You Saw Me

Found this beautiful piece over at Hints and Guesses

You saw me...
...adapted from St. Augustine, Confessions...


You saw me and it pleased you to transform all that was misshapen in me. ... I had turned a blind eye and forgotten it--my wickedness. … I was quite unconscious of it, quite blind to it, although it stared me in the face. … The light is clouded over and the truth cannot be seen, although it is there before our eyes. …

O my God. Look deep within. … You cleanse me, by drawing my eyes to yourself … I entered, and with the eye of my soul, I saw the Light that never changes casting its rays over the same eye of my mind, over my mind. It was not the common light of day that is seen by the eye of every living thing … it was itself the Light that made me … It is the Light that charity knows. … I awoke in you and saw that you were infinite, but not in the way I supposed. This I saw, but it was not with the sight of the flesh that I saw it.


"After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly."

To see, really see, the heart, the mind and the body become more alive. We will feel our joy more deeply, and our pain more poignantly. Yet somehow, I believe, that this connects with passion and colour. These two thoughts are being written across my experiences and thought processes these days. When I live without passion, I also become colour blind in life. When I become colour blind I cannot see my own heart. And when I cannot see, or hear, my own heart it begins to close off, shut down and retreat. In that place the darkness envelopes one but it is also the place where the Light is the healing agent that restores passion and colour in our soul.

Just musing as I sit awake at 3:40AM still adjusting to jet lag.

Listening to the Maestro

The evening sun brushes the Japanese Maple with just a bit more flaming red, the saphire of the lobellia is royally rich, red and yellow begonias in azura pots and the fresh long thin reed like blades of various grasses all have different green colours. I am drinking in these colours as I sit in my apartment, Sebastian the cat on my lap, and inhale the gloriousness of colour.

Colour. These last weeks have been all about painting lessons with my Divine Maestro. Lack of colour, missing passion, hopelessness have haunted me in my last two weeks as I travelled in Crimea. I felt as if the Artist of Life was taking me - body, mind and heart, into conversations, stories, and places where he weeps over the repression and oppression that have shut out his invitation to splash colour and passion. Places where hearts have forgotten how to mingle laughter in the sorrow. Hearts that have hidden tears and pain and allowed them to become encased in numbness. Where the music is a lament that desperately needs grace to allow the dance of redemption to bring glorious hues of indigo, violet, magenta, gold and every other colour combination the Artist of Life created!

Perhaps I realized that charcoal etchings are not enough. Wild bohemian colours that come from grace being mixed with redemption, laments mixed with celebration, the fruit of the fields and the earth being mixed with passion and presented as a banquet.

The artist within me went to the Ukraine and wept as I saw the pain of oppression that still grips the country, the Church in that place. It will take time to hold out my thoughts and have them breathed upon with the breath of the Creator of Life - the Divine Artist/Maestro. I don't know what to do with all these thoughts yet.

At 36,000 feet, somewhere between Kiev and Vancouver today I heard a piece of truth that fits: "if there is something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have a responsibility to take action" (from the movie National Treasure)

I glance again out at my patio, a riot of colour as summer approaches. I look at the tools of my trade - food artist - sitting in my kitchen, at books on the shelf, rich brochade fabric covering the bed. It gives me such shalom to see all this while at the same time I weep for those who are colour blind to life. Perhaps the colour of hope is the place Maestro will begin.

Away from this post

For the next few weeks I will be away from posting as I travel in the Ukraine with this team. There will be many things to share when I return, but for now, I go with my heart open, my own story to share, accepting the truth of who I am, and asking for courage to let the canvas of my life be a mirror for women I meet on this journey. I go from the beauty of my own desert, to hear the angst of their personal desert. I don't speak Russian and many of them do not speak English but our own books of life can be read in the language the Spirit chooses to speak for us, with us, in us.

Go well, stay well, be well
Alan Paton
Cry the Beloved Country

Musings On The Identity Question

Who was she before she came to the well, and who was she after she left? Who were they before they came to the harvest and who were they afterwards? What was their identity?

The story of the woman at the well has been dissected for years and the following story of the harvest and wages has received the same attention. For that matter, most of scripture has. Where men or women gain their identity is the topic of extensive discussion. What I never saw before (others probably have) is how Jesus speaks about gender identity in John 4, false identities and the true identity. He talks about embodied prayer. Psychologists have discussed the original fears as defined “in the beginning”, which Jesus again speaks of in John 4.

Our fear as women is wound around the threads of relationship- wanting intimacy, to not be alone, and the fear of neither of those being authentic in our lives. Men fear failure, lack of success and not being recognized. There are many writings on this “original identity” subject where women are defined by relationships and men are defined by their work. At least this is how we often perceive our identity.

Reading John 4 in The Message I just found some wonderful insight and need to process it and get others thoughts. I have also been trying to find the difference between these 2 questions: what is my identity and how am I defined? Hence this chapter has been significant in my search for answers.

Jesus speaks to the woman about her identity in relationships and to the men about their identity in work - the PLACE they were looking for identity. She talked about the water that gives life, and the disciples talked about the food that kept them going.

I want to talk about the woman, because I know about her journey – I know my own. I don’t believe for a minute that Jesus saw her just as a person – he saw the woman she was. The good, bad and the ugly, which didn’t turn him away from talking to her. Jesus eluded to true identity in the comments the water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life. Her real identity was within, in her DNA, in the mind, body and heart. Asking for this water from Jesus was her search for her real identity. Lack of self worth had her searching for it in relationships but the true identity for each woman lies within. We take that identity into every relationship we have but knowing it, our Creator given identity, only comes from the true immense worth Abba gave us in the first heart beat. When Jesus then talks to her about husbands the question of false identity, false worth is being opened up. He holds the lie in the Light, under the noonday sun where there are no shadows. I love what Jesus does next! He talks to her about dancing/worship in the Hebrew way where the whole body gets involved. I am coming to see this as part of embodied prayer, that comes of out knowing our identity and being in relationship with Them.
It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in worship. God is sheer being itself - Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration. Jesus is saying to her if you take this water of life, this gushing fountain of endless life, all the disconnect in your soul is going to be removed and you will be whole and fully, passionately alive, so begin the process.

I wish she had a name because names are so important. I hated when no one could remember my name in school. It is part of my identity. So I am calling her Galia which means God shall redeem. Galia came to the well in the middle of the day where the direct overhead sun would have very little shadow, if any. Holding all of her heart, mind and body in the Light, the shadows of false identity could be removed and true worth revealed. She didn’t go back into hiding but went to share Truth/Light with others.

As women our identity does not come from the man in our life, it comes from the One who gives the water of life, who put an artesian spring within and created us to be givers of live. This identity/defining from Abba is what we are to take to add life to our intimate relationships. True worth, men or women, is seen when we step out of the shadows, hold our mind, body and soul there, and begin to dance in the Light of life, drink the water of life.

This chapter John 4 speaks of the water of life, food that keeps you going, dancing, standing in the Light, revealing false identity and claiming true worth and identity, rewards that will come, and what was dead now lives. An amazing circle of life within a seamless circle of grace.

All Creatures Great and Small

Sebastian, a tabby cat, resides at the same address as moi. He has been a resident there for a couple of years and it was not a case of me choosing him but he chose me. Really – he did! The visit to the SPCA was going to be a just a look, to think about having a pet live with me. This fellow, named Sherlock Holmes at the time was the last of the cats I “interviewed”. He strolled over and rubbed against my legs so I knelt down for closer inspection of this gray tabby! He proceeded to step onto my lap, snuggle his head in my neck and place his front paws on my shoulders. That was it. I fell in love with him and he accompanied me home. I wasn’t prepared for this turn of events so the journey home meant stopping to purchase such things as food, water bowl, litter box, toys etc. The name Sherlock Holmes had to go – just didn’t fit for me, so he was renamed Sebastian or Sebastiani depending on whether he is being address in English or Italian.

Sebastian is not your normal aloof kind of cat. Firstly he thinks that if someone is at home their sole reason is so he can snuggle with them. Secondly he wags his tail when he is happy. Never saw a cat like that before! When guests come he greets them at the door (as soon as the bell goes he runs to the door) and then takes his time visiting with each one.

This is a cat that is very connected to emotions! Sometimes I have been bawling my eyes out in the shower – more like my soul is weeping and it is deep groaning pain. One such time when I turned of the water I could hear Sebastian crying beyond the closed bathroom door. When I opened it he stood there, stopped crying and just looked – as if to say “are you okay?” When I sit to read, my feet up on the ottoman, my body cradled in the cushiony olive coloured chair, this cat will come and snuggle up. He places his head over my heart and his paw up on my shoulder. Sebastian is hugging me! The other night, book in my right hand, my left arm and hand cradling Sebastiani, I had this strange feeling that this was a picture from Abba. Sebastiani seems to love my company for no particular reason except he seems to love being close to me (albeit he knows I feed him too!).

Abba, the Almighty loves me/you and just loves us to snuggle up, just because we want to be close, and it is a safe place for the heart. That is the truth of the relationship I long for – and Abba offers. A relationship of such comfort that words are not always necessary, but simply feeling the breath of life is enough.

I didn’t always want to choose Yeshua’s love but that is the love that has chosen me and nothing will change that choice. That is a truth I am learning to accept – I have been chosen for love, for being me.

Sebastian doesn’t mind my tears, or my laughter, or when I dance round the room with him. He knows I am crazy! Abba doesn’t mind my emotions either. In fact as Sebastian sits close honoring my tears it is a picture of how They, the Divine Ones are honoring emotions. The truth is we were created with emotions and their expression can be our times of deepest honesty and communion with Them.

Creation - one of the most beautiful voices from the Almighty that speaks to all of our senses.

Praying in Solitude

Jesus gives us a model for praying in solitude, which is the geography conducive for engaging in bodily prayer. Jesus went apart to places away from the hustle and bustle to meet God in the wilderness. Solitude is the soil that prayer must be nourished in. As Henri Nouwen has so aptly said, “Solitude is the place of mourning and the place of dancing.” Solitude grooms us for hearing the lament in our hearts and dances in our souls. Eventually all other concerns dissipate, and we are let alone to present to ourselves and be present to God.

Our bodies are a vulnerable and precious place, and many of us may feel too exposed to bring our bodies to prayer and risk being interrupted by a friend, roommate, or spouse. It is crucial to have a place where we feel safe. Safe to be naked with our feelings, thoughts, groans, and cries. Jesus beckons us to pray by going into our room, closing the door, and praying to God, who is unseen (Matthew 6:6). Prayer requires that we have the nourishment of solitude. Verbal, reflective, or meditative prayer can be done while riding on a bus, subway, or in a car, but it is not easy to pray with our bodies in a public place. We need to find a private place, the place where we can meet the Beloved with all of who we are.

Embodied Prayer
Celeste Snowber

This God

This God, who watches worlds:
Sees my heart.

This careful calculator, counting millions:
Counts me in.

This artist, whose canvas
Outstretches eternity at both ends:
Whose palette outshines planets:
Paints my portrait.

This lover, who dreams in universes:
Dreams of me.

This creator, whose breadth of vision spans time
And spawns a cosmos;
Whose woven tapestry of purpose,
More compound than chaos,
Eclipsing complexity,
Rolls out like a highway through history;
Whose heartbeat deafens supernovas:
This craftsman hears my whispered cry.
This father…kisses me.

This playwright,
Playing with the deaths
And entrances of start;
Scripting the end from the beginning;
Knowing the purposes of the play,
Watches my feeble audition:
And writes me in.

Gerard Kelly

Being a Follower

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus, to the ends of the earth, and not be pushing our "western" viewpoint of that on other cultures?

I would really like to know. I am tired of the "western" way of life being the only acceptable standard for our faith. Several visits to Bulgaria showed me how eager they were to show us how they are adopting our ways in worship, of doing church. Yet what was most powerful was the worship that was the deep, almost mystical Slavic cultural communications towards Yahweh.

Watching barefoot dance/worship, embodied prayer with a group full of followers who also are Hebrew by birth and by their rich life traditions, I saw a kind of worship that I cannot even describe because they were new and amazing vibrations in my soul. Sitting in the middle of the living room and having the blessing of Abraham prayed over us imbedded a new piece within.

I am leaving shortly for the Crimean Peninsula with a team from Linwood House Ministries. On our trip to Bulgaria we shared our stories and heard theirs. It is not about telling them the "western" way but about finding hope and redeeming threads in all our stories because of the God who has the most marvelous weaving colours for our life looms. This is the God who designed colour!

You might wonder what triggered this thought process. This article from Daily Dig is the trip wire to this meandering, especially these words:
My wife and two daughters and I have been sent to Thailand by our small community, not as missionaries, but with the assignment to learn as much as we can from the Thai people, of their suffering caused by December’s tsunami, of their resilience in rebuilding, and of their generosity to strangers.

It is not about any one culture but rather the diversity of all culture that the Almighty created. There is diversity but incredible similarity. The diversity is only a glimpse of this God I am learning to follow, this God who is so multi-dimensional.