If Christ were coming again tomorrow, I would plant a tree today. - Martin Luther

i don't even have the emotional capacity to comment on this quote right now.

The circumstances of our lives are another medium of God’s communication with us. God opens some doors and closes others.... Through the wisdom of our bodies, God tells us to slow down or reorder our priorities. The happy coincidences and frustrating impasses of daily life are laden with messages. Patient listening and the grace of the Spirit are the decoding devices of prayer. It is a good habit to ask, What is God saying to me in this situation? Listening to our lives is part of prayer.

- Marjorie J. Thompson
Soul Feast

Lots of good stuff here.

Seize the day, if you must, but do so gently and never, ever shake it. All days are not alike, and some of them are just not meant for seizing. Some days you wake up with a headache, a dentist's appointment, and a long to-do list. But that's okay. Seize tomorrow instead and today follow the path of least resistance - because deciding not to seize this particular day is also a form of seizing the day, if you follow my drift.
Likewise, whoever came up with the bright idea that you should live each day as if it were your last has probably never taken this advice . . . what this cliche fails to address is that the day after your imagined last day quickly arrives and transforms your grand exit into an unmitigated disaster. Now you're chubby, broke, jobless, and have really spooked your cute UPS driver. And you're supposed to live this nightmarish new day as if it's your last. You see where I'm going with this - it gets old very fast.
Better advice is to live each year as if it's your last. Pace yourself. Prioritize. Most of all, enjoy the constructive daydreaming it takes to plan your fantasy, because if you don't, you're missing the whole point: Living each day as if it's your last is really about enjoying now. Even if you're not exactly where you want to be yet, there really is a ton of pleasure to be had in stopping to smell the rugosas along the way.
Adventure comes with no guarantees or promises. Risk and reward are conjoined twins . . . there are many good reasons not to toss your life up in the air and see how it lands. Just don't let fear be one of them.

- Mary South

bodeyes

"A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you're in and take advantage of it. You still bring to bear all your prior experience, but you're riding on another level. It's completely liberating." - Nikki Giovanni

so. i change a lot.
i try to live my life with a "no parking" attitude - always moving forward, always living and learning. I try to open myself to the power of God and the power of my community and relationships to keep poking me into a continually new creation, to keep learning and growing into my own skin.

with varying degrees of success, i guess.

and i love this way of living.

i don't ever want to sit still. i want to live and move in the Spirit; to follow Her where She leads. Into scary and wonderful places, into both joy and pain. life is not living if it doesn't include both of these.

but then there are times where i wonder if my carpe diem choice of lifestyle has more to do with running from myself than running towards something. that maybe i am not sitting still because i am afraid to. that maybe i have not come as far as i thought i did. and maybe if i sat down and stopped striving to move and change i could actually connect with who i am today and learn things from that person.

i have had a difficult time relaxing lately. even star trek dvds aren't helping. i am restless, my spirit is agitated, and i can't sit.

these last few months i have been both running from and connecting to my body. at the same time. which is tricky to do, but i have have figured out the awkward balance. i pay attention to my need to connect with my body, with my need for yoga and chi and healing. but am frightened of and avoid that quiet place which i used to love sitting in. in my tent in the early mornings, or in the corner of my office when my day got too ridiculous. wrapped in the arms of Christ.

i wonder where this new fear stems from.

perhaps from the fear of connecting to and having a relationship with my own slightly broken body. to admit my physical mortality. The last few years have been so focused on my spiritual being that i have been neglectful of my physical being. perhaps even my emotional being. to admit the limits of this body, and of my short lifetime on earth, smacks of ridiculousness, stemming from my evangelical upbringing. i was brought up to always look forward to heaven, to write off what happens on this earth. that was REALLY matters comes next.

so i have a strong concept of my spiritual being. i am connected to her and her strengths and her needs and her weaknesses and her need to be challenged, to be loved, to always be changing and growing.

and it seems strange that in such a time - a time where i have spent countless hours working and focusing on my body in many different ways than i ever have before, that i realize my emotional disconnectedness from its functionings and its non-functionings.

what place does my body have in my spirituality?
what place does my spirituality have in my body?
and how do the two fit together?

time for quiet. i guess.

The Peg. By Kelly Hughes.

Award-winning Winnipeg author . . . Chandra Mayor says Winnipeg is a real DIY city. And she's right. Winnipeg is the MacGyver of Canada. We're not drowning in endowments and corporate cash, so we make our own fun with a paper bag, an elastic, a few buttons and some pipecleaners. Mr. Dressup would be proud. And we should be proud too. We should hold our heads a little higher, and lose the loser mentality. We as a city can slough off our mantle of insecurity and self-loathing, without losing our soul or sense of humour. These things can go: Complaining, Second-guessing, Indecision, Jeanne's Cakes, Peter Nygard, Burton Cummings' mustache. These things can stay: Feistiness, Good Prices, Bad Jokes about the Weather, Gunn's applejacks, Richard Hurst's mustache. And maybe, just maybe, by the time Gail Asper's Canadian Museum for Human Rights is built, we'll be ready to be the next Bilbao, Spain.
-Kelly Hughes, Aqua Books

worth it.

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
You satisfy me more than the richest feast
I will praise you with songs of joy.
I lie awake thinking of you,
meditating on you through the night.
Because you are my helper,
I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you;
your strong right hand holds me securely.
But those plotting to destroy me will come to ruin.
They will go down into the depths of the earth.
They will die by the sword
and become the food of jackals.
But the king will rejoice in God.
All who trust in him will praise him,
while liars will be silenced.

hmmm

anonymous, geez, winter 2006
"our prosperity has not been sinful . . . but if it seperates us so much from the poor, how can we say it is a blessing from God?"

Super interesting. Is it possible that what we normally consider blessings to actually be curses, seperating us from richer blessings?

Hmm.

pain

anonymous, Geez, Winter 2006
The closer you are to pain is the closer you are to God. Instead of fixing people and cleaning up the cities, we should be seeking to celebrate the gifts of the people, find functional places for them in small communities, and continue to communiate to them their immediate and eternal importance as hosts of the spirit of love and agents of healing to others who have been hurt . . . we will not save people through words and sinners prayers, but through vibrant love.

love this.

On Sabbath: We can teach ourselves the art of prayerfully and re-creatively wasting time. Most of us are already able to waste considerable time joylessly and unintentionally . . . the deliberate wasting of time by doing nothing can be an important spiritual discipline, especially if it is done with joy and in the spirit of re-creation. We may feel guilty and definitley out of step since everyone else looks so purposeful and busy. Yet a little holy time-wasting can create a bit of a true sabbath . . . we can rejoice in God's gift of time as we slow down to savor it. -Margaret Guenther

rest.

Excessive busyness, particularly in the service of a good cause, is an effective way of hiding from God and from our own deepest self. -Margaret Guenther


Wow. That one cuts deep, yeah?

I think there is a lot of wisdom in this quote. I have found it to be very true in my own life. There was a time where I was so busy busy busy running around, doing ministry in the providence dorm and in my church plant and within my family and within my youth group that I never allowed time for self-reflection or for personal development. I once believed that this was the way to go; that we are called to lives of giving giving giving, working hard and looking forward to the next life for rest.

But I can’t do that anymore. And I don’t want to. It took so long to make the mental shift from considering time spent alone as being selfish to seeing time spent alone being vital to selflessness. That ministry is not something to give away, but to be and live and find joy and rest in. That my soul is just as valuable as the next, that I am not called to sacrificing myself and my health to the point where I am destroyed, that listening to God’s voice requires the life quietness which only true rest can bring.

But rest is difficult. Not only because my mind is haunted by the million of things that it seems I should be doing, but because it is difficult to sit. To be myself. To reflect on who I am and who God in in ways which are healthy and not self-condemning. The enjoyment you get from conversing with yourself is completely dependent on how much you like yourself as a person and as a spiritual being. Sitting by yourself when you feel comfortable in your own skin is torturous. And important. And may be the only place where you can experience true grace.

Random thoughts.

i guess i'm a communist.

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. -Dom Helder Camara

useless

hello reading public

i have a headache today.

ahhhhhh

anyway. thanks for reading. i don't have the ability to be either deep or clever right now.

Best,
Bre

Reality show in a landfill.

I don't know what to think about this one.
Bre

drama queen

A turning:

1. the act of a person or thing that turns.
2. an act of reversing position
3. the place or point at which anything bends or changes direction
4. an act of shaping or forming something
5. this past weekend


A decision to move forward with prayer and bold confidence. An act of faith, a careful consideration of Paul’s words, a difficult look into a mirror and a corresponding act of repentance and reunion with myself. A remembering. A new life, unfolding freshly daily. A choice to live in today, not within the past or the future. A re-entrance onto the dance floor. A breaking of chains. A beautiful and terrifying liberation. A questioning of my own strength and spirit. A reliance on grace to move forward.

Thank you.

At our best, we become Sabbath for one another. We are the emptiness, the day of rest. We become space, that our loved ones, the lost and sorrowful, may find rest in us.

- Wayne Muller

Really, I Don't Even Like this CD.

Listening to martin sexton and contemplating my existence.

I am ready for a change. I am itching for a change. My spirit is ready to go somewhere and to start fresh. To go back to school. To start fresh somewhere with a clean slate. To grab onto the calling I hear so clearly.

But I feel blocked. I am unsure how reckless to be in this life. Finances scare me. And moving scares me. And leaving my parents scares me. But staying here scares me, too, in terrifyingly different ways. And I am ready to move on – every part of me except for my bank account and my lack of safety net. And these are stupid reasons to stay somewhere.

And I question the wisdom of doing this in a time of immense change in my life. Of a time of vision shifting and uncertainties about things such as health and family ties. So much has changed in the last few months. My everyday life looks so different now and has such different cares and concerns. My daily routines are filled with foreign-feeling tasks and movements. Some comforting, most frightening. In many ways, I thrive on this.

There aren’t many things in this life that scare me. I have learned to see challenges as opportunities; to embrace discomfort and to stare the devil in the face when he knocks at my door. I have faced many challenges in my life and came through them, bruised but wiser and bigger and more thankful. I am Euphemia. I have learned my strength in these situations. I have learned of my capacity to love and to stand through hardship. But it seems that in matters of money (and spiders), I can’t seem to overcome my fears and I become paralyzed, unable to move or to take risks. Unwilling to let Christ do Her thing; always resisting the calling to step into the abyss of blessing and to simply trust.

I want to overcome my fears. To overcome myself. I want to be godly and thankful and beautiful and follow the Spirit without question and without hesitation. I want to give and be given to and learn and grow and experience and follow my calling with conviction and courage and grace. I want the courage and the voice to push the church into a more loving and diverse being. I want to change everyday. To be scared everyday, to walk in and with faith and love and mercy and grace. I want to live.

Maybe its time.

pacifist.

If we care about human life and about freedom, we must reject war, no matter what our political leaders tell us. War poisons our souls, kills the children of "the enemy,' and mutilates the bodies and minds of our own soldiers. -Howard Zinn

timely reposting

Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears [their] grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate. But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of revenge - from which new sorrorws will be born for others - then sorrow will never cease in this world and will multiply.
--Etty Hillesum
quoted in Marc Ellis, "Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation"

dude.

In a culture obsessed with consumption, I believe fasting needs to be considered in terms of its inner dynamic: abstinence . . . . The purpose of abstinence is to learn rightly to enjoy God's gifts. We need disciplines of abstinence because we have come to relate to food, drink, sex, money, recognition, and many other things in life not as lovely gifts to be enjoyed in moderation and gratitude, but as objects of consumption to fill emotional voids. When what we consume is consuming us, and what we possess is possessing us, the only way back to health and balance is to refrain from using those things that have control over us.
-Marjorie J. Thompson