It took me awhile to process the first half of 2018. But here it is, including journey highlights, a feature essay on life in the mud, top book picks, wisdom learned, and queries to think about. See it all in the online magazine The Still: Spring 2018
“God,
you are our beginning and you will be our end;
we are made in your image and likeness.
We praise and thank you for this day.
This is the day on which you created light
and saw that it was good.
This is the day in whose early morning light
we discovered the tomb was empty,
and encountered Christ, the world’s true light.
This is the day you have made;
we shall rejoice and be glad in it.”from A New Zealand Prayer Book/He Karakia Mibinare oAotearou [1]
MUSE PROFILE
What is A New Zealand Prayer Book:
My muse this week is not a person, but a collection of prayers and liturgy from the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia.
Why This Book:
Coming from a faith tradition that does not use a prayer book in worship, I am intrigued by the concept of prayer books and designated prayers or liturgies for specific times of day, days of the week, and seasons of the year. Always one to play with words and experiment with ways to say old things in new ways, I appreciate the prayer book’s innovation with words and use of inclusive language, while never straying too far from its biblical foundations. I am fascinated by its incorporation of the Maori language.
This prayer is in a section of daily devotions and liturgies of the Word. Each devotion uses a portion of the LORD’s Prayer as the introductory theme, followed by a prayer that highlights and expands on that theme. The excerpt of the prayer above is based on the beginning and end of the LORD’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven, the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever.”[2]
Why this prayer:
I love that in the course of a few sentences, the prayer spans the first and new testaments and resonates with language from multiple psalms and biblical passages. Until recently I thought one could only learn the language of the Bible from the Bible itself. My worship classes taught me that liturgy, too, can bathe us in the biblical tradition. This excerpt is only one-third of the entire prayer yet it is so scripturally rich! The language and imagery makes my heart flutter (i.e. the writer in me meets the seminarian in me)!
[1] The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, A New Zealand Prayer Book (Harper Collins, 1989), 106.
[2] The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, A New Zealand Prayer Book (Harper Collins, 1989), 106.
“And perhaps if we ever have real equality with all our glorious differences, the language itself will make the appropriate changes. For language, like a story or a painting, is alive. Ultimately it will be the artists who will change the language (as Chaucer did, as Dante, did, as Joyce did), not the committees. For an artist is not a consumer, as our commercials urge us to be. An artist is a nourisher and a creator who knows that during the act of creation there is collaboration. We do not create alone.”
by Madeleine L’Engle in “Icons of the True” from Walking on Water[1]
MUSE PROFILE
Who is Madeleine L’Engle:
The author who introduced my fourth grade self to the fantasy genre with her book, A Wrinkle in Time.
Why This Person:
I did not know L’Engle wrote anything but fiction for children until recently. I am finding her collection of essays on faith and art to be as invigorating now as A Wrinkle in Time was at age ten.
Why this quote:
My oldest daughter mentioned Interfaith Gathering tonight, and I got all nostalgic. What amazed me tonight was the fact that it did not exist until I created it. And that through that act of creation, something beautiful and life-giving happened for a diversity of women. And how much joy comes from creating something like this, even though it’s hard and the unknowns test you.
Since stepping away from this work following my move to the southern United States, I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit floundering a bit, doubting myself and how God may be using me in this new place and stage of life, doubting whether my creative, free-spirit self has a place in the PCUSA, which loves committees and the sense of order and direction they provide.
My heart is finally making the journey home to embrace my Presbyterian lineage–even if I don’t yet trust myself to let all my creative, free spirit colors wave there, or trust my home’s theological breath and demonstrated potential for finding grace in hard questions amidst its love of order and precision.
L’Engle’s words affirm who I am and why my creative, free-spirited self may be welcomed even where committees abound.
[1] Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (New York: Convergent Books, 2001), 35.
“it was when I stopped searching for home within others
and lifted the foundations of home within myself
i found there were no roots more intimate
than those between a mind and a body
that have decided to be whole”
by rupi kaur in the sun and her flowers[1]
MUSE PROFILE
Who is Rupi Kaur:
Another bestselling author, photographer, artist I discovered by accident. #anewpoetfoundmeinTarget
Why This Person:
Her writing harnesses deep, tough emotions. She tackles universal themes with simplicity and grace, and in the age of #metoo and DACA, her writing on abuse and immigration is timely.
Why this quote:
I used to think wholeness was a given, or something that just happened.
I used to think if you wanted to be whole badly enough,
wholeness would be guaranteed.
Wholeness is not something to handle so carelessly.
You will break before you even realize you aren’t whole anymore.
By then it’s almost too late.
Almost.
[1] Rupi Kaur, the sun and her flowers (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2017), 215.
The Hidden Clocks (Mon.11-9-15) by Iain Thomas in I Wrote This for You 2007-2017
“Don’t stop searching.
There is no comfort in giving up.
There are large parts of you that don’t exist yet.
The greatest you you could be, is still waiting to be found.
Get up and look.”[1]
Muse Profile
Who is Iain Thomas: Someone I discovered by accident. Poet, media artist, author.
Why This Person: Sometimes the books you need to read find you. Sometimes these books aren’t the ones you go looking for. #anewpoetfoundmeinTarget
Why this quote: Age 40 and breathing life into crucial parts of me that had almost melted away.
[1] Iain Thomas, I Wrote This for You: 2007-2017 (New York: Central Avenue Publishing, 2017).
Today is the day a tiny baby arrived and offered hope to a broken world.
“What in God’s holy name do you do when it feels like you’re broken and cut up, and love has failed, and you’ve failed, and you feel like Somebody’s love has failed you?”[1]
“My dad had told me this once. For a seed to come fully into its own, it must become wholly undone. The shell must break open, its insides must come out, and everything must change. If you didn’t understand what life looks like, you might mistake it for complete destruction.”[2]
Muse Profile
Who is Ann Voskamp: Bestselling author, blogger, wife, mom.
Why This Person: Voskamp’s writing is lyrical and vulnerable.
Why these quotes:
As Christmas dawns, I find myself broken, raw edges exposed.
And yet, somewhere in my tender wounds, the promise of hope aches.
“Not one thing in your life is more important than
figuring out how to live in the face of unspoken pain.”[3]
[1] Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life (Zondervan, 2016), 12.
[2] Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way, 26.
[3] Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way, 12.
“Again and again, decisions must be made as to small and large matters;
each one involves him in devious ways.
No one is free from the peculiar pressures of his own life.”
–Howard Thurman in Meditations of the Heart
Muse Profile
Who
Howard Thurman: Minister, Civil Rights Leader, Theologian
Why This Person
I was inspired by Thurman’s book, Jesus and the Disinherited, so I was excited when I saw this book of devotions compiled from Thurman’s life.
Why This Quote
This has been a semester of critical decision-making about
who I am, where I’m going, and with whom I journey.
Amanda Edwards 