Tag: prayer

Posted in Different Moments

Because I was forced to spend time in quiet…

Posted on by Wick

There is quiet.FullSizeRender

It’s not far, but it’s often a world away.
Today, I’ll say there’s no way it could be near. It couldn’t be here.
Because here is noise, busy, and hurry. Here’s worry. The scene is blurry,
And clarity? The lens hasn’t been cleaned for a while. You smile,
Holding tight the commitment you’ve made for tonight.
“I’m doing alright.”

And so are we all, but as Fall turns to Winter you realize,
There might be lies in the Truth. The Truth lies bare when given a moment to spare.
And there, in slow breathing and heart beating, you find it.

There is quiet.

Leaves have turned, and are falling. The silence is calling
For those willing to press pause on the pace, and face a world less moving.
Less proving, and more being. More seeing. Freeing you from shackles unfelt.
Moments melt into Sabbath. You catch your breath. There is life. There is death.

There is quiet.

Breathing deep, drenched in nothing.
Absence that feels like more substance than you’ve had in a while.
You smile, remembering what it’s like to wander.
In body and thought, you’re caught up in wonder, staring at the clouds
As if they contain a story you’re anxious to hear.
You stumble, lost in your surroundings,
A leaf-covered path, the aftermath of Autumn.
Emerging to a lake, you take it all in with a grin
And begin to lose yourself in the wealth found in the surface
Of water undisturbed.

There is quiet.

Heavens reflected in smooth glass
Trees stretching deep down into the sky
Fooling the eye, you sigh.
This is why

There is quiet.

You can’t stay in this place
But you scoop up the pace, and put some in your pocket.
Commit to remember, as you head into November

That there. Is. Quiet.

Posted in Different Moments, Uncategorized

bedtime prayers.

Posted on by Wick

Sometimes we can spend a few minutes in prayer, and move straight into our bedtime story without anything seemingly significant happening or being said.  On those nights, we believe the significant “thing” is simply the faithful prayers, and routines/rhythms of a home that values coming before God together.  Even when parts of the prayer seem rote and automatic, we make time and space available for hearts and minds to be honest before each other and before God.

We confess: there are nights this doesn’t happen.   (gasp)  We’re not too worried about forcing a child who was sleeping in the van on the way home to wake up and have a prayer time.  Or when mommy & daddy are wiped from a long hard day, we’ve been known to skip right to hugs and “good nights”.  But more oft than not, the days close with a pause for prayer and conversation about what God is doing in our hearts and lives.  If it does seem like the prayers become more repeating a few quick things without much pause for thought, we mix it up.  Some nights we ask each daughter individually what’s on her heart and mind, and then a parent will summarize all of these things in one family prayer.

Our church is beginning another emphasis on prayer right now as a reminder.  I’ve written before about the helpful reminder found in “7-5-2”.  It’s not a magic formula, and prayer does not guarantee a healthy family/home.  But prayer brings together hearts and minds in the presence of God, and when that’s done on a regular basis….it sure offers a great place for His Love and our relationships to grow.

Here’s a short video, where my hidden iPhone camera catches the unpolished prayers of our 5 and 6 year olds. It may help to know that we are adopting a daughter from Africa currently, our church is praying for a young woman named Mollie who’s been bed-bound for a while now, and our extended family were on their way to visit us that weekend…

Posted in Uncategorized

re- “placing” Jesus

Posted on by Wick

“We were left to believe that Jesus was physically raised from the dead but no longer present in any particular place.” – Ken Wilson, Mystically Wired

In chapter 4 of his book, Wilson talks about prayer as a location. As something we participate in by “going somewhere”.  I highly recommend this book to anyone launching into new realms of prayer.

Even early in the book, he is gradually re-introducing Christianity as a religion with roots in Eastern/Middle-Eastern traditions, while remaining very scripture/experience/reason centered as well. He begins with the frustrations that I’m well familiar with, and would venture to say many others would be as well. Wilson reminds us of what prayer truly can be, and that our frustrations with prayer generally stem from our attempts to make it something else.

Later in the book, he introduces several prayer techniques that may be new to many people. These techniques and prayers find their sources in ancient practices that have been used by Christ-followers and God-seekers for a very long time. I remember being introduced to many of these back in college, while reading The Sacred Way, by Tony Jones.

What I hadn’t received with Jones’ book, was the much on the theology of space/place. The words from Wilson’s book here, as quoted above, help to fill a gap that has existed for quite sometime. It’s something that is simultaneously quite complex and mysterious, and yet simple for us to grasp:

1. We pray in the resurrected Jesus, and in His name. We believe He stands as the bridge between the world/creation as it is (broken and dying from sin), and the New Heavens and New Earth God desires to bring about. (Colossians 1:18)
2. We believe Jesus has been bodily/physically resurrected, and exists somewhere/somehow as the resurrected Christ. Scripture tells us He has gone to be with the Father (John 16:28)
3. So it follows, when we pray in Jesus, we are connecting/participating in that place where God is. We cannot explain/rationalize this away, and probably cannot grasp just how important it may be.

Wilson reminds us that for ages, “heaven” was believed to be “up there” somewhere. At some point, science allowed us to see/travel much further than eyes had previously seen. We discovered there was no “up there” besides the seemingly infinite “space”. When that happened, heaven took the form of an “idea” and became spiritually intangible. Prayer became more and more an introspective “what happens inside of me” journey, and the focus became more and more within…even though we still believed we were connecting with a very real God.

That same realm of science is discovering there are things we cannot know/explain. There are atomic and quantum levels of existence that we cannot know or predict, and some things seem to point toward parallel universes/dimensions. So what exactly does prayer accomplish in regard to our relationship to a God who may be “located” more fully in another “dimension”? What does that even mean? 🙂

I don’t know. 🙂

But it certainly increases my urge/desire to spend more time going before that God, and praying in Jesus’ name. Not because I believe in some gnostic magical passage I’ll discover, but because I believe in the bodily resurrected Christ who has called us to pray in His name…perhaps I’ll even take my family with me. 🙂