Getting to know Brother Lawrence

We're being introduced to a fellow who may seem strange at first glance, but whose "claim to fame" is the ordinary nature of his life and approach to faith.

Born in 1614 as Nicholas Herman, poverty forced the young man who would become "Brother Lawrence" into the army where he was promised food and a little bit of money. When an injury made it impossible for him to serve, he became a nobleman's valet. But discouraged by his life, Nicholas entered a Carmelite monastery in Paris as a lay brother. He didn't have the education needed to become a monk.

Among the brothers he became "Brother Lawrence," and was rather dismayed to be assigned to the kitchen crew, another task he felt woefully inadequate to perform. He adapted by grower ever more humble, letting go of common notions of success and putting himself utterly in the service of God and his brothers. No one was more surprised that Brother Lawrence himself when his gentle, unassuming manner began to attract admirers.

Brother Lawrence's attractive "ahah" was that growing close to GOd didn't need to be as hard as we often try to make it. "Men invent means and methods of coming to Gods love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God's presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for love of him?"

Don't be deterred by the old fashioned language of "The Practice of the Presence." If you have trouble getting started, try this reading plan:

Begin from behind. Read “Gathered Thoughts” first.

Exercise: What questions come to mind? Make a list.

Next, move on to “The Character of Brother Lawrence.”

Exercise: Write a min-biography of brother Lawrence in your own words.

Third, read the letters, one at a sitting.

Exercise: After each letter, write your own letter, to God, to Brother Lawrence, or to a trusted friend.

Finally, read “The Conversations.”

---------Read more about Brother Lawrence at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Lawrence

image from www.spiritualityandpractice.com/days/features.php?id=16440

Re-Think Church

This month we've started re-thinking church at our local level. The term comes from the United Methodist Church's 10,000 doors project. It dovetails perfectly with the place we find ourselves in our life together: living in mission, searching for new ways to grow in Christ together.

Strangely, this new stage of growth seems to be simplifying, rather than complicating, our community. We've streamlined our workhorse of a mission statement to: We are a welcoming community of believers seeking to grow in Christ and to serve in mission.

We're re-thinking meetings, opening them up, inviting new voices in. We're rejoicing in worship, re-inventing our adult spiritual growth groups, and remembering with gratitude the work of saints before us who laid faithful foundations to launch this flight into the future.

In everything, we aim to grow together in love and service. Brother Lawrence is our companion guide this year. Pick up your copy of his writings while you're coming and going from worship, or stop by during office hours: Tuesday-Friday from 9AM-noon, Thursday nights 6:30-8:30PM.

summer worship temptation butterflies

Flutter by season 'tis....

When favorite summer folks show up in worship.

Inexpensive butterfly fans stirred the hot august air in worship today,

creating a lovely, lively, dance pattern across the congregation.

Pollinating visitors have been busy brightening our gardens.

May your heart be as light as the butterfly's wings,

unweighed by worry,

but lifted on prayers of praise and words of hope,

strengthened by pollinating work of justice and mercy.

Seeing What’s Around Us

 

By George Smith

Reprinted from the July 22, 2009 Kennebec Journal.

 

            Sometimes it takes more than open eyes to see everything around you.

            The black mask covered his face when I glanced his way after hearing him speak. If he expected the mask was sufficient to prevent him from being seen and recognized, he should have paid more attention to the rest of his wardrobe.

            From the neck down, he was covered in bright yellow.

            I boldly stepped closer, 10 feet, 8 feet, 5 feet, and he appeared unalarmed, continuing to speak to me in a low, gutteral “tchcuk.”

            The black mask, white-eyebrow, and yellow belly allowed me to easily identify him as a warbler, the Common Yellowthroat. There’s nothing common about this beautiful bird.

            Seeing him in the streamside bush as I waded along in search of brook trout was one of the moments when you are certain there is a God. There’s no other explanation for the perfection and beauty of this tiny bird.

            I watched him flit around in the bushes for 10 amazing minutes, thankful that – only recently – I’d become an avid birder – taking the time to see what’s around me. All those years and I’d never noticed all these colorful birds.

            Fifteen minutes later, I cast a small fly – a nymph – into a bend pool and saw the quick flash of a trout darting from it’s hiding place to grab the fly.

            Quickly bringing him to hand, a sleek 7-inches adorned with red and blue spots and a gorgeous yellow belly, it was another God moment. If He’d only created one fish, the brook trout would have been it. Absolute perfection.

            The trout in Sourdahunk Stream are very dark on top to match their habitat. I didn’t used to notice, too busy casting and catching. Now I really study each individual fish, unique in its own way.

            Sometimes after he’s released, a fish will fin there in the water beside my foot, unaware that he’s free. Then the dark tail flips and he vanishes. What doesn’t vanish is the smile on my face.

            I gaze at Mount Katahdin covered by clouds, at the rapids ahead, into the trees along the shore, drinking it all in. I’m surrounded by beauty and want to see it all.

            Three years ago Linda and I enjoyed a “mushroom walk” with Mount Vernon’s Barbara Skapa. Boy, did that open my eyes!

            The diversity and quantity of mushrooms seen in a couple of hours, all within two miles of our home, was astonishing. We decided to focus on the tastiest (of course!) and learned to recognize, with confidence, chanterelles.

            From late June to mid-August, our eyes focus on the ground, searching for those yellow treats. Last night Lin sautéed two dozen in butter for a delicious pre-dinner appetizer. Wow.

            A few weeks ago a lovely lady named Carolyn called. She and her husband Ralph shared a European trip with Linda and me 30 years ago, arranged by the University of Maine Alumni Association. It was our honeymoon.

            Carolyn had been looking at an old album of the trip and saw a photo of Linda and me and decided to track us down. We hadn’t heard from her in 30 years, yet she remembered so many details about that trip and us.

            Here’s a lady who sees everything around her, I thought to myself.

            The conversation with Carolyn was a very pleasant surprise, but made me wish I’d been more observant 30 years ago. She sure remembered a lot more than I did!

            There was a time when I only saw what I wanted to see or had to see. As a sportsman, I’ve always thought I saw more than most – but until Linda and I started birding I was missing a lot.

            Kids don’t miss much.

            The fishing for smallmouth bass in mid-June on a remote Kennebec County pond was slowing so my 5-year old grandson Addison turned his attention elsewhere and pulled up a water lily pad to discover – and show Grampy – frog’s eggs underneath the pad. I’d never noticed them before.

            When is it we lose that wonderful ability to see and sense all that surrounds us? When do we become too self-absorbed and busy to really notice what goes on around us?

            Wait. As I write this column, I hear a Northern Parula warbler outside our camp window. Now, I’m even hearing all that surrounds me!

            And it makes life so much richer.

            Amazing things surround us. May you see and hear them all.

Kin-dom n Kaoma

-Susan Harrington Tedrick 

(photo by Lynn Twitchell)

www.wisezambia.org

Pastor Karen emailed me to do a Mission Moment related to her sermon series that is bringing new layers of meaning to the Lord’s Prayer. Her note said that she’d like me to talk about the trip to Zambia in relation to the phrase: Thy Kin-Dom Come. 

Say What? I’d only been home two hours and I knew I was jet-lagged but…Thy KIN-Dom Come? Maybe it was a typo.

 Then it struck me. I had just spent 3 weeks in glorious kin-ship.

 When we were in Kaoma the Kin-Dom truly came! It came as friendships with widows and orphans deepened. It came as the team shed their American expectations & let the joy of abundance sneak in, an abundance of spirit with no material possessions, and when we went to church we celebrated the kin-ship of music & faith.

 The message we heard that day is just as relevant here as it was there. It was about power--mata. The power of things we ALLOW to have power over us and the only thing that has real mata--faith in God.

 There, the priest held up something that struck fear in many minds, a voodoo-like effigy that had been left on a woman’s threshold to frighten her. The gasps were audible. He then explained, in a very joyful way, that the only REAL power was Jesus.  Mata a Jesu.

 The US, too, has a history of threatening effigies: burning crosses…nooses.  We, too, give power to things that don’t deserve power. Status…income…vehicles…. Another Kin-Ship.

 The priest asked the congregation to touch the scary doll and pass it along. That was very hard for some people to do. Most congregants were uncomfortable, but they touched it and let go of the power they had given it.

 Mata…power…Only in Jesus…Jesu.

 I wondered: Am I ready to look at, touch and release the artificial things that frighten and have power over me? Are we? And to recognize the only real and liberating power? The power of the blood of Jesus? Or as they say: mata mwa mari a Jesu?

 I hope that I can let that kind of KIN-DOM COME to my heart, too.

Here is a "cross-over post" from inward/outward which provides daily soul food for the hungry (inward/outward.org).

Why I Wake Early

By Mary Oliver

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It was what I was born for— to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world— to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant— but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations. Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these— the untrimmable light of the world, the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made out of grass? In the hope that today is a day you are able to spend less time at the computer and more time “looking, listening and losing yourself” in some part of nature’s beauty and delight, we offer this poem by Mary Oliver from her collection called Why I Wake Early. Now go pray.

Guest Blog: Chuck

Glory in the gloom

New England weather is setting records for prolonged rain and cloud cover. Why is it that we feel dispirited when skies are grey? The spirit is still there, creating moist miracles before our eyes.

For those of us who like to venture out, wet or not, there is the beauty of jewels of moisture on spider webs and leaves, the smell of growth in the damp woods, the chuckle and gurgle of water over rocks. If you don't feel the need for shoes, enjoy the comfortable coolness of the moist, soft sod.

More of the indoor, looking out persuasion? Revel in the comfort of being warn and dry while watching the rain drip from the eaves and decorate the puddles with rings of wavelets, the light vary with the cloud cover.

Two weeks ago, Acadia experienced very heavy rain overnight. Driving though the Park the next day offered other first hand views of the reconstructive power of the water. Waterfalls were leaping from ledges, to splash from lower levels in great arcs. Ponds rose to levels that had roaring torrents appear where placid streams normally meandered.

From whatever perspective, remember that all of this too is a part of the great creation. Go, glory in the gloom.  -Chuck Pritchard