Soul Rhythms » Resurrection

Of roots, weeds and Easter lilies

yslamb — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:44:49 +0000

A beautiful white Easter lily now brightens my living room, a leftover reminder of a day so special and Holy most malls stayed closed. The plant was one of several that flanked our church’s pulpit during our Resurrection Sunday services, bringing with them the fragrance of hope and the beauty of life renewed that enveloped my day.

My friend, who initially was given the plant, said if she took the potted lily home with her it would surely die within the week. Her husband readily agreed. “You take it,” she urged. My skills at preserving plants have been tested and come up short many times, but I figured I could keep the lily alive longer than a week. Besides I appreciate the symbolism of the plant’s trumpet-shaped flowers, which have been called the “white-robed apostles of hope.”

“History, mythology, literature, poetry and the world of art are rife with stories and images that speak of the beauty and majesty of the elegant white flowers,” one website recounted. Churches adorn their altars with them to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and hope of life everlasting, it said.

I am grateful for this re-gifted gift. I enjoy plants in my home and my yard, though I am not much of a gardener. This month with the coming of spring weather, I eagerly planted flowers in pots and window boxes. The time in the soil, which coincided with my Lenten fasting, prayer and meditation, reminded me that this faith journey requires that I take time to reinvest myself in the practices of consistency and discipline. I will not grow to my fullest potential if I don’t.

About three weeks ago, I was repotting two large planters that flank the doors of the school where our church meets for Sunday worship. Most of plants did not survive the winter. A few sprigs of one plant remained in both planters. When I dug them up, I noticed that the roots looked strong and vibrant so I replanted the sprigs among the other plants. When I stopped to observe the plants on Sunday, the sprigs had new growth and appeared to be thriving. Their hardy roots saved them from being tossed out.

That was not the case for the weeds I pulled up by hand or dug up with a hoe in the flowerbed edging my front yard. They were a prolific bunch that used the months of winter neglect to take over the flowerbed. Some of the roots were deeply imbedded in the ground, but there was no negotiating with them. They had to go.

I know there is some deeply rooted stuff in my own life that still needs to be plucked out and tossed away like the life-clogging weeds that they are. God is continuing to show me those weedy places and is helping me do the spiritual work that needs to be done so that the excellence within can flourish.

Coming out of this Easter season, I emerge with a greater awareness of how the weeds of procrastination, inconsistency and even busyness can overshadow the work that God desires me to do. So can anger, self-centeredness, fear and indifference toward others. What time wasters, energy sappers and productivity thieves these things are to Kingdom work, to all other worthy endeavors as well.

On the other hand, like the roots discovered in the planters, my love for God remains strong and vibrant, deeply grounded in Him. I am nourished by the fresh insights and new revelations of God’s love that I received during the Lenten season. Easter Sunday doesn’t end for me just because the day has passed. The joy and assurance of Christ’s resurrection is an on-going, hope-filled boost to my soul. The lily in my living room is but one reminder of that.

Here is Paul’s prayer for spiritual growth taken from Ephesians 3: 14 -21. May you be rooted and grounded in God’s love today.

“When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit. Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him.

Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might we might ask or tihnk. glory to Him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”

Moving past the Monday morning blues

yslamb — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:03:11 +0000

I am not blaming Monday or anything. It’s a beautiful Monday. The birds are chirping. The sun is shining. And the air carries just the right amount of breeziness. But I woke up with a crick in my neck and it’s painful.

I am more accustomed to waking up and declaring “This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” I wanted to awake afresh this morning, ready to embrace the new beginnings and the mystery of God that I learned about at a discipleship conference this weekend and that my pastor talked about Sunday. But instead I awoke tired and cranky, anticipating with dread all that awaited me today and this week.

Pastor Cynthia T. Turner preached from the story in Luke 24 about the two believers who encountered a resurrected Jesus on the Emmaus Road. It’s one of my favorites. They didn’t recognize Jesus, and He didn’t let on right away who He was or that He knew they were returning from His crucifixion disappointed and without hope. He knew they had not believed what the prophets had written in the Scriptures about Jesus’ rising from the dead three days after His death on the cross.

With that as a backdrop, Pastor preached that when we fail, our easy tenacity is to go back to the scene of our failings. “A dangerous place to be in… is when all we know is crucifixion “

The words resonated with me because I know I have failed aplenty in my dealings with others and in things I wanted to accomplish, long ago and recently, and unfortunately will fail again in the future. But I also know that I don’t have to stay in failure.

“Our God is a God of life, of new beginnings,” declared my Pastor, who also has written several blogs on Soul Rhythms.

That message lingered with me into the afternoon, and I took my camera and went searching in my backyard for signs of new life. I found plenty in the trees, scrubs and flowers there.

I am remembering the message now, reinforcing it in my heart, mind and soul as I start going through today’s to-do list. It’s a message that I will carry with me as I walk later today, letting it ease the tension in neck and clarify my thoughts.

The more I think about new beginnings the less I feel like joining the chorus of those who sing the blues about Mondays.

As I was writing this, I received an email that contained the most commonly recited portion of the Serenity Prayer. It’s also a good one to keep me moving in the right direction today.

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change those things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

The original and complete version of this prayer said to have been written in 1943 by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr goes like this:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it;
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Righteous Mind with Rev. Cynthia T. Turner

yslamb — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:17:16 +0000

This has been a season of things breaking, about to break, or crippled to the point of being broken. The gutters above my porch. The check engine light on the car again. The railing outside my mother’s door. And the Bruno Stair Chair Lift in my mother’s home. Perhaps that’s the one that hurts the most because it is designed to carry my mother.

It’s supposed to hold her at all times so as to give the illusion that no obstacle is too big, no hurdle too high and no stairs too steep to ascend. That’s the sales pitch. But that’s all it is, because the reality is it’s broken and of no use until the repairman can fit taking a look at it into his overloaded schedule next week .

I hate when things break. Especially me. I need to hold it all together at all times, not just for me but for the generations who preceded me and withstood far more hardship than I’ve known. And for the generations following who seem to cower under the slightest weight and discomfort. They need to see how I can hold up under real strain.

Also for the congregants I serve who secretly wonder at times if God is real. For those millions of nameless women whose backs are bent under the strain of trying to house, feed, educate and clothe an entire family for under $2.50 a day. For the women whose bodies were violently entered and whose minds and hearts were raped of the hope that anybody cared.

And for the little children who can’t afford for the grownups to break. Especially for my 5-year-old great niece who believes I am invincible. I can’t break, because if I do who will lift all those folks?

Yeah, right. All those fine noble reasons aside, I don’t want to break because breaking hurts. And I hate that. But I also fear the fact that broken things aren’t of much use. They get put up on a shelf for later fiddling. They get wheeled in front of a TV until the next meal. They get left behind. They get swept up and thrown away. And even if they are glued back together, one wrong move or a bit of close scrutiny will reveal their cracks. Don’t believe the hype. Everything is not necessarily stronger in the broken places.

Truth be told, I have been broken, am breaking now, and most assuredly will endure breaks in the future. I’m publicly whole and privately fragile. I could never live up to always being the strong, independent woman I was raised to be, who refuses to crack under pressure, no matter how forceful. While I may still resist it, I no longer believe breaking – excruciatingly painful as it is – is the worst thing. It demands new ways of seeing the same old situation and it rejects the need for me to hold on to the got-it-all-together facade.

It’s the prequisite to Resurrection. And if what rises after the break is less heroic, less prideful, more authentic, more Christ-like and less self-centered than who I am now, then by all means, I will take the break. Bring it on.

Each Friday during Lent, the Rev. Dr. Cynthia T. Turner, pastor of the Dayspring Community Church in Lanham, MD, will write about the “Righteous Mind” on the Soul Rhythms blog. Click here to read other pieces by Rev. Turner.