Before entering a room, take a breath. Consider the place you came from. The place in which you are entering. What do you hope to greet there? What do you fear behind the door? What do you hope changes once you cross the threshold?
Home
I remember going to the drive-in with my family and falling asleep to the sound of The Wiz streaming through the car speaker. It was a big deal to be able to see the broadway production on film in an affordable way that my family could enjoy. Perhaps, the excitement was too much for me to bear. Up until then, the only rendition of the 1900s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz[1] I had access to was Judy Garland on TV clicking her red heels repeating, “There’s no place like home.”[2] Home. I tend to favor the The Wiz’ finale of “Home,” because its composer and songwriter Charlie Smalls wrote lines that grip me even now:
If you're list'ning God
Please don't make it hard to know
If we should believe in the things that we see
Tell us, should we run away
Should we try and stay
Or would it be better just to let things be?[3]
This voices my own existential search for home or even belonging. In this song, Dorothy believes that home is where love is abundant. She wants to go back to that place with her newfound, matured understanding of the world. The world in which she’s been chased, attacked, displaced, and lied to. How should she reconcile home or love with what she’s seeing? Is home a place to return to? Is it something that is outgrown? Can she slow down time enough to savor the feeling of home? I feel this wrestling like waves lapping the shore gently still shifting the seascape.
As a listener, I’m relieved of this dynamic tension in the song. Dorothy relieves me with her wisdom that home is a return to the heart where love chooses to live to the degree I allow.
I lost a friend a few days ago. Her mother texted me and my spouse saying that her daughter, our friend, was free from suffering and had “gone home to be with the Lord.” Home. Could it be that home is the landing place?
A soft meditation I land on because the world doesn’t always make sense, is sometimes disorienting, occasionally filled with grief, and can appear to have little place for me:
God is home.
God is love.
Love is home.
*breathe*
God is home.
God is love.
Love is home.
*soften breath*
Could it be that home isn’t a place but the absolute presence of God that no matter “where” I am, God is with me, loving me, home?
You’re welcome to listen to the version of “Home” I fell asleep to below ;^).
[1] L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (United States: George M. Hill Company, 1900).
[2] “The Wizard of Oz,” film (United States: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, August 25, 1939).
[3] Charles Emanuel Smalls, Home, Album, The Wiz [Original Cast Recording] Original Cast (New York, NY: A&R Studios, 1975).
Quiet
“If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can.” ― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
In these quiet days between Christmas and the new year, I invite you into rest, stillness, and presence. This season calls us to pause, to lean into the rhythms of winter, and to listen to what our bodies and spirits need. Learning to slow down and respond to our needs is not always intuitive. It’s a skill that requires practice, patience, and intentionality.
Winter offers us a model of rest. Trees stand bare, conserving energy for the spring. Snakes burrow deep, retreating from the cold. Squirrels rest after months of preparation, having stored their provisions. The natural world shows us the importance of embracing the season we are in, honoring the rhythms of stillness and restoration.
What would it look like to take a moment of quiet today? Quiet doesn’t always mean silence. It can mean creating space for stillness within yourself, even when life around you feels busy or loud. It’s about pausing to ask: What do I need today?
You are a whole being with needs that stretch across many dimensions—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. What might nurture you in this season? Perhaps it’s a short walk in the crisp winter air, a cup of warm tea, a long soak in the bath, or simply sitting still for a moment to breathe deeply.
After reading this, I encourage you to take a moment of stillness. Close your eyes if you can, and listen. What is your body asking for? How can you tend to yourself today with kindness and care?
Breath prayer:
Inhale: I am still
Exhale: I am present
Playful
Wordlessly, between tasks and conversations, Pastor Eli handed me a set of dice and gestured that I should roll them. I did. Carefully inspecting my lot, he nodded and told me, with all seriousness: “It’s time to do the chicken dance.” Sometimes, the Spirit nudges you with delight at small gestures of kindness, other times at a well-timed hug or text, and at other times with something that makes you laugh out loud with uninhibited laughter. When was the last time you had a full-bellied laugh? How do you like to play? How do you see the Holy at work in playfulness?
Holy & Unhindered
- Rev. Sarah A. Speed
I am sure it is important to close your eyes, to pray on your knees,
to fling yourself into deep reverence and even deeper humility. I am sure the Spirit is close when we dress up, when we sing the descant line, when we murmur the words with a sincere and hopeful heart.
And I am sure that when you moonwalk through your living room in soft wool socks, when you
cackle loudly enough for the whole restaurant to hear, when you squeal into the phone and
make pancakes for dinner, when you plunge your hands into the dirt and talk to the sparrows,
when you make a mess of Communion breadcrumbs all around the Table, or when you allow
yourself an undone, unhindered, unpolished sort of joy—that the Spirit loves that just as well.
The angel said, Do not be afraid; I am bringing you joy.
We humans have spent a lot of time focusing on the fear.
Don’t forget: God is also in the joy.
May you find a way to play today!
Messy
Sensitivity
/noun/ awareness of the needs and emotions of others.[1]
Yesterday, a friend of mine texted me “Happy Boxing Day!” As you may know, Boxing Day is celebrated by the U.K. and its territories. Historically on this day, poor and working class people received boxed gifts.[2] Nowadays, the holiday is typically a day of getting good shopping deals of course.[3]
Christmastime in general is identified as the season of giving. We, like the folks who set up the original Boxing Day, look for opportunities to give. We have ministries at MCCGSL where we are intentional about giving to those of us in need throughout the year, including now. And we have an opportunity during this season to tune our awareness to our collective needs even more.
I present the aforementioned definition of sensitivity, because I believe this word draws us into making our hearts more attune to the hearts of others. Yes, we can feed, clothe, house a loved one. We should. And there are matters of the heart that require tending.
The “heartwork" is first for ourselves and then for others. It is to deepen self-compassion and then offer compassion to others. Self-compassion, the starting point of empathy, helps us to become more aware, more sensitive to my, your, our collective needs beyond what is readily visible. Several Sundays ago, Pastor Lauren invited us to practice compassion through meditation–beginning with self, then for easy people, not so easy people, and finally the world. Isn’t that the work of Christ?
I share below another contemplative piece in its entirety by Howard Thurman. In this piece, he uses the distinction between pity and compassion to discuss how God enables us to grow our sensitivity regarding matters of the heart healthily.
_____________
25. Not Pity, but Compassion[4]
God is at work enlarging the boundaries of my heart.
GOD is making room in my heart for compassion. There is already a vast abundance of room for pity. It is often easy to be overcome with self-pity, that sticky substance that ruins everything it touches. My list of excuses is a long list and even as I say it, I know that under closest scrutiny they disappear, one by one. There is pity in me—pity for others. But there is something in it that cannot be trusted; it is mixed with pride, arrogance, cunning. I see this only when I expose myself to the eyes of God in the quiet time. It is now that I see what my pity really is and the sources from which it springs.
God is making room in my heart for compassion: the awareness that where my life begins is where your life begins; the awareness that the sensitiveness to your needs cannot be separated from the sensitiveness to my needs; the awareness that the joys of my heart are never mine alone—nor are my sorrows. I struggle against the work of God in my heart; I want to be let alone. I want my boundaries to remain fixed, that I may be at rest. But even now, as I turn to [God] in the quietness, [God’s] work in me is ever the same.
God is at work enlarging the boundaries of my heart.
_____________
May we allow God to expand our hearts.
[1] “Definition of Sensitivity,” Merriam-Webster, accessed December 26, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sensitivity.
[2] “Boxing Day,” Britannica: History & Society, December 26, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Boxing-Day.
[3] “Boxing Day.”
[4] Howard Thurman, “Not Pity, but Compassion,” in Meditations of The Heart, Kindle (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2014), 49.
All My Days Prayer Beads
The tradition of using a string of beads or rope knots in prayer is an ancient tradition and a ritual shared by many faith traditions around the globe. The common connection is the ability to give structure to personal prayer devotion. It offers a way to remind and revisit various areas of focus and concern. Repeated rituals can be powerful as they help shape our habits. Please use the image of the Prayer Beads above and the Guided Meditations below to enhance your prayer life.