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

In light of the last few weeks of sermons about developing deeper roots, being aware of our stories and lenses that affect our current lives and experience of God and each other, these questions from Pastor Rich Villodas are timely and helpful:

5 questions that help me gauge my spiritual health:
Am I giving myself to intentional times of prayer and Scripture?

Am I committed to interior examination?

Am I joining my life to the poor and marginalized?

Am I connected to others in ways that foster vulnerability?

Am I growing in love?

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

The Way Through

If we’re going to be honest,
it’s hard to see a pathway out of this.
Empathy might not be dead,
but discord and division have so overgrown
the field, it’s hard to imagine
a way to harvest peace. Of course,
there’s always counting on a miracle.
It works in the movies, although
the truth is clearly that miracles,
by their very nature, are not to
be relied on. Except, of course, that the
caterpillar carries beneath its green skin
tiny fragments of what will become
the monarch butterfly’s wings.
The azure dragonflies you see at play
by any pond or lake or stream
are an echo from 300 million years ago,
when their giant ancestors stormed the skies.
The minerals in your bones aren’t different
than the limestone where those fossils
are found. I’m not saying it’s all
going to be joy and delight.
I’m saying that life
is long, and complicated, and we
belong to a family that has found
a million ways to thrive.

Lynn Ungar

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.

John O’Donohue, from "Matins" in To Bless the Space Between Us
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

SO thankful for this pastor's words this week:

If you’re paying attention, it’s exhausting out there. The news hollers like a 3 a.m. car alarm, bills pile up, and the future feels like a fogged-up windshield. It’s tempting to crawl under the covers and wait for the all-clear.

But the life of faith keeps tugging at our sleeve: hope.
Not the thin, chirpy kind that insists “everything happens for a reason.” I mean the stubborn, biblical sort—the “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” The psalmist names the source: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” That’s not naïveté; that’s testimony from people who’ve seen some things and still found God showing up.

Scripture is a greatest-hits album of God meeting people on their worst days. Wilderness wanderers find bread they didn’t bake. Terrified disciples hear a word stronger than wind. Women weeping at a tomb discover that death has overplayed its hand. Again and again, fear converts into courage, despair into a livable future.

The new world God is midwifing doesn’t airbrush the present; it reframes it. The cross isn’t erased—it’s folded into a bigger story than Caesar can imagine. Hope doesn’t whisk us away from pain; it hands us work gloves. We lament gun violence, racial terror, and cruelty toward the poor and the stranger, and we drag those headlines into God’s project of redemption, restoration, and repair.

So the church can’t be a vaguely spiritual waiting room. We’re a community apprenticed to resurrection. When someone’s candle gutters, we don’t scold about flame maintenance; we cup our hands and share the light. When courage leaks, we loan ours. When cynicism whispers nothing changes, we rehearse the story again.

This is our wager: the God who raised Jesus hasn’t retired or handed the world to the loudest bullies. In confusing times, we cling to hope without apology, scatter it recklessly, and trust the One who hasn’t abandoned us yet.

And when your hands get tired, we’ll hold the lamp for you.
 
-Rev. Derek Penwell
Douglass Boulevard Christian Church
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Consider this new word: Ratiljóstˆ (an Icelandic term that I’ve never heard before).

It means having “enough light to find your way by.” Similar to other words from Northern Europe that have served a good purpose among us in recent years in terms of expanding our sense of how to live. Like “hygge,” the Danish word for coziness. Or “lagom,” the Swedish word for “not too much, not too little; just right.” Or “sisu,” Finnish for grit in the face of great adversity.

Ratiljóst, enough light to find your way by.


This word, or to be more honest, this definition, has been rolling around in my mind ever since I heard it. Enough light to find your way by. Isn’t that the longing of each day? Particularly in these days of stress and fear and grief, these days of political angst, of economic angst, of division. Enough light to find your way by. Maybe it’s a word you’d like to consider as well. Ratiljóst
Let’s be light for each other, shall we? I need your light, and maybe you need mine too. 
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Weight

As a baker carries the exquisite wedding cake—
heavy and delicate—into the room,

as the ambulance weaves through traffic
with its precious healing cargo inside,

as the woman near her due date
shields her baby through the crowd,

as the milkweed seed is entrusted to the wind
with all its generations,

as clouds hold aloft, in mere vapor,
a flood of water,

as a child reverently carries
a candle through the darkness,

through this day, God, I bear you:
gently, mightily, praying in me.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation