Daily Dose (Sept 17 – 20)

Fred Roger (“Mr. Rogers”) calls Yo-Yo Ma one of the “great appreciators of our world. It seems that people always walk taller after they’ve had an encounter with him. The only thing that’s larger than his talent is his heart.”
Mr. Rogers tells the story about a day he was privileged to sit in on one of Yo-Yo Ma’s master cello classes. “During that master class one young man was struggling with the tone of a certain cello passage. He played it over and over and Yo-Yo listened with obvious interest.
Finally, Yo-Yo said, ‘Nobody else can make the sound you make.’
That young man looked at Yo-Yo Ma and beamed. What a gift those words were not only to that cellist, but to everyone who was there. Nobody else can make the sound you make.”
“Well, nobody else can live the life you live. And even though no human being is perfect, we always have the chance to bring what’s unique about us to live in a redeeming way.” (Thank you Fred Rogers)

Hear these words… “You are loved, you are worthy, you have a story to tell. There is a sound only you can make.”
And it is true that words of affirmation and grace are not easy to absorb (or digest or internalize). What with the pesky little voice in our head that finds grace and love too good to be true; “You don’t mean me, do you?”

We had a great reminder in yesterday’s Sabbath Moment about Balian of Ibelin; who, in the Middle Ages, began knighting ordinary men, making them understand that inside of them was a knight, something far greater than the limitations of their birth or fears or status.
The Bishop, Patriarch of Jerusalem (almost crying): “Who do you think you are? Will you alter the world? Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?”
Balian of Ibelin: “Yes”
“Look up at me,” Balian of Ibelin was saying to each man. “See in my eyes something more and far greater than you see and know in your limitations.”

With a few exceptions, I do my best to see those around me with Mr. Rogers’ lens: Inside of everyone a light shines.
Inside of everyone, there is a sound that no one else can make.
This week, let us embrace the assurance that where limitations see only scarcity, grace and love see sufficiency.

WEDNESDAY SEPT 18 —

The voice of Grace tells us that we are more than our labels. Labels reminds us of our limitations. And when limitations are our “glasses”, we see only scarcity. Whereas grace and love invite and embolden us to see sufficiency.

I love the Gospel story about the Samaritan woman at the well. Long story short, here is a woman who carries a myriad of labels—she is a member of the wrong group, she is “less-than,” undesirable, a social outcast (not to mention she’d been married several times). And Jesus offers her everlasting water no questions asked. My take on his words to her: “You’ve lived on scarcity—labels that limit you—and I offer you sufficiency, in water that will never leave you thirsty again.”
I love preaching from this text. Which, of course means, that I’m preaching in order to remind myself to believe it (internalize it). To hear it, for myself. Just sayin’.
So, here’s the deal: It’s not that we “choose” to live wholehearted (emboldened to see sufficiency), so much as we “choose” to give up being afraid (confined by labels).

Charlotte Kasl’s reminder, “Shame is essentially the degree to which you mistake your labels for your identity. If you draw your labels into the core of yourself, you can no longer see the center.”

Our lesson from the story of the woman at the well?
We give up being afraid, by responding to the love of the Beloved—the invitation to sufficiency or “everlasting water.”
We hear and taste and touch this love; and our dance is the interplay with that voice. Because now, our hearts are alive.
Let us start with the voice of grace.

“I discovered that in the spiritual life, the long way round is the saving way. It isn’t the quick and easy religion we’re accustomed to. It’s deep and difficult—a way that leads into the vortex of the soul where we touch God’s transformative powers. But we have to be patient. We have to let go and tap our creative stillness. Most of all, we have to trust that our scarred hearts really do have wings.” Sue Monk Kidd

I hope all the moon gazers enjoyed moments of wonder last night. The treat of a partial lunar eclipse shaving a sliver off the top of the full supermoon. 

THURSDAY SEPT 19 —

One Saturday, a mother asked her young son to polish her Sunday shoes. When he finished, she handed him fifty cents for a job well done.
Sunday morning, slipping on her shoes, she felt a block. Reaching in, she removed a wadded paper. Inside the paper she found fifty cents. On the paper, in her son’s lettering, “Dear Mom, here is your mommy. I done it for love.”

Our dance—with wholeheartedness and openheartedness—comes from that place. That place where we have no one to impress and nothing to prove.
That place where the voice of our limitations—whether fear or impatience or insecurity or shame or pain—does not win.
Or, in the words of Kitty Lunn, dance teacher from a wheelchair, “The dance inside me doesn’t know or care that I fell down the stairs and have a spinal cord injury. She just wants to keep on dancing.”
Dancing is the perfect visual and metaphor for light spilling to the world around us.

And I love the story Sue Monk Kidd wrote about her daughter, coming home from school in early December, telling her mother she got one of the great parts in the Nativity Play.
“What part did you get?”
“I’m the Star of Bethlehem!” the daughter says proudly.
“Well, what will you do?” Sue asks.
“I just stand there and shine.”
The little girl gets it.  At some point, from the Star of Bethlehem to adulthood, we obstruct the light inside—with restrictor plates, with fear, with a need for perfectionism and with prejudice.
We forget that letting the light spill is what mends the broken places around us.
That takes us back to the Marianne Williamson’s reminder, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
I’m nodding in agreement. You see, that wasn’t wired into me, as I was always afraid that “shining” smacked of self-importance or haughtiness. Ironically, it was considered “un-Christian”. How very wrong I was.
Because here’s the deal: shining is not about putting on airs or pretending to be something I am not. It is to be unafraid of our beauty (the imago dei, yes, the image of God) that lives inside.
Know this, when our well-being is all about how we perform or impress or merit, we put restraints on our heart.
So. I’m with the little girl: I just stand there and shine… in other words, I want to be present. I give of this self, this whole self, to this day.

FRIDAY SEPT 20 —

Sometimes we need stories more than food to stay alive. And some stories we return to consistently, to tell and retell, because they invite and embolden us to see (and live from) sufficiency and not scarcity.
And this story has always done my heart good. When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness to pray, and listen until she hears the song of the child she bears. This tribe recognizes that every soul has its own vibration, expressing its unique flavor and purpose. Then the mother to be teaches the song to the other members of the tribe.
The tribe sings the song to the child at birth.
They sing when the child becomes an adolescent, when the adult is married, and at the time of parting and death.
But there is one other occasion when the villagers sing this song. If at any time during his (or her) life, the person causes suffering to another member of the tribe, they gather in a circle and set him (or her) in the center. They sing the song, to remind them not of the wrong done, but of their own beauty and potential. When a child loses the way, it is love and not punishment that brings the lost one home.

When we buy any label, or any script, we forget our song. We forget that music (the gift of grace) unlocks the heart, and we are restored (take a step) to our self.
I cannot tell you your song. But I can tell you this: you have one.
Count on it. And if you sit still, you may hear it.
It is the song that reminds us we are beautiful, when we feel ugly.
It is the song that tells us we are whole, when we feel broken.
It is the song that gives us the power to dance, even when we feel shattered.
It is the song that allows us to take a step when we feel stuck, or shut down.
When someone asks me what I believe, it wouldn’t hurt to tell them, “I believe that once upon a time, long ago, they heard their song and followed it.”

And this prayer to take with us into our weekend…
“May you be at peace,
May your heart remain open.
May you awaken to the light of your own true nature.
you be healed.
May you be a source of healing for all beings.”
Tibetan Buddhist Prayer

Prayer for our week…
May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be confident knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.
St. Theresa’s Prayer 

Photo… “Hi Terry, Michael and I visited Libby, Montana, and had a wonderful time. We were able to see Kootenai Falls and visit Ross Cedars. Magnificent!” Penny Prior… Thank you Penny…
I’m so grateful for your photos, please send them to [email protected]