side but who I cannot say.

Deep in my own thoughts I almost missed the beauty, 

When suddenly I realized we had ceased our ascent to

marvel at the scenery.

Coming to a glen the skies opened with trees fading, 

Snow was falling silently, the hush I felt I was invading. 

Looking up I felt the snowflakes falling on my face, 

Looking down I saw myself upon the earth

knowing this is a special place.

The silence was like a blanket wrapping me inside, 

So heavy yet a feather weight I did not want to hide. 

The quiet so engulfing I heard the snowflakes alight, 

I knew in my heart I was with God at that moment

and He is always in my sight.

Jennifer Adams 

Thursday, February 25

A long time ago, in the 1930’s, I was born and raised in a small town in Northern Minnesota where my parents were both school teachers. I was taught by them values that they both lived and shared through example. These basic beliefs have helped me in my life journey. Many are expressed to me in Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 5, when he writes: “Therefore, since we are justified (made right) by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”


Paul Hanson 

Wednesday, February 24

Everyone has their fun bits, and I think one of mine is how deeply I love to dance. Not the slow not-really-committed kind of way, but the energetic-jumping-around-enthusiastic “one with the music” kind of dancing. Although I don’t have much formalized training, dancing brings joy to my heart and happiness to my life.

Music has always been an important element to my life and mood. Once I started putting formalized dance routines to music, it actually changed the way I listened to the songs. As many already realize, I discovered the endless ways one song could be restructured and altered. While the basic song remains the same, often subtle differences can make an enormous impact on how much I enjoy the song.  It’s challenging to apply this lesson to living every day. Often it is easy to listen to other people or to what we feel the Divine is messaging our way and conclude that we already know the expected message. Are we truly listening, or are we deciding that the message, like the songs, will always be the same?

Seth Horowitz says, “The richness of life doesn’t lie in the loudness and the beat, but in the timbres and variation that you can discover if you simply pay attention.” For this Lenten season, try to listen and tune in with a refreshed focus and an open heart and mind.


Karen Bachman 

Tuesday, February 23

LISTENING FOR GOD

If we cannot actually use our ears to listen to God, what, besides just clearing our minds in quiet and sensing God’s presence, could we do? Trying to clear my mind is so often so hard to do in the mad world we live in. Well, we have five senses, hearing, seeing, feeling, taste and smell.

Use our eyes. This morning at my computer I look out my window and see the clear, blue sky, and the rugged bark on the pines, people going by, my neighbor’s home, and a pair of large birds circling and I can wonder and thank Him for all this. From my chair upstairs a humming bird comes to the feeder. Did you ever marvel at that small animal? God made that too.

I hear the washing machine being loaded and started and running. Allows me to thank Her for Kaye, who cared for me when sick.

I still taste the two eggs, toast and juice from breakfast. Do you savor your food, or drink, and feel His presence in each swallow? And commune with Him about the wonders there?

I smelled the coffee earlier. What a wonder and the people that made it possible for me to put a few scoops of coffee and a cup of water in the machine, and enjoy quietly waking up.

And as I write this, or type it really, I feel the keyboard keys and the mouse. What great gifts we have from those people, God’s children, who used His enlightenment to imagine and create such wonders as power lines, phones, computers, smart phones, and beautiful color monitors.

Truly we are surrounded by wonders; we only have to pause and consider the source of all, the mind of God transmitted into our minds to commune with God.


Perry White 

Monday, February 22

The days of God speaking to us in the form of a burning bush or on a mountain top with concrete instructions -“Thou shalt not”- are seemingly behind us.

So how do we “hear” God? God’s guidance - God’s hope - God’s love for us? It may well have nothing to do with hearing and more to do with listening. Taking the time to consider what God has in store for us this day, this hour, this minute. In so considering, our experience of the world and our lives can be beautifully transformed. That we wait and listen for some inner voice – giving it the space and time to emerge – is an answer to God’s desire for us to seek communion with Him. Nothing has necessarily changed, other than our perspective – and we begin to view the world through the lens of God’s love.

In the outer natural world, He is virtually shouting – BEAUTY! LOVE! ABUNDANCE! LIFE! I live in a breathtakingly beautiful part of the country, amid mountains and valleys and glorious trees. Every time I look outside (my morning ritual) I see life-affirming messages from God, be it something in bloom, or my daily critter visitors. With each doubt about the future, I see/hear/feel a resounding YES.

Am I good (enough)? Yes 

Am I worthy? Yes

Am I loved/lovable? YES.

I think God’s main message to us all is exactly that – LOVE. As long as we hear that, and know it in our bones, all else will fall beautifully into place.


Jennifer Beckett 

Sunday, February 21 - Second Sunday in Lent

I was an intern serving as assistant minister between my second and last year at seminary. Mrs. Ingold’s daughter had been confined to bed for years. She died and I was to officiate my first funeral. The senior minister was on vacation. I shall never forget it. I asked Mrs. Ingold if she had any particular scripture she wished read at her daughter’s funeral. She answered in an instant. “I would like the beloved Psalm 103. It is a psalm that tells who God is and does not ask God for anything.”

So began my love affair with the book of Psalms. Jesus knew all the psalms by heart and prayed some of them on his cross - Psalm 22 especially. St. Augustine said that Jesus continues praying them through us as we pray them: “we recite this prayer of the Psalm in Him, and He recites in us.” Monasteries all over the world have daily chanted these beloved words for over 1500 years.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Psalms “The Prayer Book of the Bible.” In the psalms I have found the most reliable words about God and His desires. I am comforted that about one half of them are cries of pain and need that bounce back and forth between need and the testimony of the faithful that God answers and delivers. In the psalms I hear of a God who desires justice for the oppressed, of a God who removes our transgressions from us “as far as the east is from the west.”

When I don’t have words to pray to God, the psalms have given me those words. I use them as prayers of thanksgiving and praise, cries for help for myself and other sufferers, words to proclaim that our God who is on the side of the poor and oppressed, a God who sends a king who understands human pain and sin and does something about it on His Cross and Exaltation. I invite you to the Psalms and through them to find Jesus praying with you and answering you.


The Rev. Spottswood Graves 

Saturday, February 20

“GOING DEEPER”

A Practice for Lent

Observing this time in our calendar, as the days of Spring lengthen, and all the earth awaits transformation, we remember Jesus’ journey toward the crucifixion, resurrection and transformation we celebrate at Easter. Many of us seek to mark Jesus’ journey and our own with a practice.

The practice I have chosen to “go deeper” is to periodically become aware of my breathing, a prelude to another practice, centering prayer.* It occurred to me that my breathing, the constant exchange of air, could also be a conscious exchange of thoughts and feelings, noting a concern and releasing it with a blessing. Let me give you an example of what I mean. I could breathe in my own or another’s delight, fear, or uncertainty, and breathe out God’s and my love, assurance, healing and peace. I can conceive of this practice because I believe God is within us, without us and in between, and we are all part of the hoped for healing of the world.

Finally, I thank you for spending this time with me, and I leave you with some lines from Psalm 131 that I find most comforting:

I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with his mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

*You can learn more about Centering Prayer at www.contemplativeoutreach.org

Jane Welch 

Friday, February 19

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23: 5-6)

In preparing for Lent this year, I am remembering God's promise for resurrection on a personal level. My longtime college friend Pam has recently entered Hospice which has saddened me beyond sharing. What I can share, however, are two things: my steadfast faith that God will embrace her for eternity, and my lesson in learning this.

Years ago at a sixteen year old student's funeral in a high school auditorium, a local pastor shared a never forgotten lesson. The teenager had died unexpectedly, and fellow students and teachers had gathered to celebrate his life. In recounting the 23rd Psalm, the pastor explained that in “those days” a traveler might stop at a stranger's home to ask for respite. Hospitality might be minimal, where they would offer the wayfarer some small bit of food. It could, however, be a hearty welcome where he was invited to dine well with them. If his drinking vessel was filled half-way, the unspoken message was that he was invited to join them for only the meal. If, though, his vessel was filled nearly to the brim, that meant an even more generous invitation to spend the night. However, Psalm 23's line “my cup runneth over,” contains an even loftier welcome - an invitation to stay forever.

That long ago eulogy has served to strengthen my faith in eternal life all these years, and shaken as I am by the thought this Lenten season of saying goodbye to my dear friend Pam, I believe with all my heart that she has a place waiting for her in Heaven, that her cup will have spilled plentifully over its brim.


Glen Baldwin 

Thursday, February 18

So......two psychiatrists at a prominent psychiatric clinic met one day on the elevator on their way up to their office. The younger of the two, who was just beginning practicing psychiatry and who had had his older colleague on an extremely and unrealistically high pedestal, turned to her and burst out: “I’ve served with you for a while now, and I’m wondering how in the world you listen at such great length and with such patience to your clients problems and woes day after day! Tell me. How do you do it?” Without a moment’s hesitation and with great humor written on her face, she shot back: “Who listens?”

That’s a perceptive question to be addressed at us on our Lenten Journey? We’re besieged with information, with words stacked on top of words piled miles high and miles wide; 24/7 cable; technology our grandparents couldn’t even have imagined; and, we now know exponentially more about what’s going on in the world than any preceding generation in history! Perhaps, as a result, we’ve become immune to real listening to God and each other!

So, let’s turn to remedies rather than diagnoses! Let’s think for a moment about what all this means to those of us who live in this environment in which listening has gone on sabbatical. How can you and I be faithful to the God we love and serve in a day when real listening has gone out of style?

First, we need to stop assuming we know what those with whom we come in contact (family, friends, and strangers) are saying as they are speaking. Silence is golden in the listening business! When the Bible repeats itself, it’s worth listening! On repeated occasions the words of the writer James are echoed in Scripture: “Post this at all intersections, dear friends: lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear” (James 1:19) We need to take a long breath when someone is speaking, to listen not only to the speaker, but also to the person who is speaking, and to honor who they are in our listening! Stop what we’re doing, look into her eyes, listen to his heart. Hard task! Great rewards!

Second, we need to turn our unrelenting attention from technology (cell phones, TV, “texts”, Facebook, Instagram, twitter, email, distractions), and give our total focus to the person to whom we are seeking to listen. How many times I find myself slowly backing away, moving on to the next thing on my agenda, or thinking dismissive thoughts instead of truly trying to hear what’s on a person’s heart!  

Finally, moving on to the most important listening dimension of all, we need to make time each day (hour, moment), to listen to the “Still small voice of God” who knows what’s really up with us and those with whom we are in relationship! Again, hear James in The Message translation: “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are or what they look like.”  I am continually shocked and unimaginably blessed in those rare moments when I’m graced to stop and ask: “Lord, what is it that you’d like to say to me right now?”

Prayer: Dear God, I thank you that you are ever present to me in your Holy Spirit. During this holy season of Lent, help me to see You more clearly, love You more dearly, and follow You more nearly. For Jesus’ sake. Amen. 


The Rev. Craig Peel 

Wednesday, February 17

This year with the help of our study group, I have come to know God as Creator, Spirit, Word, Breath, more intimately. I grew up with the image of God as an old man in the sky, like the image on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But the Spirit dwells with us and in us and infuses us with love. Father Tom’s reminder that God is in the space between us has come to have a great deal of meaning because of this awareness. 

A friend posted a thought-provoking meditation on Facebook recently called Seeking God:

If a man sets out on a journey to search for the tip of his own nose, his first step betrays his total blindness as to what he seeks. God is everywhere and is therefore never in a particular place that is other than where we happen to be at each moment. Therefore we do not need to leave the point where we are and seek God’s presence somewhere else. James Finley (Source: Merton's Palace of Nowhere)

My hope for Lent and the rest of time is to live with this awareness - moment by moment - and to meet friends, neighbors and strangers with the same love that we are infused with by the Spirit.


Carole Kimmel 

Tuesday, February 16

Shrimp 'N' Grits

That’s the best I got, and it’s pretty good.

Don’t trouble me about grease ‘n’ fat clogging my heart, or gluten slogging my joints. My guts and limbs are fine, thank you.

My girlfriend is in the hospital with weird cells in her brain. Her speech affected, surgery done, treatments to follow.

My first shrimp ‘n’ grits was at her house one Monday night, not long after I’d arrived on the Outer Banks and started at church. That night, I was first to receive the dish of grits from her hand, either because I was new or maybe because I happened to be on her left. And though I’ve been to Paris, I had to ask how to arrange such opulent foods on my plate.

Oh glorious butter and cheese-infused grits; ye plump shrimp browned in Wondra and bacon fat. How to eat ye? This I pondered, there in candle-lit dining communion at her table.

I’m a fast learner, and my new friend was kind to instruct me to place grits, then shrimp on top or to the side, as I prefer. She’s a natural, generous diva of love, and these years later, I still love her with all my heart.

This is what’s divine, what’s real and what I live for. Moments with friends are the very food of God.

Are seconds allowed?

Why yes, and thirds too. Have as much as you want. Such are the shrimp ‘n’ grits of love.


Sharon Keene

Monday, February 15

Dear Lord, at times transitions can be hard! I have experienced many positive transitions that stand out: graduating with a Master’s Degree, getting married, having children, their going to college and leading successful lives, retiring, moving to The Outer Banks, and deciding to move to a continuing care retirement community. I know this is the right decision, but I also know this is the most difficult transition and stressful time in our married life. I also know you led us here! There are open, lovely people, but you know, Lord, that both John and I miss the Outer Banks, a place closer to heaven! We miss All Saints and the people there: ten years of having a church that filled us spiritually, a marvelous rector, and extremely close friends, wonderful soul-filled fun and volunteer activities and choir that allowed us to give back: our best spiritual connection in our lives! I also miss my friend, Lyn, and our 48-year friendship, Caffey’s Inlet, where we lived by our friends for decades, as well as Duck and the people we volunteered with and knew there. Let us feel your guiding hand in settling in here, and still be connected to those we love and value on the OBX. But, right now, guide us away from this stress to focusing on You, and preparing for Lent. Help the ‘noise’ of our lives be supplanted with focusing on you. Bless you, Lord, for being in our lives, and help us prepare for Lent in a way that feeds us and honors You.

Thank you!!! Amen.

Sandy Fricker 

Sunday, February 14 - First Sunday in Lent

Dear Lord,

Sometimes it’s hard to hear you in the busyness of our daily lives. Other times your voice is loud and clear, especially when we are still and waiting for you.

During Advent as we eagerly awaited your birth, I heard your voice in the joyous music and Eucharistic celebrations. I heard you in the Angel chorus in Bethlehem.

Now we are approaching another period of waiting. Our special Lenten prayers and practices are our way of speaking to you. In the waiting quiet of Lent, I hope to be able to hear that whisper that tells me you are there. Our Lenten waiting becomes a time of deep sorrow as we follow you on your way to the cross. I hear you as your beaten face is wiped by Veronica. But you never really left us. You arose from your burial cave to be with us again. Your voice is heard in the joyous music of Easter and the happy greetings of friends and family. In the beating of our hearts we hear your voice clearly saying: “I am always with you.”


Jane H. Strauss, 
Roman Catholic Church of the Incarnation 
Charlottesville, Virginia 

Saturday, February 13

LENTEN REFLECTIONS

One of my favorite quotes is by Ian Maclaren (pseudonym of Rev. John Watson, 1850-1907), a Scottish author and theologian. "Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." If we live long enough, we will most certainly face struggles and challenges.

None of us are protected from what we may learn to know as gifts.

Perhaps these trying times are meant to grow us in compassion, wisdom, a heightened awareness of this higher presence; and learning to lean on God, loving Him more deeply.

One scripture verse I go to often during these times begins with "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10). It is for me, powerful, humbling and gives great security. In my frenzied activity it causes me to stop, LISTEN, trust, and acknowledge our ever-present and holy God, humbly asking for His help, remembering to thank Him for the gift of lessons to be learned.

Acknowledging God implies I understand who He is, allowing me to surrender to His plan.


Merikay Winter 

Friday, February 12

LISTENING TO THE SILENCE

More than fifty years ago I came to realize that the most important thing about prayer was not the what, or the where, but the how: how to achieve, in Gregory of Nyssa’s words, “a certain sense of God’s presence even when surrounded by the divine night.” For in that night one may fall “into the eternally sucking gorge of the void,” as Jung put it, or be “inhaled by the Real,” according to Panikkar, yet hear nothing; on the other hand, one may be startled by the call of God, as Isaiah was when he heard the Voice in the Temple, “Whom shall I send?” (Isaiah 6:8). The point is how to be ready to see, to hear, or merely to sense the Presence.

This is contemplative prayer, which Dom Cuthbert Butler calls “a state in which ordinary prayer becomes perfect.” Contemplation, he says, dispenses with sensible images or pictures in the mind, with discursive thinking, “the mind remaining steadfast and fixed in one simple gaze”; it is accompanied by ardent love of God, and it absorbs the soul completely. And he quotes a saying of the desert Fathers, “those who were conscious they were praying, were not yet praying.” The emphasis is on arriving at a quiet state where the mind is still; for, as the Gîtâ 6, 19, says, “the light does not flicker in a windless place.” Here no objects are entertained, and no images are visualized; there is only an openness to the divine mystery itself without any mediating objects, words, or images. St. Teresa of Ávila explains that when the soul is joined to God, “it doesn’t understand a thing, for all its faculties are lost.” How, then to achieve this?

Begin with quiet of body. Kneel, sit, walk, or whatever, but be at peace. Let go the nerves. Relax the muscles. Stop mistaking a series of melancholy sighs for a sensible manner of breathing, and breathe like a human being, that is, forget all about it. Throw off the interior whalebone that emotional anxiety or petty resentment has introduced somewhere in the region of the chest. Smile, or at least allow the facial muscles to resume whatever attractiveness nature meant them to give way to in repose. Unclench the teeth. Try in general to attain a state of calm and restfulness of the nervous system before beginning to pray at all.

After quiet of body, quiet of heart. “After” means that we mention it next, not necessarily that it comes next in time; it may have to come first. The disturbances that most deeply trouble our peace are those which cause emotional reactions; and these are almost universally things that touch the raw nerve of our self-attachment, that self-love of the wrong kind which we all have in us. Tiffs, petty injustices, slights, small successes that tickle our vanity; conversations (in our heads!) with people with whom we are annoyed and whom we devastate (in our heads!) with crushing and unanswerable rejoinders; worries, and the ways and means with which we must meet them: all these and many similar things. “Quiet of heart” means putting them out of our mind. The way to do it is detachment. Detachment means that God alone matters, that everything is in God’s hands. “Quiet of heart” means a deliberate disentangling of ourselves from emotional brambles.

Then quiet of mind. In general, this means disengaging the attention from other lines of thought and devoting it as completely as possible to God or to thoughts that will lead us to God. A mind preoccupied must be unoccupied before it can be occupied by God. Above all, this means a wordless openness to God. “To be full of things,” writes Meister Eckhart, “is to be empty of God, while to be empty of things is to be full of God.” But this emptying of the self requires total disinterest, which he equates with “empty nothingness.” And he adds: “When the soul achieves this, it loses its identity, it absorbs God and is reduced to nothing as the dawn at the rising of the sun.”


Ignacio Götz 

Thursday, February 11

Cell phones, emails, laptops, tablets, smart phones, IPads, texting, twittering, Instagram, and on and on. Cable television, satellite television, satellite radio, 300 channels, 24 hour news, smart watches, remote this, remote that! On top of all of this, we have our marriages, our families, our extended families, our jobs, the pressures of every day, providing for yourself and your family, giving back time to your community and helping those who are not as fortunate as ourselves.

We must cut through this white noise clutter, we must seek union with the higher power, to center ourselves. Today more than ever we need God’s hand leading us in life, to be our anchor to hold us steady in the storm of life.

How do we listen to God in this noisy world? The answer - All Saints, we are All Saints, not the building, but the people. There is no better demonstration of hearing God in this noisy world than our service to others: Room in the Inn, Ruthie's Kitchen, Interfaith Community Outreach, the Food Bank, Food for Thought, just to name a few.

We all participate and contribute as we can, we are hearing by God’s spirit, and are caring for those who have more noise than we do in their lives.

I listen hard every day; some days it is very difficult. So much of the noise that tries to grind God’s voice out of me comes from those among us whose actions show a lack of caring for their fellow man. It is time we put bias, hate, bigotry, and arrogance behind us. It is time we care about others. It is time we practice what we preach. It is time to hear God through all the noise and serve our fellow man.

We must hear the word of the God, as we have read in Matthew 25:40: “Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.”


Warren Judge 

Wednesday, February 10 - Ash Wednesday

“The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” (1st Kings 19:11-12)

Two Pilgrims Learning From Elijah 
         (1st Kings 19:11-12)

Circling each other, telling their stories, 
Feigning attention to likes and un-likes; 
Noting what would promote the “Yikes”
of difference or the sameness of glories. 
This is not a deep listening; but filtering, 
letting in only those of which ego’s wants 
to stay in the ruts of those familiar haunts, 
keeping out the soul’s urgent whisperings. 
Prayer begins not with words but listening, 
not to the whirlwind, earthquakes, or fires 
but in the sheer silence allowing not liars 
to impress with drama images glistening. 
Breathing deeply in the silence resting, 
trusts that God’s spirit in both is nesting.

The Rev. Tom Wilson+