As we shift our church focus from "deeper roots" to "wider branches", these words of Henri Nouwen invite us into the love that leads us to embrace those once beyond our circle:

LOVE DEEPLY

 Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But this should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant. Every time you experience the pain of rejection, absence, or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide not to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer and more able to give life to new seeds.

The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you. They will become part of your self and gradually build a community within you.

Those you have deeply loved become part of you. The longer you live, there will always be more people to be loved by you and to become part of your inner community. The wider your inner community becomes, the more easily you will recognize your own brothers and sisters in the strangers around you. The wider the community of your heart, the wider the community around you. Thus, the pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear. 
 
Henri Nouwen
The Inner Voice of Love

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. — Luke 2:19
These days in particular — poised between seasons, teetering on the edge of a new year — lend themselves to pondering, to treasuring the past year in our hearts.  What astonished us? What brought us to tears? What made us howl with laughter? What suffused us with joy? What brought us closer to God?
We contemplate, too, what the new year will bring. Will it astonish us? What new griefs will we have to bear? Where will we find God? When will we desperately need God?

Luke tells us that Mary pondered the all the events that surrounded Christ’s birth in her heart. I imagine her cradling a young Jesus in her arms, still astonished at her visit from Gabriel, still overwhelmed with joy, still worried what Simeon meant when he promised her heart would be pierced. What, I’m sure she wondered, would the next days and months bring? How would she cope?

How can we follow Mary’s example and prayerfully ponder our past, present and future with God? In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola suggested a short daily practice called the Examen, a way to recognize God at work in every aspect of one’s life. Take ten minutes at the end of the day, advised Ignatius, and seek out God’s handiwork in your life.

Ignatius’ prayer begins by recognizing that we are always in the presence of God. Don’t be timid, ask God to help you pray, to bring his light to bear on your day. The line that opens today’s psalm well captures what Ignatius hopes for those praying the Examen: O God, be gracious and bless us and let your face shed its light upon us. [Ps 67:2]

Next, says Ignatius, tell God you are grateful. Ingratitude — not pride or greed — was the ultimate root of all sin, thought Ignatius. If we cannot see that all we have, our very lives and all that surrounds us, comes from God, then we are blind to God. God is our true treasure. Be specific, search your day for one or two luminous moments for which you are particularly grateful, and give God thanks for these gifts. 

The meat of the Examen is a review of the day. Take it hour by hour, noticing with God where you felt his presence, where you felt particularly beloved. Where did you love in return? The point is not to scour for sins, small or large, but to become more and familiar with how God is at work in your life. This is what God desires for us, as he asked Aaron to bless the Israelites, and by extension, us. May the Lord uncover his face to you reads the last line of Aaron’s blessing in one translation. May you see the Lord.

As we begin this new year, resolve to take up the habit of sharing your day with God, treasuring its joys as Mary did, and pondering anew how you might in this moment grow closer to God. Like the shepherds and all who heard their stories, allow yourself to be astonished at what God has done for you, the small miracles as much as the large. 

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may his face shine upon you, and may you have peace, today and all the year to come.
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Advent Prayer

In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our fingertips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen.

Walter Brueggemann

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Advent leads up to a birth day. At Christmas we celebrate him who said he came to free the oppressed and the imprisoned, to heal suffering hearts, and to stand by the forgotten: Jesus Christ. He showed us that God is not somewhere far off, but close to us, like a person who has come to dwell with us. Like a brother who lives and suffers with us. Like someone who loves us.

This someone is coming toward us—and toward you too. He will walk with you, no matter how difficult your path, no matter how dark or long. He will show you your destination—a great, beautiful one. And when you reach it, you will be able to say: now all is well; everything had its reason.

Remember this, even when everyone around you says that things are only getting worse; that the catastrophes coming toward us cannot be avoided. To this you can reply: No, they are not the final reality. Because of grace, we have a future before us that cannot be manipulated and is not dependent on human folly.

For us, every new day is a door through which we can go, expectant, confident, and patient. The God we have come to know through Jesus Christ is coming to meet us, and our path toward him leads into the light. 

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

As Christians we do not believe in walls,
but that life lies open before us;
that the gate can always be unbarred;
that there is no final abandonment or desertion.
We do not believe that it can ever be “too late.”
We believe that the world is full of doors that can be opened. Between us and others.
Between the people around us.
Between today and tomorrow.
Our own inner person can be unlocked too:
even within our own selves,
there are doors that need to be opened.
If we open them and enter,
we can unlock ourselves, too,
and so await whatever is coming to free us and make us whole.
~ Jörg Zink from “Doors to the Feast”
 
Take the path that leads inward through the days of Advent. Set aside for yourself, if it is possible, time to breathe in; time to stop feeling that you’re on the run or under stress. Allow something to happen inside you. Turn your thoughts and hopes to the things that count.
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

I love the season of Advent, Lord... 

I love the muted colors:
    shades of violet, rose and purple;
 I love the plaintive ancient song:
    O Come, Emmanuel...
 
I love this month-long refuge
    from the hustle and the bustle
and your blessing on my waiting
    for the promise of your coming... 
 
But let me not forget, Lord,
    it's Advent everywhere...
 
It's Advent in the darkness 
    where the hues of joy have faded...
 
It's Advent in Ukraine,
    where bombing mutes the carols...
 
It's Advent for the migrants
    seeking safety and asylum...
 
It's Advent for the lonely,
    the abandoned and rejected...
 
It's Advent for the poor
    who can't afford what Christmas costs...
 
It's Advent for the ones who wait
    for blessings they've been promised...
 
It's Advent where the people long
    for justice and for freedom...
 
It's Advent where your coming
    is the peace for which we long;
it's Advent where your peace, Lord,
    is the gift we need to share...  
 
As Advent wraps its arms around
    my heart, my soul, my prayer
let me not forget or doubt, Lord,
    that Advent's everywhere... 
 
Amen. 

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

God comes to us in light and in shadow. Aflame in a bush calling out to Moses, brilliant in the star that led wise men to a savior in a manger, and radiant in Christ transfigured on a mountain top. But as poet Rainer Marie Rilke noted, God can also be found deep in the darkness. A billowing cloud led Israel through the desert, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary so that she might bear the Messiah, a voice from a cloud spoke of a beloved Son. As we await the celebration of the birth of the Light of the World, we enter into the darker days of Advent for reflection on this God of light and shadow.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

All of us live in exile in a real way. As St. Paul puts it, we see as “through a glass, darkly”, separated always partially from God and each other. We experience some love, some community, some restfulness, but never these in their fullness. Karl Rahner once said, “in the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we learn that here, in this life, there is no finished symphony.”

Advent will begin on Sunday November 30. We exiles await the full realization of the Kingdom of God, when the arc of the moral universe will bend toward full justice and equality for all people. And the love of God will inevitably prevail over all. Thanks be to God.
Let us wait together this Advent season-

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

In these hard times, sometimes looking up and fixing our eyes on the One who never breaks his gaze on us is enough.
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Perhaps like me, you have increasingly frequent moments when you wish you could do something about all that's going on in our nation and in the world.  Most of us don't have the power or authority to make sweeping changes but each of us has power and authority over the integrity of our own lives.  
 
These verses from Romans 20 give us two dozen answers to the question, "What can I do?"
 
Let your love be sincere:
    hate what is evil,
        hold on to what is good...

Love one another with mutual affection
    and anticipate one another in showing honor...

Do not grow slack in zeal
    but be fervent in spirit
        and serve the Lord...

Rejoice in hope,
    endure in affliction,
        and persevere in prayer...

Contribute to the needs of God's people,
    offering hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you
    - bless and do not curse them.

Rejoice with those who rejoice
    and weep with those who weep.

Live in harmony with one another;
    do not be haughty but associate with the lowly
        and do not be wise in your own estimation.   
 
Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
Be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all.  
If possible, insofar as it depends on you,
    live at peace with all...
 
Do not be conquered by evil 
    but conquer evil with good...
 
Amen.
 
 Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation