Sunday, December 23, 2012

The Recipe Box

 

My daughter texted the other day and asked an extremely personal question. Imagine asking such a thing via a text and not a phone call?!! She asked me to send her the recipe for my molasses cookies, the one and only recipe that I have guarded over the years. Now, she’s made them many times, but I never thought that the day would come when she, miles away, would be making and, perhaps, SHARING my secret. This got me thinking about recipes and how they are passed along – a young apprentice learning alongside the experienced elder, the mixture of words and smells and tastes all combining into an indelible experience in the young person’s psyche; year after year, the recipes becoming more complex and the results more tantalizing and satisfying. I love to recall those times I shared with her.  


But now a text! In the middle of my work day – “Can you send me the molasses cookie recipe?” No greeting, no punctuation! Can you imagine? How could she be so casual about something so sacred? She knew I never shared that recipe with anyone, not that I would withhold it from her, but let’s show a little respect here people. Once I regrouped from the thoughts that were swirling around in my head, I came to my senses. How happy I was that she was on a quest for this precious thing that we had shared since she could barely see over the countertop. How pleased I was that she recognized that this recipe contained something far greater than a handful of ingredients. She wasn’t asking for that. She was requesting the sentiment of the recipe so she could share it now with her new inner circle. You see, the main ingredient in this recipe is love. She knew love was in every step – lining up all the ingredients, love in every careful measurement, love in every stroke of the wooden spoon, love in sneaking a taste of what was to come.



The sharing of a treasured recipe is Christmas itself. God has put together the ingredients and instructions for us to live a life of peace and light, even in a dark world. We can literally “taste and see the goodness of the Lord”! Through his word, God teaches us how to live in such a way that our lives will be such that people can see, smell and taste the love that comes from us.  Remember as you gather in your kitchens this year, that God has the perfect recipe for every aspect of your life. So pull up a stool, get close to him like a young apprentice and take notice of how he works. Here are just a few of his best recipes:



For peace:

Ps. 34:4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.


Is. 41:10  

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.


Proverbs 1:33  

but whoever listens to me will live in safety
and be at ease, without fear of harm.”


Mt. 6:33

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.


For forgiveness:

Isaiah 43:25  
“I, even I, am he who blots out
your transgressions, for my own sake,
and remembers your sins no more.


Isaiah 44:22

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,
your sins like the morning mist.
Return to me,
for I have redeemed you.”


Mt 6:14-15  
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.


For healing:

Luke 8:48  Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”


When in doubt: Ps. 119:89

Your word, Lord, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.
Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
you established the earth, and it endures.


Fear of death:  Ps. 23:4  

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.


For hope: Ps. 103 2-5 

Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.


When you need to know God loves you:

John 3:16


For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him


1 John 3:1

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!                          

There are thousands more recipes in God’s good book. All there to help us understand how put the ingredient of his love into our lives. Life can become a delicacy for each of us. There may be a few burnt edges; we may forget a key ingredient here and there. But let’s keep trying and by all means, let’s be sure to pass the recipes along!

~Amy

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

free will

Our free will is set like the stars in the sky. 
To take away our freedom, God would have to recreate the universe. 
~Amy 

Where is God?


For every time we ask with clenched fists raised or through a torrent of tears, "God, where are you?", we would do well to remember the origins of our brokenness, to which God asked through his own tears,
"Adam, where art thou?"

It is we who need finding, not God. 

~Amy 

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Newtown: Where was God?

The question is far from new. It's been asked for millennia. Where is God during times of tragedy? Why doesn't he prevent such atrocities as we witnessed last week in Newtown? And the statement: I could never believe in a God who allows children to suffer. 

As a pastor these are not just questions that are asked of me, but they are questions asked by me. As a parent, I shudder. My heart is gripped with a spasm of anguish. I am unable to loosen the tightness of grief that I feel. I change the channel. I busy myself, further tidying the already neat spaces that I occupy. Anything to avoid the reality and the questions that are born from the "surreality" of what happened in Newtown.  My adult daughter calls, grief-stricken- the unspoken questions audible in her silent tears. In the moment, I have no answers, no words. Literally, none. Tears answer tears.

I watched the gathering congregation this Sunday morning, streaming in under the weight of the "why?" that they wore like scarves wrapped too tightly around their throats. The third Sunday of Advent is chock full of readings of hope, joy and the call to rejoice. Hearing them was like hearing a foreign language. The words sounded as dissonant as a piano badly out of tune. What reason could we possibly have to hope? How can there ever again be joy? What good is faith at times like this?

This isn't the first time I have tried to find sense amidst the senseless. Nor will it be the last. It is never easy. As I plead with God for answers, I feel God pleading with me - pleading for me to understand his ways, his suffering. Really? His ways? His suffering?  I have come to understand that the question, "Where is God when evil strikes?" is asked amiss. The question presupposes that God can intervene when we deem it necessary. The reality is that God grants us, all of us, the ability to choose to do whatever we want. This is a gift that God will, under no circumstances, take away from us, even if we should choose to use it for evil. I have come to believe that our freedom is more costly to God than to any of us.

Think about it. How often do we use our freedom to gossip, lust or covet? We seek no intervention from God in those circumstances. In fact, we want him to keep his distance so we can continue to lie, or hold a grudge or cheat. We love our secret choices. We do indeed hurt others, but never do we ask, "Why doesn't God stop me?" The truth is, we want it both ways. We want to enjoy the blanket freedom that God gives to us, while simultaneously faulting him for not rescinding that freedom from others. God, in this instance, cannot win.

There are those who will choose evil, those who, through mental illness will become agents of evil. There are those who will cause the innocent to suffer. Didn't Jesus himself, the most innocent of all, die at the hands of evil men? Didn't he allow their choice, even though he had the power to thwart them? Didn't Jesus himself ask his Father the question that burns in our throats today, "Why have you forsaken me?" "Why will you not intervene?" To revoke our free will, God would have to recreate the universe. Our freedom is set like the stars in the sky. 

Is there any parent who hasn't grieved or rejoiced over the choices of their children? Our choices bring with them great cost and great reward. The relevant question to ask at times like this is not, "Where is God?", but "Where am I?"

How will I use this freedom? What choices will I make to bring light and love into the darkness of this world? How will we teach our children to use their freedom - to avoid evil, or just "not get caught"?

This is the season of gifts. Our God-given freedom is the most precious of gifts, costing God far more than we will ever be able to conceive. Let's carefully think about our choices, finding strength and comfort in his words:


"Prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight his paths.

Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The winding roads shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

 

~Amy 

Monday, December 3, 2012

the journey

 


Well…it’s here. The “Christmas season” is upon us. And along with it come a variety of emotions, memories and anticipation. Many of these are intensely joyful – an increased sense of belonging and being loved, a deepened awareness of God’s presence in and among us, the mystery of gifts that will be received, our own desire to bestow gifts that express heartfelt thoughtfulness and appreciation. These are just some of the ways that the spirit of Christmas satisfies very deep longings in our souls. The hard part is getting there. The difficulty for us is no different than it was for the wise men and shepherds…their challenge, and ours, is the journey that leads to the place where Jesus is.

For many of us, sadly, the spirit of Christmas is "hurry". And yet, eventually, the hour comes when the rushing ends and the race against the calendar mercifully comes to a close. And where will we be when that time comes? Will we have received any of the gift God repeatedly places within our reach – the Kingdom that is “at hand”? Will we possess any of the peace and joy of which Jesus says he came to bring?

I have spoken before of how hurry robs us. I would take it a step further by saying that we are, in fact, “irresponsibly busy”. We mask our fears and feed the ruthless furnace of self deception that fuels us through incessant busyness. Our sense of the natural rhythms of the seasons and days are lost to us. We miss the banquet of comfort that God is laying before us as we scurry and worry and hurry. What does every spiritual thinker advocate as the first steps to inner peace? Silence. Stillness. How is it that during Advent, the call to stillness and silence and reflection makes us cringe? Why do we refuse to allow these things into our lives, choosing darkness over light?

These questions can only be answered by ourselves, most likely when we are alone. Advent is not a matter of days or weeks, but of centuries - nearly twenty of them now since that holy night in Bethlehem. Christmas itself is eternal.  The older I get, the greater my longing for things eternal, the greater my longing to see the centuries old mysteries of God unfolding around me here and now. I am not so much waiting for something to occur, I am not waiting to “go to heaven”, but rather I am seeking to discover the heavenly right where I am. I desperately seek what the shepherds and wise men found – God now with us- Emmanuel.

To me, this is what Advent is all about – taking the time to hear the sounds of angels bringing me good news, above the din of this noisy life; allowing myself the space to see the shining signs that God has given to lead me on my journey; to make my pursuit of the Christ Child more important than the busyness the world offers me.

May your journey to the Christ Child this Christmas bring you to the place where you, too, find that God is with you.

~Amy

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Health and Thanksgiving

 
The Health Benefits of Thanksgiving  

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving 
and pay your vows to the Most High. 
~Psalm 50:14 

This is precisely what we do at this time of year as we gather with others. We are mindful of and acknowledge God’s many benefits to us through our giving thanks. It is a tradition that we often trace back to our pilgrim ancestors, but "thanksgiving" has a much more ancient history than that. Since the earliest dealings between man and God, there has been a desire within us to acknowledge God’s provision and goodness, hence the establishment of the altar, upon which the very first offerings of gratitude to God were made. Each week we celebrate the goodness of God to us as we partake of the Eucharist, which in the Greek means thanksgiving! It is a natural instinct within us to want to give thanks. To be thankful is a good feeling! It is the recognition and acknowledgement that we have been recipients of good things.

An article in USA Today cited studies which show an actual link between gratitude and health benefits. Thankfulness was clinically proven to improve both physiological and psychological health! For example:

  • People with high blood pressure not only lower their blood pressure, but they feel less hostile and are more likely to quit smoking and lose weight when they practice gratitude.
  • People who care for relatives with Alzheimer's disease feel less stress and depression when they keep daily gratitude journals, listing the positive things in their lives.
  • Those who maintain a thankful attitude through life appear to have lower risks of several disorders, including depression, phobias, bulimia and alcoholism.
  • Most people can lift their mood simply by writing a letter of thanks to someone. Hand-deliver the letter, and the boost in happiness can last weeks or months.

Practicing gratitude in these systematic ways changes people by changing brains that "are wired for negativity, for noticing gaps and omissions," Researcher Dr. Henry Emmons says. "When you express a feeling, you amplify it. When you express anger, you get angrier; when you express gratitude, you become more grateful."

And grateful people, he says, don't focus so much on pain and problems. They also are quicker to realize they have friends, families and communities to assist them in times of need. They see how they can help others in distress as well, he says.

We all can be thankful for so many things; big things such as the love of family and friends, food and shelter, the freedom to live in a nation such as this, the ability to worship God wherever we please etc. We can also be grateful for countless “little” things that we take for granted: a hot shower, the warmth of the sun, technology that puts us in touch with a loved one far away, and after a meal such as many of us will soon enjoy, we can be thankful for running water and dishwashers! We could all come up with our own list, and really we all should make a list of things we are grateful for and remind ourselves of them on a daily basis.

But what about the words of the psalm, “Let us offer to God a SACRIFICE of praise”? Giving thanks can also involve great sacrifice, as we hear the psalmist say. What do we do when we find ourselves in situations where it is very difficult to muster within us a sense of gratitude. How can we thank God when we are faced with a health crisis or financial hardship? How can we offer praise when rejected by a loved one or friend? Does the hardship we endure mean that God Himself is not good? Do the actions of others and the sufferings they may cause, whether friend or foe, whether city councilor or president, negate the goodness of God? Is this life only about how well things go for us, or is it not meant for us to garner a deeper meaning, which most often comes, ironically, from the hardships we experience? Is there not a bigger picture to all we experience?

Giving thanks can often be a true sacrifice. At times more true by far than to put a check in the basket. It can sometimes be one of the most difficult things we do, but in giving thanks, we can relinquish the heartache of certain situations and find the blessing in it. How many women are thankful for the pain of childbirth at the time of delivery? Yet that pain brings forth something more precious than gold. Often the pain we endure serves a greater, often hidden purpose, for which we later give thanks. We would do well, as the apostle Paul says, to “give thanks in all things.”

An entry from the devotional God Calling says this:

The hard dull way of resignation is not My Way.  
When I entered Jerusalem, knowing well 
that scorn and reviling and death awaited Me, 
it was with cries of Hosanna, and with a triumphal procession.  
Not just a few "Lost Cause" followers creeping with Me into the city.  
There was no note of sadness in My Last Supper Talk with My disciples, 
and "when we had sung an hymn" we went out unto the Mount of Olives.
 So trust, so conquer, so joy.  Love colors the way. 
Love takes the sting out of the wind of adversity.


May you enjoy a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

~Amy