ash wednesday & lent...next week

Ash Wednesday is already next week...February 6! Like Advent, Lent has recently become a increasingly meaningful annual rhythm in my abiding with God. I hope to post some reflections and links during this Lenten season, in preparation for Easter Week. Here are just a few for starters....

CRI Voice: Introduction to Lent
The Season of Lent by Dennis Bratcher
(Includes other Lent and Holy Week readings and links.)
http://www.cresourcei.org/cylent.html

A Journey into Wholeness Lenten Series by Christine Sine
(This guide was created by Christine Sine in 2007…just adjust the dates for 2008.)
http://www.slideshare.net/seasickdoctor/a-journey-into-wholeness-lenten-series

Godspace Blog by Christine Sine
(Should include some good Lent reflections and links.)
http://godspace.wordpress.com/

departure update...

In case you were wondering if I will ever really leave for Argentina...here’s the latest! I am still waiting to meet some financial support goals before getting the green light to purchase my airline ticket. I am super encouraged with the generous gifts that have already been given and the monthly commitments made toward my missionary support. I am well on my way! I am so grateful! I am now just waiting for the required and necessary healthy balance in my support account before confirming a departure date for Buenos Aires. My hope and prayer is to arrive by March 14…just in time for Passion Week and Easter with the community there. It would be a meaningful week to kick-off my three years in Argentina! Stay tuned! And thanks for your prayers as we wait on God’s best timing!

MLK..."the beloved community"

Unfortunately, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. remains on my bookshelf still unread. Maybe I’ll get it read by MLK Day 2009? In the meantime, this morning I reread a chapter on Martin Luther King, Jr. in Philip Yancey’s book, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church. In the book, MLK is one of twelve mentors and spiritual directors who inspired and transformed Yancey’s life and work.

A couple quotes from MLK really stand out to me this weekend. Most of the civil right’s victories and progress did not come until after King’s death. Yancey tells the story of how Roy Wilkins of the NAACP kidded King that his methods of nonviolence had not achieved a single victory for integration in Albany or Birmingham. King responded with these words, “Well, I guess the only thing I’ve desegregated so far is a few human hearts.”

Ultimately, regardless of what laws and oppressive structures are changed, the real, lasting victories for reconciliation, forgiveness, and love must take root in human hearts. King goes on later to say the real goal is “to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority…The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.”

This vision and truth of King's words and example challenge and inspire my own life today, as the themes of reconciliation and hope continue to take root this 2008.

PS - Here is a link to an excerpt from the book With Justice for All by John Perkins. "The book tells Perkins’ journey toward finding racial reconciliation even in turbulent times."

the storage unit

How can we already be in the second half of January? As always, I am amazed at how fast time continues to fly by!

This week my number one goal was to tackle my storage unit. Something hanging over my head for months! I have had my remaining furniture and stuff in a storage unit for the past two years as I traveled and discerned what was next. Now that I am headed to Argentina for three years, the time has come to empty out the storage unit! The last thing I want to do on my precious vacation time at home is clear out a storage unit. So now is the time!! Plus, I struggle with paying $60 a month to store my extra stuff, when many people around the world need that money to just survive. The words of Ghandi still challenge me…“Live simply, so that others may simply live.”

With the help of Craigslist I have sold my remaining few pieces of furniture. Why was it so hard to say goodbye to my dining table? :( Thanks to my parents and grandparents, I will have garage space for my remaining boxes! It is an interesting process to go through stuff and see just what I am attached to and not ready to give up. Although two years in storage does help with the detachment!

Today is all about my last remaining task….seven boxes of books! Hopefully, I can dwindle that stack down. And, with the leftovers, maybe half.com will prove to be a friend like eBay and craigslist!

ambassadors of hope in kolkata

Tomorrow I am sharing with the “Women of Grace” prayer group at my church. I am sharing about what’s ahead for me in Buneos Aires, along my desire to understand more deeply and live more fully HOPE this 2008. I am grateful for examples of friends who serve as ambassadors of hope in places of desperate poverty and oppression. Today a link to an article written by Sarah Lance came my way. Sarah serves in Kolkata, India with WMF and is about restoring life and freedom in the lives of women in the red light districts. Sari Bari is the business initiative I have shared about often. Check out the Sari Bari web site to learn more. Sarah and the community in Kolkata continue to impact my life by their example and inspire me to be an instrument of hope!

Restoring Life in the Red Light Districts of Kolkata India
By Sarah Lance
http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/urban.php/884

Sari Bari Website:
http://www.saribari.com/

my year career on eBay...

Little did I know a year ago I would become such an expert in eBay! When my uncle passed away this last spring he left behind a huge hobby and business collection of diecast cars, models, and anything racing! We’re talking an apartment and storage unit full! It was his lifetime hobby and he had so much fun with it! After picking out some favorites, our next reaction was what in the world will we do with these boxes and boxes of cars!? As my year and plans began to take shape to head overseas in 2008, my grandparents and parents were so gracious to give me a good portion of the collection to see what I could sell on eBay.

Little did I know the extent (and disposable income) of diehard car and racing collectors! Thanks to them, I was able to pay my health and car insurance and other expenses to get through 2007! It was fun watching the bidding wars for these cars go up to $20-200 a piece. I also am now a shipping expert (long live the Priority Mail flat rate envelope and boxes!) You know I was at the post office a lot if they recognize a new haircut. Just today the postal workers were asking when I was leaving for Argentina.

Anyway, as the eBay run winds down…here is one example of “you never know”! We found a box of odds and ends we set aside and forgot about from my uncle’s apartment. In it were some model plane decals. I almost tossed, but my better eBay sense told me to better make sure. Sure enough…another week of life for this eBay seller!

This one little sheet of decals warranted 12 bids alone! I didn't become a "Power Seller" for nothing. HA!

more on epiphany

Recently I have enjoyed following the church calendar with a little book, A Monastic Year: Reflections from a Monastery. As this Christmas season draws to a close with Epiphany on Sunday, the below reflection reminds us that we now look forward and prepare for Lent and the Easter resurrection of our Lord. As we bow down and worship the King along with the magi this Epiphany, it is a good reminder that the gift of myrrh was for burial of kings. We remember what is ahead for Jesus. Easter is the earliest it ever falls this year, which means Ash Wednesday is just a month away on February 6.

“There are many monastic customs varying from country to country and from monastery to monastery, associated with the feast of Epiphany. Our beautiful ancient custom that remains alive to this day in almost all monasteries is this solemn announcement during Mass of the dates of the moveable feasts of the coming year: Ash Wednesday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and, at the end, the first Sunday of Advent. The announcement proclaims, “As we have recently rejoiced over the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, now through the mercy of God, we can look forward to the happiness that will stem from the Resurrection of the same Lord and Savior.” With Epiphany we in the monastery reach the peak of our Christmas celebrations. Then the year proceeds seemingly slowly, as winter follows its normal course, and our monastic solitude becomes more complete during the cold months. Not too far on the horizon, however, is the arrival of the Lenten-spring, with its hidden promise of Easter Joy.” (Taken from: A Monastic Year: Reflections from a Monastery by Brother Victor-Antoine D’ Avila-Latourrete)

Just a side note….once again I am struck with how much I read on Advent and Lent that revolves around Northern Hemisphere seasons. It might be a little harder for my Southern Hemisphere friends to connect with the cold months of winter parallel while in the heat of summer in January. Or even my friends in tropical climates that never have any winter. I, myself, am thinking ahead to when I am in Argentina soon….where it was a sweltering 100 degrees this week! Anyone know of Lent reflections and meditations written for autumn in the Southern Hempishere?? :)

Epiphany...this Sunday

This Sunday, January 6, marks the close of the Christmas season on the church calendar with the feast of Epiphany. As Christmas lights come down, trees go out on the sidewalk (or back in the garage), Advent wreaths & nativities go back in a box, and our 2008 calendars continue to fill up, I am thankful for one more opportunity this season to make space to reflect on the significance of the arrival and incarnation of Jesus. Of course, this reality should cause pause and reflection throughout the year! My grandparents' Lutheran church is hosting an Epiphany feast on Saturday night, which sounds like a cool tradition to close out the rhythm of the season.

For any fellow-church calendar illiterate Protestants out there, I posted some excerpts from the CRI Voice website on "The Season of Epiphany" by Dennis Bratcher (www.crivoice.org/cyepiph.html).

“Epiphany is the climax of the Advent/Christmas Season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are usually counted from the evening of December 25th until the morning of January 6th, which is the Twelfth Day….In traditional Christian churches Christmas, as well as Easter, is celebrated as a period of time, a season of the church year, rather than just a day. The Season of Christmas begins with the First Sunday of Advent, marked by expectation and anticipation, and concludes with Epiphany, which looks ahead to the mission of the church to the world in light of the Nativity…The term epiphany means "to show" or "to make known" or even "to reveal." In Western churches, it remembers the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by so doing "reveal" Jesus to the world as Lord and King.”

“As with most aspects of the Christian liturgical calendar, Epiphany has theological significance as a teaching tool in the church. The Wise Men or Magi who brought gifts to the infant Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as "King" and so were the first to "show" or "reveal" Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. This act of worship by the Magi, which corresponded to Simeon’s blessing that this child Jesus would be "a light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32), was one of the first indications that Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few.

The day is now observed as a time of focusing on the mission of the church in reaching others by "showing" Jesus as the Savior of all people. It is also a time of focusing on Christian brotherhood and fellowship, especially in healing the divisions of prejudice and bigotry that we all too often create between God’s children.”

"monestary without walls" in 2008

One of my favorite metaphors for the spiritual life comes from Eugene Peterson in his book, Under the Unpredictable Plant. I consider Peterson one of my spiritual directors from his writings. In this book he seeks to reclaim the spiritual dimensions of pastoral call and vocational holiness, using the example of Jonah. He describes a metaphor of a “monastery without walls.”

“What is required is something large enough to give our spirituality breathing room and ample space for a great variety of circumstances, moods, and levels of growth…The only substantial difference between a monk’s monastery and the pastor’s parish is that the monastery has walls and the parish does not. But walls are not the critical factor in either praying or not praying. What is critical is an imagination large enough to contain all of life, all worship and work as prayer, set in a structure (askesis) adequate to the actual conditions in which it is lived out. [our monastery without walls].”

This is my hope and prayer for 2008, as I prepare to move to Buenos Aires within a couple of months. May our monasteries without walls in 2008 contain plenty of spiritual breathing room and space for abiding with God, sharing life with one another, and mission. All of it is our spiritual act of worship and prayer….our monastery without walls!

a special rose parade connection - life takes flight

Life Takes Flight is a float in this 2008 Rose Parade. The float is sponsored by Donate Life to honor organ and tissue donors. A rose dedicated to honor my Uncle Don was included in the Family Circle Garden of roses on the float. I posted more info on the ceremony here.

I started my year off by making sure my organ and tissue donor signature card is in my wallet with my donor sticker on my driver's license.

For more photos of the Life Takes Flight Rose Parade float click here: http://www.donatelifefloat.org/prod/components/media_center/journal/journal_010108b.html