Part two on too muchness

Throughout Scripture, God rarely seems offended by human limitation. God remembers that we are dust. Jesus never shamed exhausted disciples. He invited them away. Elijah did not receive a theological lecture beneath the broom tree. He received sleep, bread, water, and gentle companionship before he received direction.

Sometimes the holiest thing you can do is stop demanding clarity from a nervous system that has spent all morning trying to protect you. Over the years I have learned that overwhelm rarely responds to force. It responds to gentleness. When my thoughts begin racing past one another, I have learned to begin with my body before my mind.

I place both feet firmly on the floor. I notice the chair supporting my weight. I soften my jaw. I take one slow breath that reaches all the way into my belly instead of stopping somewhere near my shoulders.

I look out the window long enough to remember there is still a world beyond my own thoughts. A bird landing on a branch. Wind moving through leaves. Clouds refusing to hurry. Creation has a remarkable ability to remind us that God has never rushed a sunrise.

Then I return to only one thing.

One paragraph. One phone call. One prayer. One person. One act of kindness. One faithful next step. Overwhelm whispers that everything deserves your attention right now. Wisdom quietly answers that only one thing can truly receive your wholehearted presence in this moment.

The rest can wait.

I also find myself returning to a practice I learned years ago in spiritual direction. When every thought insists on being heard, I imagine placing each one gently into God’s hands.

The grief.

The fear.

The grocery list.

The child.

The church.

The unanswered email.

The news.

The unfinished reflection.

I do not throw them away.

I simply stop believing that I must carry every one of them at the same time.

Perhaps that is what prayer often becomes.

Less about solving everything. More about remembering who is large enough to hold everything.

As I look around my office now, I notice those abandoned pages differently.

They are not evidence of failure. They are evidence that I cared deeply enough to begin. Some reflections may never be finished. Others will find their time tomorrow. One or two may quietly become something entirely different months from now.

Paper can be smoothed.

Ideas return.

The Spirit has never been frightened by an unfinished draft.

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Part One on too muchness

By noon, my desk looked like my mind. There were pages with only a paragraph before I stopped. A notebook with half a prayer. A document that held a single sentence before I wandered somewhere else. Another reflection that began with hope, drifted into grief, stumbled into theology, and ended with me staring out the window while the cursor blinked patiently, waiting for someone who had left the room without ever standing up.

If you had walked into my office today, you might have thought I simply couldn’t decide what to write.

The truth is much gentler than that. There are seasons when life hands us more than one soul can comfortably carry at once.

There was the sorrow of a hurting world, where war seems determined to drown out every quieter song. There was concern for my dog asleep next to me, seeking comfort he could not explain. There was the weight of pastoral ministry, the conversations entrusted to me, the prayers that still need to be prayed, and the people whose stories I continue to carry into God’s presence. There was Scripture waiting to be opened.

None of these things competed with one another. They simply arrived all at once. That is what overwhelm often feels like.

We tend to imagine overwhelm as panic or chaos. Sometimes it is. But more often it is quieter. It is cognitive traffic. Too many meaningful thoughts arriving at the same intersection. The nervous system begins trying to honor everything equally until, eventually, it loses the ability to choose anything at all.

The result is rarely laziness. It is saturation. Like a sponge that has absorbed all the water it possibly can, the soul simply reaches capacity.

When that happens, we often become frustrated with ourselves. We tell ourselves we should be more productive, more disciplined, more focused. We interpret our scattered attention as failure.

I wonder if God sees something entirely different.

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Prayer for this week

Jesus, will you remind me that in your love I have everything I need? I receive the fullness of your grace, your mercy, your laughter and your presence in my life today.

Father, show me how you want me to give away my life and time today. I pray for a place where joy has been stolen, hope has been killed, faith has been destroyed. Let me show that you are good, even where the enemy has come to cause harm. 

Give me an active mind and heart to be a witness to your love.

#lectio365

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Cup of Water

You can be a flower by the side of the road.
You can be a fountain for whoever passes by.

You can be a lighthouse where the coast is uncertain.
You can be a handrail, a park bench, an umbrella.

You can be the voice that does not jeer,
that calms, encourages, or thanks.

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones will not lose their reward.”

(Mt. 10.42)

_____________________

Weather Report

The sky’s the limit.
Led by favorable winds,
opportunities for grace will abound.
Though the world is partly cloudy,
expect to radiate warmth
and light.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Shining like the sun

I had to look through my books to find this Thomas Merton paragraph this week. I was recalling a special time in college when I was suffused with love for everyone I passed as I walked through the crowds of studentson the way to class. I knew it was a gift off the Holy Spirit to be so filled with a love for and appreciation for the many manifestations of the image of God. Oh, to have the Spirit bring that same fresh and expansive love to each of us who follow Jesus!

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. 

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.  I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift. 

 Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Choosing to believe

This morning, I'm choosing to believe in the quiet, steady goodness that still lives in this world.

In the kindness of strangers.

in the courage it takes to just keep going.

On the small, sacred moments that remind 

us we are never alone.

You don't have to carry everything today.

Take a breath. Let grace meet you where

you are.

There is still light breaking through, still

love holding it all together, still hope rising

in places we least expect.

And so today, we walk forward, gently,

bravely, together. 

Grace and peace, 

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

Pray this with me

Today, Lord, 

        let nothing and no one

        shake my faith in you, 
        keep me from your love,     

        rob me of my hope,     

        dull my thirst for justice, 

        shade me from your light,  

        threaten my integrity, 

        seduce me from fidelity, 

        still your voice within me, 

        indulge my pride and envy, 

        sway me from the truth I know,

        persuade me to act foolishly,

        diminish my self-worth,

        trigger my anxieties, 

        steer me from your path,

        tempt me with forbidden fruit,

        weaken my conviction, 

        curb my will to serve you,

        smooth-talk me with flattery,  

        hold me back from prayer,

        take advantage of my fears, 

        encroach upon my conscience,  

        make me doubt your mercy,

        close my heart to others,

        dampen my soul's joy,

        hide me from your presence, 

        distract me from your Spirit's way, 

        shield me from your grace

        or hinder me in any way

        from knowing, loving, serving you,
        my Lord, my God, my all...

        Amen. 

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation

May you find some quiet time today

May you find some quiet time today, 
And use it to find peace and joy 
Within yourself, and then send both 
Out into our troubled world.

 
 
Grace and peace,
 
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

From Pentecost to Ordinary Time

The joy of Easter and Pentecost must have felt like breaking to the surface to gasp for air after a long plunge beneath the cold water of Jesus’s arrest and trial and execution. First the pure shock of rushing air, then the head-shaking joy of surprise, and finally the wonder-struck delight of rejoicing in Joy itself: He is here? It must have felt like a happy, heaving breath with the heart racing and lungs aching after being pressed to their limits.

What if the Holy Spirit’s rushing wind on Pentecost felt the same as the breath of Jesus in the Gospel of John? The disciples might have recognized it immediately and looked at one another in amazement: It is the Holy One again! We know this is the breath of God.

…There is no epilogue to Easter. If Resurrection has taught us anything, it is that what looks like the end is only the beginning. Ordinary Time now unfolds before us, brightened by the holy flames and rushing wind of Pentecost. Jesus beckons, inviting us to join him on the way of discipleship, deepening our practice of Easter joy every day.

May the Living God draw close today, even within locked doors. May you feel the breath of the Holy Spirit, the mighty wind hovering over chaos to create anew. May you see Christ’s wounds and know that your own suffering is held within them. May the joy of God carry you onward, every day.

(Laura Kelly Fanucci, Living Easter)

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation

All the treasures

In Colossians Paul expresses his hope for the Laodiceans :

“…that they may be encouraged in heart, knit together in love, and filled with the full riches of complete understanding, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ,in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Colossians 2:2-3

What would we do without Jesus, who contains all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? We can face any fear or perplexing circumstance, & also the most mundane decisions, open up to Him in easy conversation, & ask, simply, “what’s going on here?” or “what should I do here?” and He’ll tell us. We just have to believe & not doubt, and all those treasures will open up for us.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation