Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Summer Retreat Day

Our next Community of the Lamb offering will be:
A Summer Retreat Day
"Don’t worry! Be happy!"

Saturday, July 18
9 AM – 3 PM
hosted by
St. Dunstan Episcopal Church
722 N. 145th St., Shoreline
To register call 206-713-5321
or email PrayeroftheLamb1@mac.com
Suggested donation $35
Lunch will be provided

Community News and Reflections

I had wanted to get a newsletter out since March, but as you can see I missed the due date! However the ministry of the Community of the Lamb has been growing, and now I have news about this that I am eager to share.

The 17th Prayer of the Lamb introductory seminar was held at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Mercer Island, this last February, followed by a 12 Week course that will finish in June. Those participating have been actively engaged in establishing a meditation practice, and express obvious commitment to this spiritual practice through consistent regular attendance and active engagement in discussion during our sessions. Watch for what the next Community of the Lamb event at Emmanuel will be.

Summer Retreat Day – St. Dunstan will again host a retreat day on their beautiful campus in Shoreline. This will be Saturday, July 18, 9 AM – 3 PM, with the theme, “Don’t worry; be happy.” This event will include meditation, gospel study, free time to walk meditatively in the gardens and among the trees, a light lunch, and the Supper of the Lamb.

Prison Outreach Ministry – Since October of 2007 I have been going out to the Monroe Correctional Complex to offer meditation instruction twice a month. The big news is that the Community of the Lamb has just received a generous grant of $3,000 from the Social Outreach Committee of Emmanuel, Mercer Island, for this ministry for 2009. This enables me to now go once a week greatly strengthening the program by giving more consistent and regular support to the men participating in the meditation group, and it also goes a long way toward meeting its expenses this year. The benefits of meditation in the prison setting are becoming more well known, and the chaplains and inmates tell me that this ministry is deeply appreciated. So I also want to communicate to all those who participate in the Community of the Lamb by using the Prayer of the Lamb in your spiritual practice, that you too can contribute to this ministry, especially so that we can continue to offer it on a weekly basis in 2010 as well.

While it has been a few months since the last newsletter, I hope you all have visited the blog/website and read what has been posted there. If you would like to have an email notice sent to you whenever a new item is posted on the blog, you can go to the blog site, sign in (and create an account if you don’t already have one), and sign up for an email feed.

Meditation Reflections - Here are some words about the significance of observing the body while sitting in meditation with the Prayer of the Lamb.

It has been said that paying attention to the body as we sit in silence can be compared with looking at pond water under a microscope. What is not obvious to the naked eye now is revealed as full of myriad tiny creatures swimming about. There is endless activity. So it is that as we observe more closely our own body sitting so still, we discover so much activity – subtle, tiny vibrations, variations, and movement. We can see how each part is in constant change and flux. The body now seems more like a river than a still pond.

Thus we have the opportunity to see how the body communicates its condition to consciousness more clearly. At times it is settled and at ease. Other times it is jumpy, edgy, tense, and emotions and thoughts are turbulent, or it is sleepy. In order to pay attention to what the body is communicating we may cultivate a compassionate gaze that becomes more alert to this subtle body language. We bring to it our same intercessory intention of the Prayer of the Lamb as we have for all those others for whom we are asking God’s mercy. And then when we have been able to sit with the body and all that it tells us, we are then able to sit with our feelings and emotions that rise to our attention, where previously we had been in avoidance and denial regarding them.

We cannot change ourselves, but in spiritual practice we can become what we practice. We do this by repeatedly practicing observing ourselves in place of reacting, and instead let go of fear and trust the process of purification of the Spirit at work within us, seeing through the self-limitations of our ego identities, our identifications with our suffering, needs and limitations, our poverty or lack. As we express compassion for self, the self opens to healing. Then comes the cultivation of the virtues and qualities that can strengthen our lives.

Realization and awakening are not accomplished by force of will-power and the efforts of the self in perfecting spiritual practice, but rather through rest, the resting of the heart and the opening of the mind. In that we discover what has always been present to us.

The point of meditation is the present moment – not getting someplace. In this way it is like dancing, which is not done to get somewhere, but to be present interacting here and now. With Jesus in the dance, there is no need to go anywhere else. Keep meditating!

Jane's Testimony

The following is a brief reflection written by Jane Gray York, president of the board of directors for the Community of the Lamb. The words she has to say about a faith response to the global economic conditions are neither naive nor glib, but words out of her direct experience and the wisdom that has come to her through faith. Jane has the life credentials to speak to us all these challenging and encouraging words.

Philippians 4:6-7
Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

During this time of recession in our country and our world where we don’t know what is coming next, it is more important than ever to turn to Jesus, who is the one we can depend upon to care for us. I am a person who likes things in order. I like to know what will happen, look ahead, make plans and have them work out.

But life isn’t like that. The Holy Spirit frequently changes the lesson plans to teach flexibility and to trust in the Lord one day at a time. I have found that by praying the Prayer of the Lamb each day I have let go of the need to control my circumstances, to live each day fully one day at a time, and to cease “futurizing.” If I am worrying about the future, I am not living today. I’m not staying in the moment. This prayer has helped me to adjust to big changes in my life when the tendency is to try to hang onto the familiar.
I’m 77 years old, my husband has dementia, our retirement nest egg has been lost to the stock market, and I am asking the Lord for direction as to how I can earn money at home. However these events do not determine how to respond to the events. The way in which I respond to these events will direct and influence the events more than the events themselves.

Because prayer, scripture and giving to others has been a larger part of my life, of my abiding in Him and His abiding in me, I am learning to live trusting that the Lord will provide what we need when we need it. Prayer helps me to let go, and to keep the garden of my heart weeded and fed each day with love, peace, joy, and hope so I can live each day with energy and gratitude.

Philippians 4:19-20
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God be glory for ever and ever. AMEN.

Jane Gray York

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Sermon preached 6th Sunday of Easter at Ascension, Seattle

Thank you for sharing Carla with Emmanuel, Mercer Island, this morning,
and thank you for having me here with you today.

Pulpit exchanges are a double benefit:
a good way for a congregation to hear
a different voice and a different perspective on the gospel,
and an opportunity for the clergy
to experience how another congregation worships
plus that little but dangerous enticement of being a new voice
and thus likely to be more appreciated than at home.

Carla and I are each getting to preach on our favorite topics.

Carla is back with a congregation that knows and loves her
to have her take part in Emmanuel’s Rogation celebration.
Emmanuel is blest with expansive grounds
with some garden areas that are particularly beautiful right now
and also a large pea patch for vegetable gardens.
And this year our Kids Green Team
is planting their own section of the pea patch.

And I am honored to be back here at Ascension
where I had held a Prayer of the Lamb seminar
and led a 12 week group.
Today’s pulpit exchange was originally to have happened during Lent
when the topic of prayer and meditation was part of your lenten program,
but those plans had to be changed,
and now here we are, and prayer is always a topic that can be addressed.
The prayer relationship with Jesus is at the heart of our Christian faith.

This is where faith is made real,
where the rubber hits the road,
whenever we bring ourselves into the posture of prayer or meditation.
The prayer relationship with Jesus is foundational to trust and commitment.
It informs all that we subsequently do.
Prayer is the time and place where grace is given freedom to act in our lives.

What we experience in prayer and meditation
shapes our motivation for service and enables us for action.
That is why it is so very important to pray first before engaging in action.

So now, how to talk about prayer and meditation
in this short space of time this morning…
There is so much that can be said,
BUT I always find that a gospel passage gives a good way
to focus in on an aspect of prayer and meditation
that is a gold mine to explore,
and today’s gospel is no exception.

Actually I think that John 15 describes rather well
what is at the heart of prayer and what is realized in meditation.

Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.”

This love of which he speaks is, of course, agaph love,
that is the unitive love of God
which is a dynamic force and action within the heart of God,
within the Holy Trinity,
and this is what Jesus preached, demonstrated, and lived.

This agaph love flowed from Jesus continually,
so that in all the gospels everything recorded about Jesus
indicates this dynamic
and reveals no self-interest, no self-concern,
no self-contraction away from others and their needs.

This is a way of being that has overcome the mindset of the world,
where self-preservation arises
out of concern for having one’s own needs met.
Indeed Jesus so loved that he willingly laid down his life for his friends.

Jesus says, “Remain in my love,”
remain in this agaph, unitive love of God: be here!
Don’t go back to the old mind set.
Don’t get hooked by the pressures of the world.

Then he says, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,”
which can also be said the other way around:
“If you remain in my love, you will be able to keep my commandment,”
because what was that commandment of Jesus?
Love one another – in the same way he has loved us.

Look, this is for the sake of joy – your joy, joy that completely fills you up,
joy that permeates to the depth of your being,
joy that swallows up all grief, all suffering, all sadness, all anxiety,
all fear, all despair, all confusion, all self-constriction,
all that melting away in unbounded, liberating, life-giving joy.

Again, this love talk in today’s gospel is at the heart of prayer
and what is realized in meditation,
AND what can be experienced at every point in life.
I am saying that to sit in meditation
is to put ourselves in the best possible position for being able to
recognize and experience this agaph love, this unitive love.

See! We can’t be loved from afar.
God seeks to have us realize that God’s love is so intimate
that it is unitive.

So Jesus says remain in the love – don’t go back to the old mind set,
don’t get hooked by pressures from the world.
You can take a lot of hits from the world, if you are wakeful to the Love.

Now, a word about being chosen, since it’s right here in the text:
Jesus said, “You did not chose me, but I chose you…”
This is not an issue of being chosen out of the great pool of all living beings
to have an exclusive claim about relationship with Jesus.
Not that at all.
This is about initiative.

We may think we have made the first move by coming to church,
by getting ourselves baptized or confirmed, by offering our prayers,
but the move was initiated by Jesus, his Resurrection Presence
through the Holy Spirit moving us to turn toward him:
Jesus lifted up on the cross drawing all to him.

Ah, so we come to offer prayer, we sit to meditate,
not because we thought it up, but because we cannot help it.
If some of you then begin to think, oops, I’m not a meditator
and I hardly remember to say my prayers each day,
take that self-realization as indication that you are being drawn, being called.

Now the reason for all this love,
and for being the object of Jesus’ initiative, his choosing:
it’s not so we can just sit around in this wonderful love being blissed out,
or just feeling comfortable in the self-satisfaction of knowing we are loved.
It’s not so that we can come to church each Sunday,
hear the beautiful words of the liturgy that pronounce this love,
have a cup of coffee with friends
and go home again to think about other things.
We are being loved and being chosen
so that, frankly, we can be of some good use,
so that we can be fruitful, create some results, bear fruit.
And what happens to fruit grown on a tree or vine?
It gets eaten.
That’s right. If we bear fruit, then expect to get eaten.
Expect to be nourishment for others.
Jesus did this big time.
Look – we come here, up to this table, and eat him,
this literal giving of his life blood for us.

I am speaking very intimately here, at at very fundamental, foundational level
about life in relationship to Jesus.
I speak this way because what I have come to see
through my own meditation practice
is the very solid and immediate reality of this Love that Jesus has for us.

And this has worked in me an action of grace and mercy
that has been liberating and healing.
I began to meditate as a response to huge grief and loss
through the deaths of two young men in our family
followed shortly after by the death of my father,
out of a deep inner need that began shout at me
to sit down, shut up and listen.

And when I did, I came to discover this huge love,
and as I opened my heart to let this love in
much more than the grief was transformed and healed.
There were many ways in which my own self-limitation, doubt, fear,
anger, aggression, and other self-destructive attitudes
were being addressed,
not through any agenda or effort of my own,
but as a result of sitting still and doing nothing,
that is, meditating.

That is why I recommend this spiritual practice to others.
As a spiritual practice meditation is tried and true, accessible,
and bears fruit for those who discern a call to engage the practice.
That is why I have dedicated my time and effort
into providing instruction and forming meditation groups
where establishing a stable and ongoing personal practice
can be supported.

Bearing fruit – let me say one thing more.
It should have been no surprise to me
that eventually my own mediation practice would start making
some use of me in a way that would go beyond
my own comfort level in offering ministry.

It started with a simple pastoral referral
when I was doing some interim work in Monroe.
A prisoner was sent there who was an Episcopalian. Would I visit him?

I don’t like prisons,
and I don’t particularly care for the kinds of people you find in prison.
I can work pastorally in other situations of need.
I have been a hospice director and a chaplain in a trauma hospital.
I’ve been with a lot of people in crisis and difficult situations.
But prison ministry and the personality types there –
well, others would do much better with that than I;
I had never been much good with that or felt comfortable in that setting.

Nevertheless I made the visit to the Monroe Correctional Complex,
and lo and behold, this inmate wanted to learn how to meditate.
So there we sat in the large visitors room
surrounded by everyone else visiting – prisoners and their families –
a veritable din going on around us,
and we mediated together.

This guy was super motivated,
and he went back to his cell and meditated daily between my visits.
This went on for months.
Then he introduced me to the chaplains,
and we talked about my coming as a volunteer to teach meditation to others.

Now I go out there on a weekly basis, and have just recently received
a grant that will help keep this going for the rest of the year.
So far over 30 men have at least sampled the meditation class,
and some have stayed and established a personal meditation practice.

I am learning along with these men about the mercy of God,
mercy for them for an openness to
healing and transformation in their lives,
and mercy for me in bringing me to repentance
about my own judgments about them,
freeing me from another inner prison.

I am learning more and more what it is to do what Jesus commands,
that we love one another.