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

When we try to understand the world, the ever-expanding volume of information at our fingertips overwhelms. Noise surrounds us from every direction: the constant hum of traffic, the endless stream of songs, videos and news updates. Distraction becomes the norm. 
Yet, it is silence that reigns supreme. A wordless quiet envelopes the planet, waiting for us to listen. I’m reminded of this each time I get to the mountains or take a phone-free moment in my backyard. In those moments, the noise fades and silence speaks. It is a wordless call to depth, a bright abyss, a gentle knock at the door. 
To this, many say, “Ruthlessly eliminate noise from your life!” We must confront distraction with fierce dedication and make space for quiet. We drown out silence because we fear it. To avoid boredom, we fill our lives with constant activity – building sandcastles of productivity – because the vast expanse of silence tugs on our souls. 
Make boredom your friend and quiet your companion. Welcome the ignorance of current events and allow yourself to be be unproductive and inefficient. We are not machines. Silence is the path back to our humanity.

If I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. Even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence.”     Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Let your steadfast love become my comfort, according to your promise to your servant.   Psalm 119:76 

There it is again, God’s promise and our obedience. We are at our best as God’s servants, finding our life’s meaning and joy in following his ways – or as the Psalm poet so often says, “walk in the way of the righteous.” In contrast to an unstable world, God’s love is steadfast, immovable, always and forever dependable. That is our comfort. Whatever the circumstances we have to work through in our lives, the unforeseen crisis or the predictable demands of life as it is for us, we can be sure of this one thing – the earth is full of God’s steadfast love, which enfolds and holds us.
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Are you a doomscroller?  It refers to that addictive continuum of social media and online news, which hooks you in with clickbait to read of the horrors that have happened, are happening, and might happen.
 
Somewhere in our mental storehouse there’s a place for "hopescrolling," and I've been wondering if that might revive the practice of memorizing Scripture, "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."
 
Here's a good starting verse. I've changed the pronoun to make it a first person plural personal prayer: 
 
"May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in him, so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13)
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Lord God, whose power is the power of love in pursuit of justice, we pray for our broken world.

Forgive us when we close our ears and eyes to the relentless deluge of heart-breaking news and endless analysis, of facts and figures, of graphic images of human suffering and human cruelty.

Give us inner strength to overcome compassion fatigue, so that we never stop caring; renew in us the power of conscience to recognise and to name injustice and cruelty; give us words to pray, and words to say that make for peace and reconciliation, in a world divided into enemies and allies and everyone claiming they are right and everyone else is wrong.

God of Love, Mercy and Justice,  we follow the crucified and risen Jesus, the one called the Prince of Peace. Help us today to kneel at the cross and look again at the cost of forgiveness and the price of reconciliation; then help us to stand at the empty tomb and hear the words of life, “He is not here – he is risen!”

So may we in our daily lives be peacemakers, bridge-builders, life-givers, couriers and carriers of the love of God, light shining in the shadows of fear and sadness, ambassadors of Christ whose message is spoken in acts of grace and words of healing and forgiveness.

God of grace, use us, each one of us, in your ministry of compassion for the broken; equip us, each one of us, with the gift of a forgiving spirit and a passion for reconciliation.

Strengthen us, each one of us, to speak the truth in love, to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you, our God

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

Each one of us is a work in progress, and it is God who is at work. In ways we can never fully understand, we are being transformed by the inner working of God in our mind and hearts, and in our inward and outward lives. That’s also true of each Christian community – in even the smallest faithful and faith-filled church, God can do immeasurably more than our boldest prayers! Remember God is able, and God is at work, within us and amongst us, in ways we don’t always perceive.

The Works

            Do not be afraid, little flock,
             for it is God’s good pleasure
             to give you the entire realm.
                                          —Luke 12.32

We ask for favors,
for this little victory, that little narrow escape,
and so often that’s not what we receive—
because God gives us something else,
something greater: the whole thing,
the entire realm of God’s grace.
We get this huge glorious planet,
the crashing seas and the rumbling mountains,
we get frogs and koalas and puffins,
and moon and stars and a sun that never forsakes us.
God gives us gravity that holds us, and color,
and food, and wind, and rivers.
We get the whole human family,
all our beauty and strangeness and woundedness,
our music and dancing and wild inventions.
We’re given forgiveness and belonging and hope,
a world mostly unrecognized where we are loved
and blessed and made whole, however broken we are.
We receive grace, hidden in every thing,
whether pleasant or painful.
We get God’s steady presence, closer than our own nerves,
breathing with us, hurting with us, rising with us.
It is God’s joy to give us the whole works.
Even in trying times, it’s OK. Do not be afraid.
We’ve been given more than we need.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, O weary one, lay down your head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was, weary, worn, and sad;
I found in Him a resting place, and He has made me glad.

In the past five years which began with the Covid pandemic, the world has become less safe, and it seems humanity has become less humane. There’s a world-weariness of soul and a heaviness of heart. Christians have always turned at such times to Jesus for assurance, strength, and resilience. In the noise of social media and 24/7 news, we turn to the risen Lord and hear again the invitation, “Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus is not offering an escape from the reality of a broken world – but a place to refresh, renew, and go again.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

It’s not overwhelming joy or unrestrained happiness
 
Awhile ago, there was this poem "Relief" on the Writers Almanac. It made me stop and consider how truly underappreciated the sense of relief can be. The finishing up of a big project, a hard conversation had, the lost pet returning home, the lump that is nothing serious, getting the house cleaned, coming out ahead in our fiscal year at church. It's not overwhelming joy, or unrestrained happiness; it's somehow bigger and yet softer, all at the same time. Something that makes you appreciate more the wonderfulness of our ordinary lives. 
 
Relief
 
We know it is close
to something lofty.
Simply getting over being sick
or finding lost property
has in it the leap,
the purge, the quick humility
of witnessing a birth—
how love seeps up
and retakes the earth.
There is a dreamy
wading feeling to your walk
inside the current
of restored riches,
clocks set back,
disasters averted.
 
Kay Ryan
 
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Jesus said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment.”

Matthew 22:37

Sometimes we ask a question because we genuinely want to know; other times a question can be a mental swerve, a way of avoiding the truth that stands in our way. This was Jesus’ reply to a trick question about which is the greatest commandment. Jesus’ answer was like a well-timed rugby tackle, leaving no room for maneuver. The first priority of the heart, the magnetic North of the soul, the first focus of the mind, is to love God with all that we are. To love God completely, and serve God first and foremost, is to give God first claim on our worship and obedience.

Jesus said: “And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”  

Matthew 22:39 

Second only to our love and obedience to God, is our love and service to our neighbor. The parable of the Good Samaritan is all the argument a Christian should ever need to be alert, responsive and compassionate to those we meet on the way who could do with our help. But if we need even more convincing, then Jesus’ astonishing self-revelation in the need of our neighbor is likewise like a well-timed tackle that isn’t fooled by the swerve: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matt.25:40)

 Jesus said: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 

Matthew 22:40

God demands no more than is contained in these two commandments. But the unpacking of them in lives of loving obedience to God and compassionate service to others is the work of a lifetime. “He has shown you, every one of you, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah distilled into that one verse all the commands of the Law and the Prophets for holiness and justice. Jesus concentrated all that teaching down into matters of the heart devoted in love to God, the soul centered in worship, the mind focused on obedience, and the neighbor loved and safe in our presence.
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation