Pages Menu
TwitterRssFacebook
Categories Menu

Posted on Mar 22, 2013 in formation friday, healing | 22 comments

formation friday: forgiveness

to err is human to forgive divine

it’s been a few weeks since i’ve posted a formation friday. this is a crazy month for us at the refuge & my kids home for spring break & getting moving on the book & all kinds of other typical chaos.  it’s been a really good lent at the refuge focused on “hunger.” one of the things so many of us hunger for is freedom and peace.  we want to feel less crazy brain & more peace. less burdened & more free.  less insecure & more loved.  less burdened & more light. one of the parts about lent that i really like is the introspection and examining what’s going on inside our hearts a little more intentionally. for all kinds of reasons, this passage has been rattling around in my head for the past few weeks (somewhere along the line, my kids had to memorize it when they were at christian school and i can still sing the jingle):  be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you (ephesians 4:32).

forgiveness is such a tricky thing for so many of us.

letting go of deep hurts is much more than saying a verse or praying a certain prayer. releasing resentment is an ongoing process in our spiritual journey that is easier said than done. i think that’s why we need God’s help with it so much. left on my own, i can always come up with a really strong case  why i am right, how i have been harmed, how deeply it hurts, and why i don’t want to let it go. some of my resentments are protections. they keep me safe & protected, my heart a little hardened; they guard me from vulnerability.

unforgiveness also robs us of so much life. i like what anne lamott says, “not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.”  we are the ones who suffer. oh, the hours i have spent harboring unforgiveness against myself & others that some never even knew existed.  they didn’t lose one wink of sleep about it and i was tortured. i think that’s why Jesus called us to forgiveness so clearly–it’s not so God will be satisfied somehow, it’s so we won’t live in so much torment.

it’s also quite true that forgiving does not mean forgetting. that is a false teaching that gets any of us right back into unsafe situations. to me, forgiveness means means letting go. releasing ties with the negative power it has over us. seeing our story through new eyes. acknowledging not only our humanness, but others, too. and respecting brokenness & evil & reality.  offering mercy.

i know there are a lot of really complicated situations out there. stories of abuse that simply writing a few lines in our journal will not immediately shift, but i thought that for this formation friday, and in the spirit of the last few days of lent, i’d share a little exercise that centers on forgiveness. we’re all at different places on this, so don’t feel any pressure.  i noticed this week that i have been carrying some resentments that i had let go of but picked back up. i was reminded, yet again, how forgiveness is an ongoing part of our human existence and is a pathway to peace (the beatitudes & 12 steps are so good with helping us keep current).  there’s usually always some work to be done in this area, no matter how big or small.

the primary areas that forgiveness seems to fall into are:  forgiving others, forgiving ourselves, and forgiving God.

for some of us, forgiving others means letting people off the hook. they’ll never actually know how deeply they hurt us and will never ask for our forgiveness. but we can’t keep living like we’re living and it’s time to let go. even without the justice we desire.

sometimes the hardest one to forgive is ourselves–all of the “if only i’s…” all of the ways we are so freaking mean to ourselves, so withholding of compassion and kindness. all the “how could i be so stupid’s?” all the noise that clutters our heads & hearts & steals so much life.

and depending on our situations, sometimes forgiving God is necessary. one of the best things that ever happened to me was letting go of blaming God for everything but i have still had to reckon with how truly pissed off i am at the way things work sometimes. for others of us, we must address that God did not protect us properly and how bad that hurts.

they look different for each of us and part of this exercise is to consider what rises to the surface during this season.

a good first step is to consider:

who or what is giving us the most trouble right now?   

what can we not seem to let go of? 

what seems to keep rearing its head in a way that’s destructive?

then, here are some questions to journal, pray, reflect on and use in any way that works for you:

God, i know somehow i need to forgive…for…(the more specific, the better)

i am a little (or a lot) afraid to let it go because…

but i’m tired of the negative ways it affects me, like…

i long to feel…

i think kindness or compassion toward ______ (a person, a circumstance, ourselves, God) might look like..

God, help me let go of the power this hurt has over me. i really want to.  today, as best i can, i choose to…

as with any spiritual reflection exercise, sometimes the time is right and sometimes it’s just not. my hope for this formation friday is not for it to feel forced but rather an invitation when the time is right.  the lighter we can travel, the better.

have a great weekend.

love and hope, kathy

maybe it’s time to let it go…for the first time or the 101st time…
Read More

Posted on Feb 22, 2013 in advent & lent, formation friday, spiritual formation | 6 comments

formation friday: noticing

formation friday noticing

twice a month at the refuge we have a gathering called “refuge advocates”, a time for learning, training, encouragement, and soul care for people who journey with people in hard places.  i love this group!  it is not just for refuge advocates but for friends from other churches & ministries, too, to come and have a space to process and learn together.  this past week we did a neighborhood prayer walk as part of lent & being more aware of what’s going on around us and inside of us at the same time.

oh, it was so pretty, what can happen with intentional quiet space and a little guidance.

it was also really hard, seeing what maybe we hadn’t seen before in new ways. the area where the refuge is located is in the suburbs but it is the ghetto of our town, on the other side of the railroad tracks, and the contrast between it and other parts of broomfield is really evident.

the exercise made me think of christine sine’s new book, return to our senses: reimagining how we pray.  i hope you’ll get a copy (i gave some as christmas presents this year. it is so good!) .it is centered on opening ourselves up to diverse and meaningful ways of connecting with God.  i love what she says in the book about prayer:

“Prayer is not about finding the right words to say to God, it is about becoming alive to the loving presence of God in each and every moment. It is about waking up to the fact that the love of God shines through every act, every object and every conversation. The speaking of words can become rote and repetitive, even boring at times, the developing of relationship requires flexibility, creativity and constant willingness to change and to grow. Anything that connects us to the love of God, or expresses our love for God is an act of prayer. Sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures can all be acts of prayer that draw us into deeper intimacy with God.”

i love this reminder that anything that connects us to the love of God, or expresses our love for God, is an act of prayer.

we started our walk with this prayer:

God, help us see.

help us feel.

help us taste.

help us smell.

help us hear.

help us listen.

help us understand.

help us love. 

for our walk, we used the beatitudes as a guide and had some reflection questions to consider (yep, i’m a broken record). each one had a personal reflection in addition to what we noticed in the neighborhood as we were walking.  i thought i’d share it here today for formation friday and for those of you who might want to try it, even if in the comfort of your own home, as a practice of “noticing” and tuning into our hearts and what we are wrestling with and also what’s around us in prayer.

blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness ,for they will be filled.
blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- Matthew 5:3-10

as you walk, notice:

spiritual poverty. practical poverty. // consider places where God’s presence is needed.

  • what are some ways we are spiritually poor?
  • what are some ways this neighborhood might be?

places of pain and grief. // consider what’s going on behind certain doors, up certain streets.

  • what are things we are grieving right now?
  • what are some things that people around here might have lost?
  • who is comforting them in their pain?

dry and hungry places. this can be practically or spiritually. 

  • what does it look like, feel like there?
  • what are we hungry and thirsty for right now?
  • what do you think others out here are hungry and thirsty for?

places that need healing, mercy. // imagine some of the things people around here struggle with: broken relationships, job loss, divorce, depression, shame, abuse, struggling kids, addiction, mental illness, chronic pain, physical illness, immigration.

  • what are some areas of your life that need God’s healing & mercy?
  • how do you think God’s mercy shows up here?

places of beauty. // notice God’s beauty.

  • where are you seeing it in your own life right now?
  • where do you see it today?

places in our heart that are hardened and judgmental. // notice our hearts as we are walking. 

  • what are our hearts hardened to right now? 
  • how are we judging others in our own life?
  • how are our hearts hardened to the needs around us or protected by our judgmentalness?

places in need of peace. // think of God’s shalom–wholeness.

  • how are you finding greater peace & wholeness in your life right now?
  • what would God’s shalom look like for this neighborhood?

places of persecution. // consider how people here are persecuted for all kinds of reasons. 

  • how do you maybe feel persecuted in your life right now?
  • what are some things people who live here might be persecuted for?
  • what would it look like to be persecuted on others behalf, for doing what’s right no matter the cost?

as you walk, keep asking yourself these three questions, courtesy of my dear & wise friend from mile high ministries, ryan taylor:

  • what’s the struggle?  
  • what’s the hope?  
  • what’s the invitation?

God, we don’t want to miss you.  we want to notice you in new ways, creative ways, beautiful ways, hard ways. may our hearts & eyes & ears & mouths & hands be open.  

have a great weekend. love, kathy

* * * * *

ps: a lot of you may have already this on rachel held evans’ blog, but in case you didn’t yet, this is a lovely simple thought on turning ugly into beautiful as a way to pray.  now that’s cool.

Read More

Posted on Jan 20, 2013 in faith shifts, formation friday, healing | 9 comments

formation friday: when we’re mad at God

blog formation friday when we're mad at God

* formation friday has kind of become formation saturday. or now maybe even sunday. that’s just the way it goes sometimes.  i decided this one is maybe perfect for sunday–a day when some aren’t in church because we’re mad at God or are sitting in church feeling some of these things with nowhere to say it. this one will be the last formation friday post for a few weeks because i am leaving for israel/palestine learning trip this thursday!  i am going with my mom as part of a lifelong dream. i have a few posts this week before i leave (martin luther king day is one of my favorite holidays) but then i’ll be on a little break while i’m there. usually when i go out of town i don’t share much but this trip will be a learning one & i definitely plan to blog about it. 

* * * * * 

” o Lord, how long will you forget me? forever?  how long will you look the other way? how long must i struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day?” – psalm 13:1-2

when we are in conflict with someone, we all have a default pattern that we resort to.  some of us are fighters.  we actively engage in conflict and it’s not hard for us. others of us freeze or flee. we protect ourselves from the dissonant feelings by retreating or closing down.  my experience has been that fighters have it better than flee-ers or freez-ers on the whole because at least they are trying to engage, even if it’s often not in the best way.

my first reaction when i am hurt or angry with my husband, jose, is to flee.  i will want to get out of the room as soon as possible. i will want to find a way of escape in some way, shape, or form that will shut down the hard feelings–for the moment. i am learning to change that pattern. it’s not that i need to engage in that exact moment (sometimes it is good to get a little space and figure out what’s going on) but it means that i need to try to stay in instead of run.

when it comes to God, some of the same things apply. we either tend to flee or fight and often don’t end up in a better place.

for many of us, our narrow faith experience would not allow us to be mad at God–or even be angry at all.  we weren’t supposed to question or challenge God in any way. we were supposed to tuck our emotions under and respect God properly.  the problem for some, though, is that when we started to get more honest, we realized just how mad we are at God for all kinds of reasons:

why does God allow such cruddy things to continually happen? is he powerless to help or what in the $*#!&!&! is he thinking, just stand by watching us hurt?

where are you, God when we cry out to you?  why does it feel like no one’s listening?

why do some people get breaks in this world and others never seem to?

am i ever going to feel less lonely or passionately connected to God again? 

i have asked and prayed and begged and nothing seems to change.  why bother?

some of you might not connect with any of these thoughts, but i know i feel them often and know others who do.

on top of just regular hard life stuff, when we throw in our church experiences the anger can get even stronger:

how could we give our lives to God for so many years and end up here?

how can God allow such injustice in his name, so much ugliness in the place that’s supposed to most accurately reflect Christ’s image?

a lot of people have reasons to be mad at God, and i believe it’s a natural part of any relationship.

but what are we really supposed to do about it?

i don’t think hardening our heart and running away is going to help, although sometimes we need to do that for a season.

i also don’t think continually shaking our fists for years and years is going to help, either, although i do think God can hack our anger.

for me, when it comes to my relationships with people, it seems like the very first step in dealing with my anger is acknowledging it.  saying it loud.  accepting “i’m really mad about…”  and “here’s what this situation triggers in me…” (usually for me, a lot has to do with abandonment and feeling like it’s all up to me).

then the next step is to hear from the other person, to listen to their perspective, to strain to understand with new eyes.  i am getting a lot better at dong this with jose and my friends.

when it comes to God, this is tricky because God is usually not sitting across the table from us looking us in the eye.  but i wonder if maybe this is a place to start to connect with God in a new way, bring the realities of our anger to the table and ask for some revelation about it in some way, shape, or form. a few years ago, i had this huge movement-in-my-spirit about bad theology i had been taught and it helped me let God off the hook and released a lot of my anger.

for this formation friday (um, sunday), i wanted to take a little time to address that all this talk about God and spiritual formation can sometimes be really rough when the bottom line is that we are actually just mad at God for all kinds of real & valid reasons.

what’s the way out?

i think there are a few questions that are worth asking:

is this anger really toward people and i’m connecting it to God because ultimately it feels like his fault for letting it happen?

what am i getting out of staying angry with God?  (i don’t have to feel, i don’t have to let in the good, i don’t have to make myself vulnerable, i don’t have to move forward into the unknown).

what do i need to forgive God for?  what do i need to forgive others for?  what do i need to forgive myself for? (sometimes they are all tied together, and i always think it’s good to look at each. yes, i know these are huge questions!) 

how can i maybe soften my heart and unclench my fists to engage with God more tenderly?  

anger really is the prelude to courage.  it takes guts (and time) to let it go and make peace.  

this all looks so different for each of us, but my hope is that we’d keep trying to stay in and figure out what’s going on instead of running away or raging forever because with those two options we never seem to find any peace or healing or acceptance or connection.

God, it’s so hard to know what to do with some of our feelings about you.  we could really use a little help to let go of some of this anger and find our way toward peace.  

Read More

Posted on Jan 4, 2013 in formation friday, spiritual formation | 12 comments

formation friday: go to beautiful

blog formation friday beauty]

i thought i’d mix it up a little this week for formation friday with a video reflection instead of using words. i love this song and sometimes it’s nice to just look & listen instead of read & think.

beauty is God’s image reflected in all kinds of wonderful & simple ways.  so often, it’s easy to miss beauty right before us. we’re busy. we’re tired. we’re lonely. we’re stressed. we’re _______(fill-in-the-blank).  those things are realities of life, but if we’re not careful, we can miss the beauty of the here & now that helps sustain us.

my hope for us this formation friday is that we’d tune our hearts & eyes & ears toward noticing beauty.

that we’d go to beautiful, even in the midst of the ugly. 

it looks different for each of us. what’s beautiful for one person isn’t the same thing as another. that’s what i love about our uniqueness–and God’s vastness.

the other night we were watching the last lord of the rings together, all 7 of us, on our 10 year old cruddy TV.  i looked at the kids, two piled up on one small couch, two more on the floor laughing together about something they saw on facebook, the other snuggled up in a blanket, jose & i squeezed onto the other couch.  it made me smile.  i thought to myself “no one else would think this is as beautiful as i do but it sure is.”

God reveals beauty in so many ways.  may we have eyes to see it.   

have a great weekend!  peace, kathy

 

 

 

 

Read More

Posted on Dec 28, 2012 in formation friday | 15 comments

formation friday: free-er

blog formation friday freeer

“they suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. and when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. we’re free of it! all of us! nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. and so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.” – 2 corinthians 3:16-18, the message

* * * * *

i hope you all have had a good holiday   for some who struggle with christmas, i know there’s sometimes a sense of relief.  when some hanging-on-by-a-thread-through-the-holidays-friends left our house on tuesday night after christmas dinner, we high-fived and celebrated “you did it! you made it through christmas without completely tanking, yes!” amen. hallelujah. yeah, it was a rough one for many and a smooth one for many others. with all the christmas festivities over with i’m grateful for a little break where i can hang out with my kids & watch a lot of movies & unplug. i also like to use this time in between christmas & new years to look back at the past year and think about the one ahead. i gave up new years resolutions a long time ago because they always make me feel bad about myself after i break them less than a week later.  but i do like to recall where i’ve been and dream for the year i’m about to enter.

i’ve always liked considering things through the template of Jesus’ first greatest commandment–loving God, others, ourselves.  my #1 hope each year for the past chunk of years is that somehow i’d be free-er than the year before.

free-er in my relationship with God, with others, with myself.  they are all tangled up together, those three categories, and each one greatly influences the other.

i never want to be the same at the end of a year when it comes to my relationship with God, with others, with myself.

i want to be free-er than the year before in my faith.

free-er than the year before when it comes to my relationships & friendships & the ways-i-love-others.

free-er  than the year before when it comes to how i feel about myself.

that doesn’t mean there aren’t setbacks & pitfalls & all kinds of things that didn’t go the way i had hoped in these areas.  life is so not linear.  i’m still working on stuff in my life that i have been working on for an awful long time.  and that’s okay.  we all have thorns in our sides, patterns of relating & living & being that help remind us of our humanness, our weakness, our need for God.

but what becoming free-er does mean is that i’m intentionally moving away from things that hinder & shackle & trap & paralyze & rob & steal & are toxic and forward toward more presence & life & love & justice & peace & mercy & grace.  one small baby step at a time.  one beautiful weird hard day at a time.  one month at a time. one year at a time.

that’s the question (well three questions) to consider on this last formation friday of 2012:

  • how have we become more free in our relationship with God this year?
  • how have we become more free in our relationship with others?
  • how have we become more free in our relationship with ourselves?

i’ll go because it’s always so good for me to celebrate any bit of freedom i possibly can.

for me, 2012 was a year of focusing less on what i didn’t believe anymore and more on what i still did. oh, that brought a lot of freedom.  i feel less afraid of the long list of things i’ve lost when it comes to faith & much more secure in the few most important things that still remain.

when it comes to my relationship with others in 2012, the #1 thing i have been working on is continuing to break free from being responsible for things that aren’t mine to be responsible for. as an adult child of an alcoholic and a pretty masterful codependent, that is not an easy task, but this year things felt far different than the one before.  i more intentionally practiced taking my controlling paws off of thing i couldn’t control anyway and let others make their own choices. the world kept spinning & i was far less tired.

in my relationship with myself, well, let’s just say i have been nicer to me.  less harsh. less critical.  more apt to laugh at my flaws.  more willing to accept my limitations.  more clear about my humanness & need for God’s help.  i didn’t spend too much time in the flogging machine in 2012, and that feels like a gift from above.  seriously.

i hope you can look back and see shifts in these 3 areas in 2012 and how you’ve become free-er in your relationship with God, with others, with yourself–no matter how big or small.  they are uniquely ours, worth celebrating and remembering!

here’s to greater and greater freedom in the new year ahead.  love, kathy

* * * * *

ps:  in some previous years i have done all kinds of different end of year exercises. if you want to try some of them, here they are (they have templates inside of them):

Read More