.005 surprisingly talkative

There have been long periods in my life when my conversations with God happened down on my knees or with folded hands, sometimes with a rosary, often in sanctuaries (at crazy hours of the night in order to have the whole space to myself). Pretty traditional. But I've learned, out of necessity in a variety of forms, to talk and listen to God in a variety of ways. It's kind of nice to know that some of the other ways I talk to God are every bit as traditional as some of our stereotypical images of prayer.

Walking. Intentional, reflective silence. Meditating on candlelight or icons or other art. Listening to trees and smelling clouds. Resting--emptying my mind enough that God can speak to me in dreams. I now find God to be "surprisingly talkative" when I do these things and others. God doesn't speak to me in all of these ways in a single day, or at least I haven't yet gotten that good at listening. But I find that, at different points along my journey, God and I agree to meet in different places, different postures, different sights and sounds and even tastes.

Feinberg writes about the fact that "God whispers" (p. 96). That's why we have to listen more carefully and stay very close to God in order to hear these divine whispers that will lead us down right paths.

Lately, especially now that it's warm again, I'm find God in nature. Perhaps it's obvious from the look of this blog, but I'm head-over-heels in love with the west and particularly with rocks. Wildflowers are a newer passion, but I love the way God shows off with bursts of color! Now that it's warm and sunny, I'm spending time with God in my garden, walking along the canals, and sitting on rocks in the middle of nowhere. Lately God is assuring me over and over that I'm in the right place, that I'm not on this journey alone but together with God. (I didn't know that I needed so much reassurance, but it sure feels good to get it!) I'm also getting God's message to me to rest, to find Sabbath, to not neglect the command to "be still and know" (Ps. 46:10).

Where are you finding God these days? What is God saying to you these days?

What about Sabbath and rest? Watch this and think about it.

.004 amazingly wise

I love Feinberg's personal story of being surprised at the wisdom that came from her own lips. I'm partial to this particular story because I'm a little jealous of the wisdom she was given. I've been stuck in similar situations myself and haven't received a pearl of wisdom like this one in my predicaments!

If you haven't read it, she's telling the story of being asked, "What gives you the right, as a woman, to get up and speak to this audience, which includes me, and talk regarding anything having to do with Scripture?" Her answer (that came from someplace beyond her): "Because I am his daughter" (p. 76-7). AMEN!

That's what gives any of us the right to speak about God or scripture. By virtue of being God's children, we're qualified to speak of God and susceptible to speaking wisdom.

If I may stray from our text and get very Methodist for a moment.... John Wesley, Father of the Methodist Church, recognized the importance of each person's experience of God. One result of Wesley's teachings (still firmly rooted in his Anglican roots) is what's now known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. The four parts of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience give us lenses through which to view the world. Combined, we get a well-rounded understanding of how Christians might live faithfully.

This mini-soapbox is the result of my experience of being discounted as both a woman and a young adult. I find that, time and again, my experience is doubted, questioned, or altogether discounted on the basis of age and/or gender. It's terribly frustrating! (Question my knowledge of scripture, challenge my book-learning of tradition, or disagree with my reasoning, but let me have my experience!)

I'm grateful to have it pointed out here that wisdom can be spoken by those who are willing to be vessels--and usually comes through us when we least expect it.

What about your experience? When have you been a vessel through which wisdom flowed?

.003 breathtakingly beautiful

What do you love about Jesus?

This is the question that changed our author's understanding of sharing one's faith. Feinberg writes, "...I thought sharing one's faith was a matter of coercion. Now I realize it's a matter of connection" (p. 55). Feinberg writes about loving Jesus for his beauty and finding beauty all around when she more readily identifies the Creator of those surroundings: "When I fix my eyes on him, then I can look at things in this world and better recognize which ones bear the fingerprints of the Creator. And I find myself worshiping the Maker of beauty rather than that which merely has been marked by beauty" (p. 53).

I get it. I started practicing yoga more than seven years ago. It's great for my health and for od for my often overwhelmed brain. Type A folks like me need something to slow us down and give us an excuse to be still and yet feel accomplished afterwards. An equally wonderful and completely unexpected gift of my yoga practice is the way it has opened my eyes to beauty. While yoga has somehow made me more attuned to physical beauty in other people, it is also undeniably connected to the beauty of the Creator. I see human bodies as works of art. Each is a differently shaped, a hand-crafted clay vessel sculpted by God. Each is the perfect work of art that God intended and bears God's own fingerprints. I receive it as an amazing blessing to see people as creations made and loved by the Creator rather than judging shapes and contours and colors the way society and media would have me to do.

One of my favorite children's sermons to give is to talk about the image of God. I ask kids what God looks like and get a variety of answers. (Or better yet, I ask kids to draw Jesus and get some of the coolest kid-art ever. I never fail to learn a lot about Jesus in the process of asking them to explain their drawings to me.) I tell them I've got a picture of God, but they'll have to look closely. I then show them a mirror. It's best when kids gasp in amazement! I wouldn't do this with children if I didn't believe that they are seeing God in that mirror, but that's precisely what I believe.

But yoga and bodies are just one way among infinite others to see beauty around you, me, and us. So where is it that you see God's breathtaking beauty?

And what do you love about Jesus?

.002 bighearted

As we journey with Feinberg and each other deeper into our relationship to the divine, we find God to be "bighearted." What exactly does the author mean by that? "God whose love cannot be contained, coupled by a desire for real relationship" (p. 32). I try to see both sides of the coin. I regularly look at different aspects of my faith and try to see them as an outsider or non-believer would. I am well aware that some of my beliefs must sound crazy to others, so I appreciate the skepticism of non-believers. But when it comes to this bighearted God and this definition of bighearted, I cannot imagine who would not want this sort of relationship.

Closely related to that invitation to real relationship is the invitation to real life. Feinberg writes, "Jesus isn't providing an explanaton of how to live as much as he is issuing an invitation to real life" (p. 39). Real life surely cannot happen without genuine love and honest relationship(s).

There's a lot to say about this bighearted God, but I don't want to direct us too specifically. Comment in any way you're inspired to do so, or begin by answering one of the questions provided for us in the book: "In what ways has God been bighearted with you?" (p. 198)