Lent

I realize that this is no longer Advent but I'm still looking for Jesus in the everyday.  Today this random thought popped into my head "God looks a lot like Abraham Lincoln.  Only without the hat."  See, I could always see God in my imagination and lately I kept thinking who does God look like, I know it's someone only I can put my finger on who it is.  And then this afternoon I realized who it was - Honest Abe.  This is totally irrational, and some might say blasphemous, but somehow I think that God might get a chuckle out of it.  Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with finding Jesus in the everyday - and I guess I would say that I find him inhabitating my unconscious mind, my memories, and my imagination.  I find him when I'm writing my blogs, I find him when just the right word pops into my head, I find him when I stare at a blank page and wonder what on earth am I going to write.  Sometimes that is where I experience him the most. 

Day 6

Today is Saturday.  The day I set aside to do all of the things around the house that I don't have a chance to get to during the week.  Also, I'm getting ready for my daughter to come home for a week long visit so I'm getting her room ready for her.  This room needs a lot of work.  She never actually lived here as she was an adult when we moved in and has only been back for short visits from time to time.  The room has ugly tan wallpaper with a juvenile border of bunnies and tulips.  Granted the border is kind of pretty - but the whole room needs a major overhaul.  We are getting a new bed for the room and the old futon is gone so there is relatively little furniture in the room.  I would like to strip the wall paper and paint before bringing the new bed in.  This brings me to my dilemma - do I keep to the plan and strip the wall paper or do I take a break and spend a couple of hours in the art museum.  There is something about visiting art museums that refreshes me and sparks my own creativity.  It's good for me. 

It is so easy for me to blow off something like a visit to the museum on a Saturday afternoon - after all the museum will be there next week and the week after.  But thinking about it, this idea that the museum will be there next week - it's a lot like life.  So many activities that are meant to nourish and refresh me go undone.  Mostly because of inertia, or the press of the things that need to be done, or because I postpone the things I want to do for the things I feel I should do.  Or because I put nourishing myself last in my list of priorities.  This also applies to my faith life.  As a person who struggles with legalism - I somehow have the belief that following Jesus means that I always need to be "working" on something - my faith, a ministry, even the chores around the house.  It's hard to believe that Jesus would be saying - "go to the museum - it will be to your benefit, you will grow spiritually and creatively"  Yet that is what I hear him saying - that this trip on this day is one that I need to make and that by going, I will take a step closer to being the person I was created to be. 

So today, I'll spend time with Jesus at the art museum.

Day 4

I started the day actively looking for Jesus.  It's interesting - this looking -just this small bit of particpation on my part has made a big difference in my outlook.  I wondered where I would find Jesus - and I really didn't have to wonder for long.  I was on my way to work and I punched one of the Christmas music radio stations on my car radio.  It wasn't long before "Oh Holy Night" came on.  A word about this song - it's not one of my favorites and every church in America probably has someone who sings this on Christmas Eve.   As the song played, memories began to unwind and scroll through my head.  I remembered my friend Dixie.  Dixie was a woman in one of the churches my husband served a number of years ago.  She had an untrained but soaring soprano voice and she sang "O Holy Night" every Christmas Eve. Dixie, Bridget, and I were the young moms of that particular congregation and we spent a good amount of time together. As I drove, I thought about Dixie and Bridget and some of the fun we had.  One year, the three of us and our husbands' had a "tax night dinner" on April 15. All of us took a financial hit that year and we all had made payments to the IRS.  So we organized a dinner.  The plan was that we would each bring a dish to pass and some fruit for a salad.  Everything went smoothly until it came time to make the salad.  One of us had brought melon, one strawberries, and one bananas.  Now, I hate melon - in fact I can't even smell it without gagging.  One of us was allergic to strawberries, and one of us hated bananas.  So, we had the fruitless fruit salad.  We laughed about it all through dinner. 

I think Jesus was reminding me of all the good times my husband and I have had despite the pressures of the ministry and it helped me to step back and try to work on focusing on some of those happpy memories.   I would like to take some time during 2010 (perhaps lent?)  to work on finding many of the happy memories I have of our years in the ministry.

Today I found Jesus during my morning commute.  It was good.

Day 3 Surprised by Jesus

Today is the day that I decided to get the Christmas tree put up.  It's a difficult job but someone has to do it and that someone is me.  It's because I'm the one that is fussy about how the lights look.  Back to putting the tree up - it's not putting the tree branches in their slots that's difficult - it's putting the lights on the tree that's the hard part.  The tree has been upstairs waiting to be put up since Thanksgiving but I just haven't had the desire or, more importantly, the energy to do it.  Until tonight - I thought I would just check the lights - that's all, just get them out of the box and plug them in and see if they worked.  Each string worked perfectly which almost NEVER happens.  I looked a the table covered with brightly covered Christmas tree lights and I was stunned by a burst of absurd happiness.  Just seeing the lights reminded me of the happiness of Christmas.  I didn't think of the hundred and one things that needed to be done - I just sat and felt happy.  It felt like Jesus said - just sit and enjoy.  So we sat there Jesus and Me and we looked at the lights.  Then I got up and put them on the tree - at least half of them are on the tree.

You might wonder where this is going with regard to the Advent Project.     My goal is to just look for and hopefully find Jesus every day; to think about where I experienced his presence in my life and and try to listen for what He is trying to tell me.  Today, I think he is saying - right now, in this time and place - take time to enjoy.  It's this filling up of his presence in myself that gave me the energy to act.  I don't do enough just sitting with Him.  I think that is the beginning of where I got off track with him when my husband went into the ministry - my focus shifted from sitting watching the lights together to doing the hundred and one things that I felt I had to do. 

Today I found Jesus when I tested the Christmas Tree lights.

Day 2

I got up yesterday morning and prayed for Jesus to make himself present to me.  For most of the day there was nothing.  Sometimes, I hear a song or see a movie or read something in a book that brings a new understanding or a spiritual truth and I know that Jesus has touched me.  But, I just didn't experience anything that jumped out and said "Here I am, Deb."  I experienced kindness, compassion, and love from those around me and yes, those are all ways Jesus talks to us - but there was nothing where I could say "this statement or that experience" was where I met Jesus.  Nothing that seemed to move me further along on my spiritual journey.  I pondered this for a while and I have to say that perhaps He is speaking to me in silence.  Perhaps, it's the silence itself that is where he meets me.   A silence that tells me to put aside all the "shoulds" and the "oughts" and the "list of things to do" and just be.  No doing for today just be-ing.  And that feels right.

Today I found Jesus in the silence.

Day 1 Results

I looked on the Internet for Jesus today and I found Him.  For starters, I Googled 'what is grace' and a lot of sites popped up.  I pretty much kept my search to the first couple of pages of results.  I narrowed the search further by eliminating any sites that were legalistic. Sites that told me what to do, or that told me that certain denominations had the 'right' answer and that if I didn't follow the rules I was wrong.  I did this because my tendency is to view the Bible as a To Do list rather than a love letter.  At this point in time more To Do's will drive me further away from Jesus and I'm already farther away from him than I would like.  I'm not looking for the 'right religion', I'm looking for Jesus.   Deep down, I hope that this Advent Retreat is the result of Jesus' work in my life, that HE is the one directing my search, calling me back to him.  This is a time apart, a time for Jesus and me to reconnect, a time for finding my way back home.  One blog really spoke to me and I am going to trust that He will lead me to the things that I most need to hear at this particular point in time. One of the things I read today said something to the effect that "grace was God's working in my life despite my resistance and my faults."

I think the words that really jumped out at me were "my resistance."  Of all the things I read today this particular passage felt like the place to start.  All day I have been pondering the concept of God continuing to work in my life despite my resistance.  I had difficulty defining what "my resistance" is.  I concluded that my resistance is really a deep seated belief that Jesus is a cosmic policeman, a sort of bad Santa who keeps a list of who's been naughty and who's been naughtier.  In other words, my resistance boils down to a basic distrust of God's grace...my feeling that I will live a life failing to please God and in the end I will be condemned.   I have wrestled with this concept in the past.  Its not something that Christians want to admit to - we who have a relationship with Jesus aren't supposed to feel this way.    It tends to make us feel like 'bad Christians, worse we believe we are bad Christians.'  The strange thing is right now - I don't feel like a bad Christian.  I feel perfectly safe bringing up this topic - distrust.  In fact I feel relief - this fear is out there on the table between Jesus and me and I don't hear Him condemning me for my lack of trust.  Instead I hear him saying - 'This is good, I led you to that particular blog because it gives us a starting point on the road to discovering the truth.'  I hear him saying that He is working in  me even when I don't realize it, even when I am working against it.  He's still here.  I feel hopeful. I feel good.

Today I found Jesus in an internet blog, and through my conversations with Him I felt no condemnation.  He held out his hand and I grabbed hold and took a step closer to him.

Introduction

In the Christian Church Advent is considered a time of Preparing for the Coming of Jesus.  More specifically, it's a time to remember the first coming of Jesus and also a time to get ready for His return.  Since this blog is relatively new, I'm changing the focus for the next month.  Currently, I am in the midst of a crisis of faith,  My husband is a pastor and the weight of the clergy spouse role and my inability to be what I feel God expects me to be within this role has created a classic case of church burnout.  At this point it is difficult to even step into a church and over the course of the last year I have just stopped going.  Advent is a perfect time to take a look around and test my beliefs and feelings, a time to look for what is real and true, a time to take a retreat from all of the self imposed "shoulds" of my Christian faith and simply look for the presence of Jesus.   Go back to the beginning, so to speak.   The Bible tells me that if I seek Him with my whole heart I will find Him.  That's what I want to do - look for Jesus.

This brings me to a question - where is the best place to look for Him?  I can't start with church - I'm not going to church regularly.  I could maybe start with the Bible but I confess that I tend to see the Bible as a giant To Do list with the consequence of failure being condemnation.  My husband tells me that Jesus came to bring us abundant life -- he didn't come to bring us the To Do list.  There are plenty of verses in the Bible that support this belief.  One of my favorite of those verses is John 3:17 He didn't come into the world to condemn the world.  He came to save it (my paraphrase.)    I guess this is the beginning of my search - this passage.