Monthly Archives: June 2011

With the Fourth of July right around the corner, my thoughts turn to this national holiday marked by hot dogs, cook outs, fireworks and lasagna. Lasagne? Well yes.

Several times durng my childhood my family made their way to East St. Louis, Illinois, where we would spend the holiday weekend with friends, the Sperry’s. Often, their daughter Denise (who was my age) and I would walk into town or make our way to the river’s edge where we’d sit talking while throwing stones into the water. All the while back at the house chairs and tables would be hauled outside for the crowd who’d come for supper. There were bottles of pop in an avalanche of ice which filled a galvanized tub in the backyard. Snacks of chips-n-dip and watermelon abounded as we awaited the slow-cooked lasagne for which Mrs. Sperry(Willie)was famous. It seemed that every year more and more folks found their way to that backyard and the lasagne!

After much laughter and too much food everyone chipped in to get it all cleaned up. We were like a stream of worker ants–from the backyard into the house–so that we could leave for the drum and bugle corps competition that would culminate in a huge fireworks display. The competitors kept marching and fifing as the sun went down and the lights of the stadium came up at such a refined cadence that we hardly realized it was getting dark. The winning corps would celebrate on the field, breaking ranks and hugging one another(this was way before high-5’s became the celebration of choice). Then the fireworks would begin!

I have no idea how many times we made this trek to East St. Louis. Because of the distance, it had to be only those years when the holiday fell making a long weekend.

I don’t know if my parents intenionally tried to create this memory or not. But anything we do with our children or grandchildren, nieces, nephews or young friends repeatedly becomes just that, a memory. What memories are you creating as legacy? Where are the places you go… the foods you eat… the sights, sounds and smells being etched into the minds and hearts of the little ones around you? Is it important to you to make memories?

Let me re-state that: It is important to make memories. Memories can ground us and give us a sense of who we are and what’s important. Memories reveal the things that were important to our parents and grandparents, maybe even great grandparents. Memories are formative … even lasagne memories.

No Fourth of July ever passes that I don’t think about the uniformed drum and bugle corps, the fireworks, and Willie’s lasagne. What memories of the 4th do you have? What do those memories mean to you–or tell you about yourself? What memories will you make this year? I think I’ll make some lasagne. BLESSINGS AND JOY, THE CELTIC MONK

I found the following quote this week and though I’ve already posted it to my Facebook page to share, it continues to haunt me (in a good way).

“In this world, the emerging church needs cybermonks to act as spiritual guides. They blog their stories with image, narrative, and experience. They design websites to provide spiritual resources online. This is not a modern ‘come to us because we have a great worship service…’ it’s a postmodern ‘here are our spiritual resources, feel free to try-before-you-buy.’ The cybermonk is a new missionary calling.”

So much of what I’ve done as THE CELTIC MONK, PEACE RIVER SPIRITUALITY CENTER, and now PRESBYDICTINES and BENEDICTERIANS is just that; a calling to live out the much I’ve been given outside the confines of brick and mortar–most noticably absent, a steeple.

In my blogs I open my spiritual experience warts and all for others to ponder or to use as a mirror. PRSC has been home to a weekly meditation group and compline prayer since August of 2009 in addition to several book groups and the welcome space for spiritual direction visits, and individual retreats. P & D (on Facebook) is where I am currently sharing daily snippets from the Rule of Benedict, which in itself is one of my daily disciplines. Then there are growing areas, like the Twelve Week Introduction to Meditation which folks have signed up for–where installments of teaching and encouragement are delivered to your inbox periodically to help establish (or re-establish) a habit of meditation.

These are all things that in one way or other I did while on a church staff; telling my story in narrative and images in sermons, beginning or participating in a prayer ministry and pastoral care, telling folks about my spritual practices and offering to teach them how to begin. It’s just that now I do these things most often via the internet, www, and skype(or in the living room of PRSC).

The haunting part in putting all this together is recognizing my Call in these many things. The very things that make up the ministry that I’m trying to launch are the things that called me into ministry over 20 years ago. The very things that I offer now through presence and cyberspace, are those things that I offered in some form to each of the congregations I pastored.

This week as I read and re-read the quote above it kept coming back to me as something familiar. I realize now that it came back to me as an echo of God. All that I’m doing is not so new… it’s who I was created to be–and what God created me to do. This New Missionary Calling as The Celtic Cyber-Monk…is merely the same calling in a new vehicle.

What are the recurring themes in your life? What are you invited to do today, that you did 10, 20 or 30 or more years ago? Do you believe those invitations or circumstances to be coincidences? If you pause with them for a moment, perhaps you’ll learn as I did, that they are really the echo of God’s call on your life from long, long ago.

I’m encouraged by the grace of this new insight. I hope as you spend some time in the weeks ahead listening for the echo of God’s call on your life, that you’ll be encouraged too; encouraged to continue where God has and is still calling you. BLESSINGS AND JOY, THE CELTIC MONK

P.S. I included the photo of the whale, since she reminds me that creatures can travel great distances navigating storms and negotiating relationships with the echo as their only communication tool. 🙂

Since the 25th of April, I’ve flown 7,200 miles and spent 20 nights sleeping somewhere other than my own bed. I had great conversations with old friends, saw my grand-daughter dance in her first ballet recital, read Scripture in my niece’s wedding, attended a 50th wedding anniversary party of an aunt and uncle, saw another niece’s firstborn, and visited with many relatives who I haven’t seen for 20 or more years.

While the date for each of these events was out of my control, I did choose to attend each and every one. I knew as I made my airline reservations last January that the schedule would be grueling. I under-estimated the necessary ‘recovery time’ in between each opportunity. Oh my, I’m not 25 anymore!

Now I know this never happens to you, but I’ve been home for almost 48 hours and I’m just now beginning to catch up to myself, to catch a glimpse of the me I know best; the self I live with 24/7; the self that dearly wanted to go to all those places and do all those things, but who did not count the costs; the self who would like nothing better right now than to sleep for the next 10 days…

This is not the first time that really good things like those delineated above have drawn me away from what is necessary and life-giving to my very being. Nor is it the first time I’ve allowed the pace of life to out-pace what is ultimetely in my best interest. Come on, you know what I’m talking about.

I knew that things were askew within, when on the last leg of my last flight home I found a modicum of peace sitting at a busy airport waiting for my plane. Then, that things within me were awry was confirmed when the lady next to me on the plane said she’d like to come to church…and I told her to come the next week because it would be better!

So how do we learn the discipline of making choices? Who teaches us the spiritual practice of discernment~of deciding what is necessary and what is not~or the steps to choosing what is beneficial to us rather than harmful? And perhaps even more importantly, are there folks that we allow to speak into our lives, to hold us accountable, or who we allow to ask the hard questions?

I’ve begun catching up to my spirit, if only insofar as recognizing that we parted company somewhere on that third trip in five weeks. I’m writing this blog tonight as a ‘note to self’ that being too busy even with good things is detrimental to my well being ~ physical and spiritual.

So now my spirit and I are going to spend some quality time together; a little reading, a little silence, a little manual labor to get my mind, soul and body back in sync. My hope is that The Spirit will use this record of my folly to keep someone else from stumbling along this path. We don’t all have to make the same mistakes to learn a better way.

My fourth grade teacher used to often say: “A word to the wise” which she taught her students was a que for the class to respond: “is sufficient” So I leave you with this: “A word to the wise…” PEACE AND JOY TO YOU, THE CELTIC MONK