August at Bethany House of Prayer has traditionally been a “Sabbath” month.  As Bethany House’s ministry has always been in partnership with the Sisters of Saint Anne, that ministry has always benefitted from seasons of rest and rhythms of restoration that the Sisters model in their monastic life.

Much of the Christian world has lost touch with Sabbath as a spiritual practice.  Personally, I never considered Sabbath as an individual or communal practice until I took a class on spiritual practices in seminary.  Sabbath wasn’t part of any conversations in church that I remember growing up.

I’ve come to understand that there is something vital to taking seasons for replenishment in life and in ministry/service.  In a Resolution that passed at the United Church of Christ General Synod in 2021 called “Becoming a Church of Contemplatives in Action,” the Resolution speaks to the need for balance in our lives: 

“Contemplation without action fuels narcissism, and action without contemplation is a recipe for bitterness and spiritual depletion.”

In the summer of 1921, Mother Etheldred, OSA, sent a letter to the Associates of the Order of Saint Anne, writing “Please pray for us and for this very real venture of faith… Above all, give us your prayers, that through our House of Retreat many may come to know God, not merely to know about Him.”

Intellectual knowledge about God may satisfy the curious mind, but I’ve never found that it satisfies the heart.  Our spiritual journey often starts with thinking, reading, and exploring, but it never ends there.  God within is our nearest and dearest Friend; our Beloved.  When all else fails us, people included, God is closer than the air we breathe.  St. Paul had a very real experience of this, writing to the community in Rome:

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?... For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 35, 38-39)

Perhaps it is just me, but does it feel to you that the pace of life seems to be increasing exponentially? There are more things to do than time to do them! At the same time, the scale of injustice in our world seems to have a parallel exponential increase.

Amid this reality, my heart keeps coming back to this question: how much spaciousness is there in my life? Perhaps that feels too naïve or too micro a question given the many macro urgencies that call for our attention.

For your prayer and meditation this week:

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it;

if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

-        1 Corinthians 12: 27, 26

At Easter, we see God’s power on full display.  Miracle of miracles!

Looking at the Easter narrative more carefully, we see greater nuance to the power of God.  On the road to Emmaus, Jesus walks and talks with two disciples, talking about all the things that have been happening.  Somehow, they do not recognize Jesus until he breaks bread with them.  At that point, they exclaim, “Were not our hearts burning within us?”

When Mary Magdalene finds the stone rolled away at Jesus’ tomb, she experiences shock, grief, and confusion.  We can almost feel Mary’s joy as Jesus calls out to her: “Mary!” and she realizes this gardener is her beloved teacher and friend!

When Jesus displays God’s power through miracles, he doesn’t tell the disciples to spread the news widely.  “Tell no one,” he says.

Lent is often associated with wilderness. Sometimes, the most we can say of the wilderness times in our life is that we survived! Yet, as we look at our ancestors in faith, we see a deeper alternative with wilderness. Henri Nouwen compares the desert and wilderness with entering the furnace of transformation.

In “The Way of the Heart,” Nouwen calls Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness the “three compulsions of the world:”

‘There Jesus was tempted to be relevant (“turn stones into loaves”), to be spectacular (“throw yourself down”) and to be powerful (“I will give you all these kingdoms”). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity (“You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.”)’