Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged praise
Stretch to strengthen: pain of a healing sort
01 year
by wlebolt
in Body, Call to Action, church, Deeper Sensation, faith, In Action, Made to Move, prayer, witness, writing
No one really wants to be stretched. At least not too far, and definitely not when the stretching goes beyond what feels comfortable.
There’s just a certain out-of-control-feeling when someone is pulling you and you don’t know how far they will go, or even if they will stop. If you have ever had physical therapy after an injury or surgery, you know exactly what I’m describing. It’s painful but it’s pain of a healing sort. It helps recover your range of motion, and once you have that, the strengthening can begin. Then you’re on the road to return to action.
While there lots of ways to strengthen — exercise machines, dumbbells, pulleys, weights — it’s likely that when you earn your discharge from the PT gym you’ll be sent home with a lovely parting gift called a resistance band. It’s meant to be your home exercise companion. And it comes with a wonderful secret: When you stretch it, it strengthens you.
I know that sounds a bit counterintuitive, but it’s true. When you pull, it resists, gently. As you pull harder, it stretches, slowly. The harder you pull, the more it stretches and the more that strengthens you. This feels very much like life these days and, to me, very much like the life of faith. Body and soul engaged in a give-and-take which feels very much like exercise.
Apparently, my approach is a bit atypical. While most faith-folk tend to start with the soul and then invite the body along, when I begin with body, my soul always comes along for the joy ride. *
Try for yourself. Here’s a simple prayer routine using the “exercise” band and the words to the praise song, Spirit of the Living God. My daughter Stephanie’s lovely voice accompanies me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mse98SpD1v4]
The movement is prayer. The words are prayer. The music is prayer.
But even better, even after the prayer-exercise is done, the sensation of prayer remains… in the body! The muscles that moved the band — the effort, the stretch, the exertion of prayer — reverberate and reiterate: melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Literally, the prayer is still there.
This is too good to be true, right? Try it again. Become aware of the energy, the symbiosis, the connection of stretch to strengthen. Let your body prayer become fluid, flowing one motion into the next. Body and soul, together. Who could conceive of something so powerful and yet so simple?
*My thanks to the folks at the Upper Room for honoring my unusual approach and inviting me to join them to lead worship at SOULfeast 2013.
The day God danced, too
04 years
It’s been raining for days and days and days. The sky gray with clouds. Puddles turning to ponds in the backyard. The bluebirds have sought shelter. Even the ducks swimming in the pond out back dart this way and that, pelted by the deluge that lessens then grows but just won’t give up.
I confess my mood falters with the growing gloom. Damp like the pages of the magazine that had the misfortune to be left outside on the screened in porch. When will it stop? When can I go outside? Where is the sun, the warmth, the inhale of clean breath I remember from a day so long ago?
Wait. What’s that? Could it be? It is! The glow of sunshine through the window. Throw open the shutters. Oh my goodness, run out in the yard, skip to the mailbox, spin in circles. Gather the whole 360. It has NEVER felt so good to be in a new day!!
Ahhh, I write on my chalk message board. Who can think of anything better to say?
Thank you, Thursday, for being gorgeous. Clear and sunny. Not a drop of humidity. Perfect temperature. As if this day was made strictly to my very own specifications.
… For a moment, I feel guilty for loving the day so much. I mean really, there are many days much like this in central Florida. There they awake to sunshine, yawn and go on about their business. Treating each day pretty much like the rest, one day indistinguishable, from the other. In the constancy, they are unaware of their good fortune. But today here in Virginia, I celebrate…
And then, for a glancing moment — really a split second — I look up in my reverie and wonder if this might be the way it happens up there in the heavens amongst the onlooking saints. That the day-by-day good-doers are applauded as one would a Florida day, unsurpassed but unsurprising, while the day-by-day sin-committers — the ones trudging through the driving rain, soaked to the skin, clouded over and covered in mud…
Oh, on that day! The day they see the light and turn their face to it, now THAT is a day like today. A run, skip and twirl kind of day. A day God dances in the driveway, too.
Stay in the presence of God
0I love the way you worship, I told him.
Because I did.
I enjoyed the freedom he had
to raise his hands
shout his praise
demonstrate his love of God Almighty.
I get embarrassed, I told him.
Because I do.
I worry about what others might think
if they saw me with raised hands
speaking out
demonstrating my love.
I love the way you worship, I told him.
But … How?
How do you dismiss
what others might think
what others might say
how they might react to your free expression?
He said:
Stay in the presence of God.
When your mind wanders
Stay in the presence of God.
When your heart questions
Stay in the presence of God.
When your spirit darkens
Stay in the presence of God.
When your strength fails
Stay in the presence of God.
Stay.
Where you are.
Where God is.
Hovering over you
A covering over you
Protecting you
flames will not burn you
waters will not overwhelm you.
Stay and worship.
Prayer for a Day Worth Thanking God
2This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
In gratitude, Lord, I offer it to you.
That the rain has stopped.
That I have a moment’s peace to recall
That you know exactly what lies ahead, so into it we run, blindly, belatedly, but freely.
That the rain has stopped.
That I have a moment’s peace to recall
That you know exactly what lies ahead, so into it we run, blindly, belatedly, but freely.
Bring back to our minds, Lord, the times we have felt closest to you.
Bring back to our hearts, Lord, the moments we have felt most loved.
Bring to our souls, Lord, the very sense that we take our every breath in you.
Bring back to our hearts, Lord, the moments we have felt most loved.
Bring to our souls, Lord, the very sense that we take our every breath in you.
Praise you, Lord, that you have brought us to this day and,
knowing this,
That you will bring us through this day, under your wings.
Thank you, Lord, for friendship, both human and divine.
Help us rest in you.
Help us rest in you.
Amen
Spirit of the Living God, an exercise
011 years
I wonder if the people who drive by my house think I am crazy. I am out on the front porch with my exercise band, stretching it, lifting it, pulling, twisting, raising, lowering. Sometimes I sing “Spirit of the living God” out loud; sometimes I just hum it to myself. It probably just looks like exercising on the front porch to them. They have no idea its prayer. That would be even crazier, right?
So, today I am trying to imagine what they see when they see me, the exercise-er. And it gets me thinking about the me they don’t see…the pray-er.
One of the reasons I love the exercise bands, especially using them with one body part holding and the other body part pulling, is the continuous loop they make. When I hold it in both hands, the “line of pull” is hand to hand but the shape of the motion – to me – is a loop. A continuous communication. First, from brain to hand about the force to be used and the rate of speed of the pull and the exact muscles and in what order they are to be recruited. Then, the hand responds with where it is in space and how fast it is moving. This is happening nearly instantaneously. And so important, so the brain knows where the body will be when it sends its next instruction. So the relay connection is uninterrupted.
It’s like the quarterback and the wide receiver. The QB calls the play and the receiver runs the route, but the QB doesn’t throw the ball to where the receiver is. If he did, by the time it got to him, he would be long gone. No, the QB must gauge how fast the receiver is running and on what trajectory and then throw the ball to where the receiver will be.
And when they connect, it’s a thing of beauty. When they do it again and again, QB and WR seem to have a second sense with each other. But this is the stuff of many, many practices and many, many plays. It requires incredible accuracy and athleticism for execution. And trust. (This has me wondering how many lead passes I am missing while I am waiting for God to hand it off to me so I can run with it. But that is the fodder for another blog post!)
So the relay of movement, your body does this perfectly, constantly. We move with flow and grace. Not jerkily like a robot but smoothly, without interruption. This give and take. This send and receive. This speak and respond. Even the greatest of athletes cannot reproduce this with a teammate, but inside us, this plays out.
And so, as I move my exercise band, I imagine this looping. In fact, my mind draws continuous loops, circles of movement. Okay – I just saw the Star Trek movie yesterday, coils of transporter beam – coils around my movement as I move through the prayer. (visual artists, a good drawing would be welcome here…)
A column of coils, wraps me upward.
A crown of round flips onto and over my head.
A coil behind my shoulders is pulled, pulled outward to a plank, whose endpoints are hand holds in the palm of each hand.
Wings of coil move from out to in to over my head, removing my crown, tipping it forward and down.
A waterfall wave bends and falls before my eyes and down to my waist.
Resting the band down at my thighs, I pull it taut and backwards, engaging the backs of my arms and my shoulders.
A coil like a sash criss-crosses me, hands to waist to shoulders and scapulae.
The circle of motion encloses me.
Somehow, what began as exercise has become prayer. Christian prayer.
Here is the video again. If you try it, please share your experience.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/Mse98SpD1v4]
Stretch to Strengthen
411 years
No one really wants to be stretched. Especially, not when it goes beyond what feels comfortable. There’s a certain out of control feeling when someone is pulling me and I don’t have any say-so in the how-far-they-go-until-they-stop. If you have ever suffered an injury or undergone surgery and then rehabbed in physical therapy, you know what I’m describing. Pain of a healing sort.
But once you get your range of motion back, you get to start on the strengthening. There are lots of ways to do this. Machines. Dumbbells. Steps. But when you’ve served your sentence you get sent home, often with a lovely parting gift. A resistance band. This band is meant to be your home exercise companion. And it comes with a wonderful secret:
When you stretch it, it strengthens you. A kind of reverse mentality. A give and take sort of relationship, gentle, safe and responsive. It pulls back on you with the force you apply.
Recently, I have been engaged by the folks at Upper Room ministries to address the relationship between body and soul, a connection I find inseparable. I’m a bit unusual in this realm. Religious folk tend to start with the soul and add the body. I tend to start with body and somehow the soul always speaks up for me. I thought the resistance band would be an easy way to make this connection.
So, I designed a simple prayer routine using the band and the words to the praise song, Spirit of the Living God. My daughter Stephanie’s lovely voice accompanies me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mse98SpD1v4]
My movement is prayer. The words are prayer. The music is prayer. But it gets better. At the end of this prayer/exercise routine, as the music ended and I rested the band down, I discovered the most amazing thing. I could feel the muscles that had moved the band. The effort, the stretch, the exertion of prayer was still with me. I literally could feel the prayer.
Of course, I had to try it again. Now I was aware of the energy, the symbiosis, the connection of stretch and strengthen, relax and feel stronger. It became fluid, flowing, moving. One motion into the next. Body and soul, together. Who in the world would think of something so simple? I think I know.
My thanks to the folks at the Upper Room for honoring my idea (and unusual approach) and inviting me to join them at SOULfeast 2013.
Morning Has Broken ~ welcome Spring!
112 years
In 1931, celebrated English children’s author Eleanor Farjeon wrote a poem for children to celebrate the first day of Spring. Set to a Gaelic melody, it climbed the pop charts as a Cat Stevens recording in 1971, and it remains one of Christendom’s favorite hymns. What a power lyrics have when we read and speak them!
MORNING HAS BROKEN
Morning has broken
like the first morning;
Blackbird has spoken
like the first bird.
Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing fresh from the Word!
Sweet the rain’s new fall sunlit from heaven,
like the first dewfall on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,
sprung in completeness where his feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning born of the one light
Eden saw play!
Praise with elation, praise every morning,
God’s recreation of the new day!
—Eleanor Farjeon
I’m told that Eleanor Farjeon’s inspiration was
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” ~ Lamentations 3:22-23
What words speak especially to you in this poem/hymn? Me? I love…
Mine is the morning born of the one light Eden saw play!
Happy Spring! And thank you to The Church of the Good Shepherd UMC for their devotional post today.
Giving the leftovers to God
012 years
I’ve always had a bit of trouble with this story told in both Matthew and Mark’s gospels of a Canaanite woman who pleads with Jesus for help to save her demon-possessed daughter and ends up begging for even the crumbs from His table. (Matthew 15:22-28)
A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Today I am thinking about how many times this is exactly what I offer my Lord. The crumbs from my table. The leftovers when I’m done with my meal, done with my work, done with my day.
This morning I woke early. I had heard there was a meteor shower that could be viewed before sunrise and the skies would be clear. I stepped out into the cold and the dark of the morning and looked upon the most lovely of twinkling lights. Constellations in every direction. Darkness interrupted by pinpoints of glistening magnificence. Not a meteor to be found, but I stood in awe, surveying the broad expanse of the masterpiece displayed on the canvas of the pre-dawn sky. Every light perfect. Clarity that defies any human light, any human sound, any human thought.
And the words of songs and hymns, of prayers and psalms sprung from …from where? I’m not sure. They were an impromptu offering. I was praising a God who provided this wonder every morning, first thing. Before He attended to anything else. God’s first fruits, just for me, just now.
And here am I, offering Him the crumbs.