Circle of Dreamers

Circles of grace, circle of women telling story, circles where we sit shoulder to shoulder and can look each other in the eye. Twice in the last week I have had the privilege of sitting in a circle of women who have dared to share their dreams with each other.

One of my friends here in this small West Coast community has recently published her first novel. She has waited through this process, searching for a publisher, wondering if there was one, yet never giving up on her dream. She kept herself busy with her work which is writing articles for a German newspaper, while continuing the search to keep her dream alive. I would give you a link to the book but I can't read German, or write it! Befriend Your Enemy is her novel and it can be found on Amazon, in German. Bernadette had invited us to a cocktail party, a group of 13 women from this community, yet originally for all over the world. We sat down together it became a circle. Bernadette challenged us to share a dream we have fulfilled, or one we are still waiting on. Some of us knew each other but for others this was a first time meeting. Yet each courageously dared to share a dream.

Each dream was grand and glorious - simply because it is daring to believe what looks impossible could become reality. Speaking the words legitimized them - how often we feel our dreams are illegitimate and have to be hidden away. Why? Why must they be kept in the dark when they are written on our heart and soul? Do they not deserve the dignity of being spoken, to be given breath? Fear holds the key that wants them locked away; fear that this one will never come to pass. Oh I know that fear well but today I look it in the eye and challenge it for what it is - the cowardlyness of those who dared us not to dream and gave their keys to our own fear. All the dreams shared came from artistic souls. They were not "role" dreams but rather individual and unique coming from the place of knowing their own identity. Not spoken from a place of who others thought they were but of knowing their own heart writing.

Another circle was women who are getting to know each other, meeting each Monday afternoon to share where we are on this journey. The ones who did share spoke of relationship, of heart longing, yet perhaps less of knowing their own identity. I ask the question - why is the "Christian" community so afraid to dream? Why are we so afraid to believe God can and does give us dreams? That is another topic to explore.

The commonality lies in the passion of the dreams. To dream is to let passion breath upon our soul. At least this is how I see it. Passion that dares us to live, really live, within our own skin, learning to love our story and every winding road it has travelled. Daring to give the future roads honour and dignity,(as well as the past) and the passion of letting the Spirit within breathe through me, in me. Perhaps dreaming is placing the etchings of the heart in holy waiting, sacred space where the circle of Grace holds us and our dreams in the Light.

Circles - we come full circle when we travel through the Valley of Weeping and step into the Acres of Hope. A circle of others who travel with us gives us hope.

"I've always longed to live in a place like this, always DREAMED of a room in your house, where I could...And how blessed all those in whom you live, whose lives become roads you travel;They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks,discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain!God-travelled, these roads curve up the mountain, and at the last turn - Zion!God in full view!"

Evening Prayer

Taken from Northumbria evening prayer page.

Expressions of faith

Lord, You have always given bread for the coming day;
and though I am poor,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always given strength for the coming day;
and though I am weak,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always given peace for the coming day;
and though of anxious heart,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always kept me safe in trials;
and now, tried as I am,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always marked the road for the coming day;
and though it may be hidden,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always lightened this darkness of mine;
and though the night is here,
today I believe.
Lord, You have always spoken when time was ripe;
and though you be silent now,
today I believe.

For Edith

The Story Ring

A true friend hears you when no one else can,Dares you to be yourself when you have lost your way,Reminds you of the song in your heart, when you have forgotten the words,And above all loves you for who you really are.

These are the words on a beautiful birthday card I received on the weekend. They speak of grace, of love, and of those who have committed to walking the journey into freedom with me.

But they remind me of someone very special who walked through my life, who walked with me for 20 years - Edith. She was my boss, who when I was 19, didn't fire me because I didn't know how to do the job they hired me for, but instead she patiently began my training. She arrived early at work each morning when her husband dropped her off on his way to work. I began coming early so we could have coffee together. Edith made me laugh, she took me outside my serious world and told me the stories of her life that had been filled with dancing at country dances, dating, flirtation, 5 engagements and how she finally chose Pete. She was going to be a nurse but at 18 the pain in her hands and feet was too great and she had to drop out. Edith and Pete had longed to adopt a child but in those days the Doctor had to sign the papers of approval and he refused to do so - he felt her disease wouldn't allow her to be a mother. Edith had rheumatoid arthritis and whatever medications were available in her early years she was allergic to.

When I met her she was in her 50s. Edith became the first person that I really opened my heart to, the first person I opened up my inner windows of the soul to and she poured her love through them. To her I wasn't known by who my father was, or who my mother was, rather I was just "Stephanie" with individual character, dreams, and struggles. I wasn't defined by who I belonged to, or by the church I was in - to Edith I was her friend, and almost a surrogate daughter.

There is much much more to the story of my friendship with this brave and courageous woman but I will not tell that today. In the last years of her life my spare time became her time sitting on the floor at her feet where we watch TV together and where she could see me easily because she couldn't lift her head up. She poured courage into my soul and she was my safe place to tell my story. In fact she was the only place to tell my story which was a most treasured gift from her heart. She was that true friend. In the last week of her life I sat by her bedside watching her breathing slow, her eyes close and then that final moment of the last heartbeat. The gift of sitting beside someone as they die cannot be put into words and that was what I had with my friend - the last moments with her.She left me a couple of rings that have been sitting tucked away in the 7 years since she has been gone. I have been waiting for the right way to use them to honour this precious friend who poured grace into my life. In April I began the process of designing this piece of jewellery with her rings - blending her story and mine together. She was unable to cry because her tear ducts did not function and so her unshed tears, and my own tears (many unshed) are symbolized in this "story ring":

Life is full of threads that seem to twist and turn and wind together and often you cannot see where they begin or end. The tears we shed do not come in any pattern but rather they are woven into, between, underneath and around the threads of our own life story. Every tear we shed is its own jewel, its own multifaceted diamond of truth and reflection as our story is held in Abba's Light. The colour (for me) of honour is gold and one must hold the tears and threads (cup of joy and cup of sorrow as Henri Nouwen speaks of it) with the gold of honour - the Almighty holds our story that way asking us to do the same. Finally in the circle of life there is Grace! Grace that holds it all together, grace that is seamless with no visible beginning or end, grace that borders every story written, in process of writing, and being told. It is all fashioned by hand, the hands of the Almighty with artistic precision.

Thank you Edith for your amazing friendship, your love, your laughter and your example of living through the challenges. You dared me to swim to freedom! I still miss you. As the diamonds sparkle I remember you, I breathe gratitude out for those 20 years of gifting you gave to this soul.

quote de jour

"God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another."
William Shakespeare

from TrueFaced - trust God and others with who you really are
by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol and John Lynch

Going Through The Motions

going through the motions
a ritual
make a big show
act like..but don't mean it
just use me
take this to heart...

In a quiet morning waiting time for a passage in Mark 7 to speak to me, these were the words that grabbed my attention. So I waited for the Spirit to show me more, to give some kind of thread or body to these words and bring them together into something I had never seen or heard before. The Message has titled this passage as The Source of Your Pollution and Jesus is talking to the scholars and the people who "knew everything". Once more my attention is tweaked because Jesus is again using the illustration of the ritual around a meal time! Of course that fact has me stopping, eyes wide open and taking a second, third and forth look. As a culinary minister (thanks again Wes for giving a Kingdom definition to my art!) anything to do with food and coming to the table has my attention.

So the following are the thoughts that left a trail along my path that morning:
"Going through the motions" was how they saw this ritual of preparing to eat but in this particular exchange it was all about pointing out the mistakes of others. Coming to the table is to be with grace, extravagant, abundant, scented grace so that we find the "holy ritual" of dining one of beauty. What does a critical spirit do to the heart? What does it do to the digestive system? It does affect both.In some ways ritual at a meal time brings a certain kind of honour to the occasion. The celebration of breaking bread with another, whoever it is that has come to your table, is a gift. The practice of the meal table being a place of honour, and the food holding the taste and textures and flavours of the celebration allows this moment, these participants to have come together mind, body and soul and be nurtured. Embodied prayer could be a piece of the ritual of mealtime.

Perhaps my most significant question in this passage was "how does fast food affect the heart?" If we are only "going through the motions" of living how does that affect the heart? I firmly believe these two are very connected because fast food has eliminated the ritual of sitting together, of lingering conversation and of truly tasting and enjoying your meal (conversation allows you to eat slower which aids the digestive process). Fast food is full of the worst kind of fat that clogs the arteries of your heart - "going through the motions" is void of the both the joy and pain of living and shuts down the heart. Neither of these have me in a place of being obedient to Jesus instruction to love myself as I love my neighbour.

I have been very busy lately and there is the danger of "going through the motions" just to accomplish everything. And perhaps that is why the Spirit spoke to me about how it affects the heart - life is not a "Mc D" experience to me but when I run hard somehow it can slip into that place. I love life to be the lingering coffee at an outdoor cafe where I watch my "neighbour" and learn about loving them. Living is where you sit by the window on a stormy night and savour hot soup and cradle a warm cup of tea in your hands. Ritual, grace filled holy ritual, is sitting at the table and hearing the stories of those who God-cidence placed there with me. A healthy heart comes when my mind, body and soul are connected and communicating and in motion together, dancing together.

And so an invitation from a friend to a retreat for the next few days is also an invitation from the Spirit to linger and wait with those words take this to heart. When I return I look forward to inviting some friends to my table this weekend.

Eyes of Restoration Views

Room with a view

At the edge of the Inn of Still Waters

Eyes of Restoration

Inn of Still Waters

She resides at the top of the hill - the lonely little road leading to her sees only a few residents slowly walking by or hears the buzz of the vespa going by loaded with fresh
produce as it teeters and totters down the narrow road to the fruit and vegetable stand where it will be divested of its load. Her view is wide and she sees the Golfo di Napoli from her back windows and the Golfo di Salerno from her front windows and garden.

The fragrance of the jasmine and the sound of the wind in the kiwi vines are part of summer. The scent of the lemons in late autumn before they are plucked and brought in where some of them are used to make a limoncello, an after dinner drink. The heavy laurel trees provide the leaves to scent the cooking (bay leaves). They also can be made into an after dinner drink that aides the digestion. Or should someone have a nauseating headache, laurel(bay) leaves and fennel seed make a tea that is helpful. Fresh oranges, bread and espresso on the terrazzo in the morning, steaming plates of pasta at noon and in the evening there are endless surprises from the culinary art room. Birds will hint at the morning and invite you to swing open those deep windows and lean out to inhale the day. Exhale and you stretch and open your heart to what it will offer you - only you can reach out to partake of it. These feathered creatures will serenade you from the privacy of their various spots on the perimeter of the garden. They see you, you hear them, and they tease you to find their operatic stage. Hot summer evenings draw you into sitting outside at the bistro table or in
a deck chair. Once the cooler breezes have ushered in the night you can slowly walk in bare feet along the tiled floors and stretch out on the fresh linen sheets ...and dream until you are invited into the new day. When winter arrives thick quilts are placed upon the beds and spending longer in bed corresponds with the length of the darkness. Soon she will be filled with the fragrances of traditional Christmas cooking and the scent of greenery and the deep rich colours of her elegant fabrics.

She is stately and elegant, warm and full of passion and she beckons you with her charms. She invites you to live, to life, to this very moment, all your senses awake and engaged. You are asked to acknowledge and recognize them - through her sounds, her colours, her own music, her garden with its changing seasons and the blend of sunlight and shade, the fabrics she is draped in and how the light changes them. The scent from her culinary art gallery invites you to partake of her abundance with delight and honour.

When I saw her I fell in love with her - my walking companions thought she was worthless, but I see her beauty, I hear her beautiful life giving purpose. I see her complete glorious self even if no one else does. I've named her, I love her and I still dream of her. She is my own "Inn of Still Water" - the place where soul is restored.

Like the woman in Hosea who was broken, caused huge heart ache, carried enormous pain and anger - she was visibly a wreck. Yet, to the Almighty, she was looked at with the eyes of the heart that saw the complete restoration. He said "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start all over again...I'll give her bouquets of roses. I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope..." Oh yes! The Almighty sees beyond the brokenness and devaluation, the anger and the shame and holds out the picture of truth - what His eyes and heart really see! He never stops inviting us to see and live in that picture as well.That's the eyes of restoration.

I see my Inn of Still Water with eyes that take in the brokenness and yet my heart sees her completely restored and inviting others to that restoration of soul. The Almighty sees my/our brokenness with both the eyes and the heart while at the same time seeing us as healed, beautiful and complete with both His eyes and His heart. And I hear the Spirit whispering that truth this morning, I am accepting the renewed invitation into today.