Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice…Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and joy in his holy place.
1 Chronicles 16:10, 27
 
In this thanksgiving Psalm of David, joy and gratitude feed each other when we come to God. There are few more energizing emotions than thankfulness. Gratitude produces resilience and strength to go on serving God, even when it’s hard. God’s sufficient grace in Christ enables and empowers us. Grace creates gratitude and so thankfulness turns to joy. Our glad obedience to God is the outcome of that cycle of seeking and asking and knocking and finding the “grace to help us in time of need.” 
 
Let the sea resound and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant and everything in them. Then the trees of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
1 Chronicles 16:32
 
Use your imagination! Look at the world and hear and see a symphony performed in color, motion and sound. The background beat is the sea, the music and movement are fields ripe for harvest waving and dancing in sun and wind. This choral symphony is accompanied by forests of trees, all keeping time with the music of Creation, conducted by the Creator, their song a hymn of grateful praise. Those who sing and play in this orchestra believe God’s justice is coming. Wrong will be made right, God will bring shalom in God’s good time. This is not wishful thinking. This Psalm is music composed in the heart of God, performed in movements, from Creation to Calvary, to the Empty Tomb, and to the Ascension of Christ seated as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” This is the music of redemption, orchestrated by the Triune God of holy love and grace, its finale the coming of Christ “to judge the earth.
 
Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Whoever wants to be first 
             must be last of all and servant of all.
                         —Mark 9.35

Not subservient, not inferior to others,
but helpful, in support, in service.
You're not indentured or obligated;
you serve in love that is yours to give.
Your task today is to serve others—
not necessarily to please them,
not to save them or “fix” them,
but to offer grace, to bless them,
to set before them wholeness of life,
to open doors that set them free,
to speak a word that heals 
and does not dishonor them.
Your task today is not to use or conquer others,
but to offer what love or joy you can
in service to their new life.

Today, for everyone you meet,
God is the chef of grace
and you are their server.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

I’ve read this poem many times and it always has something to say to me. Pay attention, pay attention, whisper the words in between the lines. It came to me again this morning and I’m paying attention. Maybe it has something to say to you as well? 
 
I will not die an unlived life,
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise…
 
Dawn Markova
 
Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.                       

Galatians 6:9

 
This week, let’s not lose sight of the fruitfulness of a life careful of the good, alert to moments when kindness is called for, sensitive to injustice and the wounds of others, so that we will neither be complicit by silence, nor ever think such occasions are 'not our concern.' The harvest may be beyond our sight, but we sow our seeds with confidence that God is up to something good.

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

The last couple months I've been reading through the Gospels using The Message paraphrase by Eugene Peterson. Reading through the eleventh chapter of Luke, here's what caught my attention: "Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills with light."

Maybe as a child, like me, you learned and sang the song, "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine," based on other translations of this verse. The light in me for others. Yes to this; a wonderful thing to be taught early in life. But I appreciate this additional twist that Peterson gives, this emphasis on opening outward, "living wide-eyed in wonder and belief," not in the sense of responsibility but in the joyful sense of becoming filled with light.
 
Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

For a fleeting moment the heavens opened, and God’s glory spilled forth. Time itself gave way, the ancient prophets Moses and Elijah come to converse with Jesus. Hearing this account two millennia later, I feel as if the entirety of the Gospels has collapsed into this one moment in time, fragments of encounters swirling in torrents of light. 
 
Hovering behind Peter’s wild desire to hold onto the moment, I see Jesus in a garden gently telling Mary Magdalene not to cling to him. Listen to my son, says a voice from a cloud, and I see spit and mud and a deaf man who can suddenly hear and be heard. Ephphatha! Be opened! Rise, says Jesus, and Peter comes to him across the water, a paralyzed man rolls up his mat, and a young girl gets up from her death bed. 
 
And always, do not be afraid. Resounding over and over. On a storm-wracked sea. To a worried father. To his disciples gathered for one last meal. To the multitudes. To all of us.

 
I wonder what the conversation was as Jesus walked Peter, James and John down the mountain. Or perhaps I don’t, for all these Gospel stories end the same way. We want to cling to the God of glory, to fall at the feet of the divine.
 
Instead, Jesus reaches for us in the dust and says, get up. Be opened, that you might hear my voice, that you might be my voice. And above all, do not fear. Walk with me and be transfigured. Walk with me and transfigure the world.
 
From Give Us This Day August 2023 by Michelle Francl-Donnay

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

1 Peter 1:3-5  (continued)

 “This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…”

Peter was writing to Christians who were facing persecution, the forfeiture of property, exclusion from society, loss of status and everyday freedoms. If we are faithful to Jesus it may well cost us too. Peter’s point is that our salvation, our security in God, our status as children of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—whatever else we lose, we can never lose our place in God’s love, and our hope in Christ. What we have received in Christ, all the graces and gifts of salvation are under the lock and key of heaven, guarded by the eternal promises of God.

“who through faith are shielded by God’s power…”

In case we missed it, God not only guards and keeps all he has promised to those who are in Christ; but because we live in Christ by faith, we also are shielded by the power of God. An older translation says “we are kept by the power of God.” A shield is only effective when it comes between the heart and danger. The Psalmist even calls God a shield, One who protects and defends when the heart is under siege. 

“until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Outside the discourse of the Church, the word salvation is hardly ever used these days. But it is a key word of Christian life." It contains the ideas of rescue from danger, healing from illness, deliverance from the threat of death and entering into a state of well-being. We are born anew into a living hope, so that in faith we look forward to the final revelation of all that God plans for the new creation in Christ. So we live in anticipation, but we do so secure and “kept by the power of God.”

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Read the whole text again and allow your mind and heart to follow its rhythms. Another word hardly used outside church is ‘Doxology.’ Literally, it means to speak words of glory, to give God glory. 

It seems right to finish with perhaps the most frequently sung four-line verse in English hymns:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
 
Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. I Peter 1:3

“Praise be to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s where Christian worship, prayer and faithful existence start—with praise. Not our requests and needs, but the heart recognition of who God is and all that God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter will go on to spell that out in the rest of the text. But impulsive, self-asserting and outspoken Peter has learned to put first things first. Praise is the music of a heart set free to live and love in the grace of God.

“In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Mercy is love in action and always involves self-giving care for the other. Praise God, says Peter, for the gift of new life in Christ. Every believer lives with a forward look to hope-filled horizons, all of them illumined by the blazing reality of ‘the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’ The resurrection is the ultimate new beginning, the defeat of death by the life of God, the birth of hope from despair. By resurrection and the gift of new birth, God speaks a reverberating “Yes!” of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal. 

“…and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

New birth, living hope, and now a God-given inheritance, with a triple lock guarantee! It is imperishable, unspoilable, and unfading. What God has given to us in Christ is to his resurrection. This new life and living hope, with all its blessings of peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, the renewal of the heart for service, are directly dependent on God’s power and mercy, and demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Christ. Our inheritance in Christ is encircled by grace!

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

You who are over us,
You who are one of us,
You who are also within us,
May all see you-in me also.
May I prepare the way for you,
May I thank you for all
that shall fall to my lot,
May I also not forget the needs of others.
Give me a pure heart-that I may see you.
A humble heart-that I may hear you,
A heart of love-that I may serve you,
A heart of faith-that I may abide in you. Amen.
 
Dag Hammarskold, Markings.

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Henri Nouwen’s Can you Drink the Cup? is among the half dozen or so classic books of Christian Spirituality that I've read and pondered regularly for years. Call it my devotional canon. Such reading isn't informational but formational and transformational; these books, along with Scripture, nourish my theological imagination, sustain spiritual passion, recall dissipated affections to a new focus, touch me in those deep recesses of love and hopefulness about myself.

Sometimes folks ask how I get the time to do all the reading I do. Here's part of the answer. How we love God and follow faithfully after our Lord will be different for each of us, as different as we are from each other. Not everyone finds reading brings them closer to God—though I think more could. But I am persuaded that good pastoral care includes among its goals enabling and encouraging our community to think, reflect, read and learn together of the wisdom to live for Christ faithfully and well. Many don't read deeply and slowly because no one has ever helped them make the connection between such reading and the way they view the world, their faith and the essential connections between our understanding of the world, our knowledge of God, our prayers, and the quality of our Christian faithfulness. 

Time for reading, time for work, time for the people at the heart of our lives, time for sleep, time for serving others, time for music, exercise, eating, TV—but in the end much of what we do with time comes down to choices, preferences, priorities and life circumstances. Some of the great Christian spiritual teachers had a fixed habit of 15 minutes a day for slow reading of classic spiritual texts. These Christian spiritual teachers approached their reading of classic texts with a 'give us this day our daily bread' urgency. They knew they needed nourishment, strength, energy, and they felt and befriended their hunger as a necessary inner reminder that they are not self-sustaining, or self-propelled or capable of growth without food. 

Food for the heart, the imagination, the conscience, the mind - food for thought, food for energy, food for strength, and thus, food to live. And for a quarter of an hour a day, week on week, month on month, year on year, they made time to slow down and wait in the company of Christ, learning from the cloud of witnesses what it is to be loved by God and to love God. And in that Love to understand more what it meant for them to be called to be part of God's mission to redeem and renew, to reconcile and restore a fallen but God-loved creation! 
 
Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation