Island Coffee

I love writing titles for blog posts, books, articles whatever, there is a creative side to click bait though this tactic doesn’t seem to work for me. As the writing begins the coffee is next to me in the tall insulated mug because lukewarm coffee *shudder* and I happen to sitting at the island in the kitchen, which is, outside of the sewing room, my favorite seat in the house as this seat has the view of the windows in the living room, which face east, so sunrise!

As soon as I’m done writing I’m heading to my desk to work on two presentations and begin gathering supplies for both Quilt Market, and Quilt Festival. Please pray for me as I’ve had a cold these last few days and all the stuff I was going to do both in preparation for this and working on a couple of other projects are on hold until breathing well is possible and the energy stores are in place to focus to work. As you well know this is never easy. I will say though I am grateful for the opportunity to remember a lot of people in prayer over the last few days. This is always a beautiful gift.

As an aside there may indeed be more coffee today.

Prayer.

Pursue the silence; go where the silence is taking you. In all likelihood these are two different sentences mashed up into one as they are both part of the same conversation and an encouragement to pursue prayer in a new-to-me way, to listen for where Our Lord is working and speaking with me.

Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me. – St Ignatius

Jesus often went into the desert or off by himself to pray. He went to the quiet, the silence to be with His Father. About a year or so into following Jesus the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. Lord, teach me how to pray. In this moment Jesus taught them the Our Father.

Our Father in heaven, holy is your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation.
Deliver us from evil.

Last week at the parish mission Our Father spoke very sweetly about this prayer, the depth of it, the fulfillment of it, the connection to the Ten Commandments. That little nosegay is sublimely sweet, the connection to the Ten Commandments, and the Great Commandment to Love God and Love our Neighbor and to guide us in His ways rather than our own. This morning while digging into the Spiritual Exercises I read from Romans 8: 18 – 25 the pondering continued on creation itself, that God created me, that in His view He sees both who he created me to be, and who I’ve become as a result of life experiences that shaped me, my own life choices, the choices of others that had a direct effect and how I dealt with them and so much else. God knows all of this and yet quite like Adam and Eve after the fall I try to hide from Him those places that hurt, or where I’m ashamed of something I’ve said or done.

How do I say this without sounding all – in pursuing the silence, in appreciating creation, in appreciating my own creation there is a moment in that time of silence, in that time of prayer where I’m fully ashamed of this kind of vulnerability. It’s hard to bring these painful places to our Father. And yet there is Jesus on the Cross. It’s hard to bring God the places where I’ve failed. And Jesus fell the first time. (Just to be clear I know full well Jesus never sinned, his human body fell.) It’s hard to bring him the places that hurt and have shaped how I see and think about myself. Simon carried the Cross. It’s hard to admit I’ve intentionally and unintentionally hurt people. Father, forgive them they don’t know what they’re doing. I sobbed. There will be more sobbing and weeping as this life continues, as this desire to know God, to give him all this stuff and allow Him to transform it continues.

In and through these last few weeks of prayer I believe I have next years word of the year. More on that somewhere around the new year. For this moment it is clear that this years word Cultivate, will continue to inform what I do, how I pray, how I look at what I’ve done/not done for a long time.

Back to the Our Father before getting on with the rest of this day, there is more here than I ever knew and I’m grateful for the opportunity to dig into and grow through this rich and deep and clear and holy prayer. This prayer that guides me in right relationship with God and from that with people, including myself. Lord let me listen for how you’re speaking, let me come to the silence and listen to you. Amen.

God bless,

Teri