A few years ago, when I was taking the clock off the wall in my office, it got caught on the hook, and in my prying, all the hands fell off. While those funny, "Who Cares!" clocks with all the numbers falling to the bottom make a good joke, they still actually do tell time. My clock now told me nothing. And while I replaced the clock (with one that I very gently take on and off the wall each spring and fall), I kept the old clock. I never actually did it, but I had plans to hang the clocks up next to one another, writing on the face of one, "EST," and across the face of the other, "God's Time" or some other clever phrase to illustrate the point.

Why do I check the clock? To make sure I'm staying on task, getting things done, accomplishing something, regimenting my day properly. But somehow I doubt that's really what God intended for me to be doing several times a day, especially considering an accurate clock like I have in my office didn't even come into being until sometime in the last few hundred years, which means people survived for an enormously long amount of time without pulling out their sundial every 15 minutes.

So maybe I was connecting with that when during my breathprayer this morning for the Cup of Our Life study I took down the working clock and switched it with the God-time clock. It seemed right for the start of a new study--like an ebenezer of sorts marking the removal of a distraction for the space and time reflection.

For those of you in the study, what are your spaces and times for reflecting looking like?

I read a quote from Oscar Wilder the other day:

"The response we make when we 'believe' a work of the imagination," Wilder wrote, "is that of saying: 'This is the way things are. I have always known it without being fully aware that I knew it. Now in the presence of this play or novel or poem (or picture or piece of music) I know that I know it."

YES! I want to shout--yes! That is the experience of really believing a work--to know the truth of it. I love books--mostly fiction but also plenty of reflections on life and gazillions of books on ministry that somehow I want to osmosis into my brain and then into the congregation. The two things I love most about books are that they can either carry you away to a completely different world that allows full escape from the day-to-day or they expound in some profound that very day-to-day experience.

At the risk of sounding overly minister-like, I couldn't help but think of that quote in light of Scripture. God's Word does that same thing. How many times have you read a passage and realized the truth of it--not only for those in the passage but for your own life. "Go, serve in the ministry," says God. "But I'd suck at that. I don't have the patience and look at my sins! Plus, ministers are so boring, and-by the way-I'm a woman," says Moses-Jess. My imagination makes small troubles as big as giants better than any Israelite, I can open my mouth with something foolish faster than Peter, and I can out-sulk Jonah 2-to-1. I also might, on a really good day, be able to pray with the Psalmist's words or sing praises with Mary. Scripture, in the process of telling the Truth, also opens us up to the truth of ourselves, the truths we had always known without being fully aware.

To truth,
Jess

“The spiritual life is a journey about change. It is not limited to a set time and place of prayer. Rather, it involves all of our life, every moment of our existence. God is always ‘happening' in our lives. We need to consistently nourish, restore, and renew this relationship.” (Joyce Rupp)

When I originally started this blog, I had this vision of a helpful place where we could explore together the places where faith and day-to-day life intersected, which kind of leaves things wide open since faith and all of life intersects (re-read above). But I also had the idea this could somehow be a learning spot--a time where I/we reflected on things we maybe didn't learn about in Sunday school. That, and well, pretty much stuff Tom is always asking about at home that seemed like stuff more people might want to know about. What does Lent mean? Tell me more about Advent. Why do we have different colors for the church year? What's for dinner?

I envision this blog to be a combination of contemplation and education.

Joyce Rupp is going to give us just such a combination. Her book, The Cup of Our Life: A Guide for Spiritual Growth, is a 6-week study on cups and life--chipped cups, open cups, broken cups, cups of compassion and blessing. The plan then is to use this space as a platform through which anyone who wants to do this study as a group can share thoughts and reflections.

So regular readers--be you members at First Pres or residents of far away places--I'll try to keep the entries over those six weeks reflections anyone can read, but the book will be my focus--or better yet, buy the book and join along.

Heads up early so you can order it in time--I'm thinking we'll begin in June.

By the way, chicken's for dinner.

Peace,
Jess