Here are some quotes about prayer that were published in the magazine “Alive Now” September/October ’98….

~”To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us.”     Richard J. Foster

~”Prayer is an invitation to recognize holiness, and to utter simple words- ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ – in response….It is an ordinary experience lived with gratitude and wonder.”     Kathleen Norris

~” Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God.”     The Baltimore Catechism

~” Prayer is a state of continual gratitude.”   St. John of Kronstadt

~”Prayer is a participation in willing God’s will.”    Marjorie J. Thompson

Thoughts to ponder:

Which of these speak most strongly to you?

Which ones help you to see prayer in a new way?

What else does prayer mean to you?

nk

These photos were taken at the site of the House of the Virgin Mary which we also visited on May 2, our one day in Turkey. This wall is covered with thousands of written prayers which are tied on with strips of cloth. (Zoom into the photo if you can).  It is quite an amazing experience to stand in the midst of all those prayers!

I was taken back to the moment I stood in Jerusalem before the Wailing Wall 30 years ago.  When I tucked my prayer into a crevice between those ancient rocks of the Jerusalem Wall, I stared in awe at millions of tiny pieces of paper rolled up and stuffed into the cracks all over that wall.  For centuries, persons of faith had stood before that same wall with their prayers!  In that moment I suddenly became one with all of humanity standing before God in prayer.  It was powerful!

I clearly remember that my prayer back then was that God would use my life. It was all so big, so overwhelming for me,  that it seemed I could do nothing less.  Now standing at this prayer wall, I couldn’t just walk by as if it were a tourist attraction.  I had to do it again!  I scrambled in my bag to find a scrap of paper. I quickly wrote it again….the same prayer.  There was not a moment’s hesitation about what to write.  It just poured out once again, and it felt SO good!  “God, please use my life!”.  I rolled it up and carefully, wholeheartedly, tied it to the wall….(double knot!).

Simple.  Powerful once again.  Always.

nk

These photos depict the Great Theater, part of the Ancient Greek city of Ephesus, founded in the 10th century BC.  Located here are the remains of many wonderful old buildings.  They are now part of Turkey.

It was here at this Great Theater that Paul stood and preached to the Ephesians.  It was in this very spot that I stood to preach on the morning of May 2, 2015.  It was a HUGE MOMENT for me!  It was very humbling.  What does one say?  Immediately I went to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in the New Testament of the Bible.  Of course!  You say what Paul said when you stand where Paul stood!  Paul preached about the need for unity, becoming one in Christ.  I knew it was exactly the word Paul had for us today.

We had a different guide the day we were in Turkey.  He came up to me when I finished and said, “I never knew women could be preachers!”  I began to wonder….could that mean that a woman had not yet stood in this spot to preach?  I have no idea.  What I do know is this man who has led tours to this spot for years, had never seen it happen, nor did he know women like me even existed.

Again I was humbled as I remembered God’s words to me in the very beginning.  “You just be YOU.  I will take care of the rest.”  Maybe THIS MOMENT was much bigger than I will ever know.

nk

If you have not yet looked at my photos from Greece, click above on “Photos” at the top of the blog page. I want to give you a brief description of those photos.

1. The first one is a view of the Greek Island of Santorini.

2. The second is the Greek Island of Mykonos.  The Greek Isles we visited were everything I expected and hoped they would be.  Beautiful.

3.The photo of me and one of my many new friends was taken on the ship. In case you are wondering about my carrying the pitcher and tray…I did not steal them from the dining room!  (Actually I borrowed them).  We had just had the Sacrament of Holy Communion on the ship which I was invited to lead.  Such a joy for me! ….for all of us actually!

4. and 5.  The next two photos were inside the small chapel located at the brook in Philippi where Lydia was baptized by Paul.  You can read about that in Acts 16: 11-15.  She became a follower of Paul and a preacher of the Gospel. The chapel contained Byzantine art with paintings and mosaics…SO beautiful as you can see.

6. The last photo is the Acropolis in Athens taken at night from the roof of our hotel after we had climbed among those old, wonderful, ancient buildings all afternoon.  All I can say is “WOW!”

Just in case you ever need a crash course in Greek, here is the t-shirt for you!

More about Greece to come….

nk

I had not planned on retiring, but I kept feeling a nudge that God might be calling me to something else. I went away for a week by myself to the Hill Country to be still and listen.  During that time I made a “collage” journal which you see in the left half of the attached photo.  I was not purposely trying to make anything specific, just cutting out images that somehow appealed to me and putting them together according to color, shape, design.  Then I would stand back and observe what I saw in the pieces coming together.

After my week of silence…walking, listening to nature, writing in my journal, praying, deeply wanting  to hear God’s voice… I finally heard in my heart the whisper, “I want to use more of your creative gifts.”  And the image I received in my mind was a bird let out of a cage.  I didn’t know exactly what that meant, or where it would lead me, but of course I wanted to know IMMEDIATELY!

Three months later I was in a small town with my high school girlfriends.  We were in a huge, multi-level antique/craft mall with individual booths. At one point I wandered off by myself.  In a certain booth, far away from my friends, I discovered a stack of journals.  I flipped through and found the one you see on the right half of the attached photo.  I was struck by the likeness of the bird to my own journal as I read the quote on the cover.  “The day she discovers her wings, she knows there’ll be no stopping her.”  I like going full speed ahead!  The quote clearly related to the image of a bird let out of a cage.  I wanted to purchase this journal.  I felt it was mine!  But then I looked at the back cover, at the bottom, where there was a continuation of the quote in the same handwriting….”It is here where she must begin to tell her story.”  YIKES!!  I put the journal back instantly and walked away.  I heard my name called over the loud speaker.  My friends thought I was lost!

On the way out of the mall, Suzi pulled a journal out of her bag.  “Here, I bought this for you!  It seemed to have your name on it”,  she said as she handed me the journal.  Oh my gosh!  It was the same journal!  I received it.  It was a gift.  I knew God had spoken in that moment!  “It is here where she must begin to tell her story.”

I want to close with this quote I wrote in a journal 10 years ago. I knew exactly which journal and where on the page I had written it.  (Apparently it was a “moment”).  The quote is from the book  “The Good Women of China” by Xinran.  Old Chang says to her, “Xinran, you should write this down….If you don’t write these stories down, your heart will be filled up and broken by them.”  As writing a book became possible for her she said, ” It was as if a pen had grown in my heart.”

nk

I spent today beside a woman whose home had been flooded.  She is 89 years old and in a wheelchair….well, a makeshift one.  It was a kitchen table chair that had been adapted by putting rolling casters on each of the four legs.  She scooted around with her feet, but it wasn’t easy.  During the heavy rains she was by herself in her home at night.  As the water rose to over 27 inches inside her home, her small dog drowned.  She was in bed and could not get to him.  He had been her companion for 17 years.

Now in the midst of her grief, with piles of stuff all around her, moment by moment decisions became increasingly difficult.  As others were cleaning up, I knew that the best help I could be was to sit beside her.  We went through wet photo albums as she tried to decide which photos to keep.  I was surprised at how many photos she chose to let go of, and how few photos she chose to save.  “They say I can’t keep so much stuff”, she said, “and besides, I have these pictures in my mind”.

Tonight I am reflecting on our day together.  What moment stands out for me about today?  I am actually a little surprised at which moment surfaces.  There was a photo she immediately knew she wanted to save.  It was a beautiful panoramic view out the window of the home she and her husband shared in New Zealand.  Out of the very few photos she chose to save, why this one?  What does she associate with that view?  Did they make love there?  Did they have deep conversations there?  Did they enjoy a peaceful presence?  A hopeful horizon?  Did the view bring the perspective of a bigger picture?

I began to realize the places and moments in my own life that are identified by the “view”.  The view has become the treasure that is holding the moment.  I see the clear West Texas night sky with lots of stars outside my childhood bedroom window.  I see a full moon and mountains in a huge Montana sky.  I see the view of the lake where I grew up waterskiing.  I see the view of a glorious sunrise outside the big window in my current home.

Is there a picture you would choose to save?  I join my friend….for me it would be the view!

nk

Perhaps you have experienced a special shared moment.  This past week I had lunch with a friend I had not seen in a long time.  We talked about everything we could think of to catch up.  Finally it was time for dessert.  I love sharing dessert with someone else, or even a group of people around the table.  Something about that is fun for me.  This friend and I both love chocolate so we decided to share this yummy chocolate dessert.  It was so good that I need to tell you about it!

The dessert was a small round moist chocolate cake filled with a thick warm gooey chocolate sauce that oozed out once we dipped into it. At the base of the cake on the plate were raspberry and chocolate syrups along with a few berries.  It was all topped off with a small dusting of powdered sugar. This was the sort of dessert that made your glands activate….those two located on either side of your neck up high, just below your ear and behind your jaw bone.  This would happen at first glance, not to mention how these glands went crazy once the first taste entered your mouth!

We totally enjoyed this, taking turns digging our spoons into the chocolate.  Interestingly, as much as we both loved it, neither of us would finish the last bite!  (Yet we did whittle it down to a very small bite). That has been puzzling me a little as I remember our time together.  Why did we leave the last bite of that awesome dessert on the plate?  Were we too full?  Did we remain persistent, wanting the other person to enjoy the last bite?  Or did we just not want the moment to end?  Can special shared moments ever really end?

nk

It happened on a spiritual retreat. I traveled to a Catholic Retreat Center where I knew no one, but I wanted to hear the speaker. I am of a different faith, but growing up I used to go to a Catholic Hospital with my Dad who was a doctor there. A nun, Sister Philitheus, used to take me by the hand and show me around. We would visit patients and eat cookies. She was my friend. I could hardly say her name, but I learned about faith through her. I loved her.

I discovered that at the spiritual retreat Mass would be given every evening. “Oh great!”, I thought with dismay. “I won’t be able to share in the meal.” I respect the different belief, and yet I don’t really understand. My belief is different. In my belief Communion is open for all. A young priest was there and in preparation for the meal I never heard him say I could not come. So, in my somewhat rebellious nature I suppose, I took it. Then later I felt bad and I went to see him. I confessed and said I respected his faith, his belief. He said, “Did you know that if you are in line, ready to receive the bread and wine, and you want it, I cannot refuse giving it to you”. (“WOW”‘ I thought). “Well”, I said, “I WANT it”.

That was pretty much the end of that discussion. The next night during Mass I  listened again and never heard the words that I was not invited. I got in line. When it was my turn and the young priest and I were face to face, He reached out and gave me the bread out of his faith tradition. I reached out and received the bread out of my faith tradition. And in that MOMENT, I felt that in the Gap between us was the purest expression of Jesus Christ. It was the place both of us had yet to become.

There are many moments of “The Gap”. Two people may not be able to be fully together for whatever reason. Perhaps it is because of circumstances, of different beliefs, distances of any nature. Yet could it be that in the Gap between us is something deeper than each of us yet have or know? It is a mystery I suppose. But that would be Communion. It stretches all boundaries of time and place to make us all one. Such love runs very deep!

nk

Recently I retired after 27 years of ministry.  When God called me I had never seen a female minister.  I had no idea what that looked like.  God said to me in my heart, ” You just be you, and I will take care of the rest.”  That is what I did, and that is exactly what God has done.  At my retirement gathering I was asked to say a “few words”.  How does one say a “few words” after 27 years?  What I came to realize was that it was not about any certain church, any certain building, or any certain program.  It was really about a “thousand faces and a million moments”.  Something extremely special and powerful happened at any given moment for a certain face.  And that face, that person, could tell you exactly what that moment was, and so could I.  We both knew.  God had been present in a very powerful way.  The truth is, we are ALL in ministry.  Any of us can be present and used by God at any given moment to make a difference for all eternity.  “It only takes a moment to be loved your whole life long”, as the song says.

A dear friend encouraged me to write this blog, along with many friends through the years who have encouraged me to write SOMETHING.  I decided to focus on a moment, with the hope that my sharing a certain MOMENT along the way might encourage your MOMENT.  You and I have opportunities to be present in the moment which can be very powerful and lasting forever.  Join me in this journey of “A MOMENT”.

nk