Archive for June, 2011

Taking Up the Yoke Again

June 27, 2011


If the Yoke Fits © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Year A, Proper 9/Ordinary 14/Pentecost +3 (July 3): Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30

I’m making my way back toward home after a wondrous retreat with Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery, followed by a few bonus days with friends from our community. As I prepare to settle back in and turn my attention to some projects that have been waiting for me, I imagine I probably won’t manage to swing a new reflection on the lectionary this week. I invite you to visit If the Yoke Fits for a previous reflection I offered on this passage.

I wish you many blessings this week and pray that, in the spirit of this Sunday’s gospel, you will find good rest, and a place to lay down whatever burdens you do not need to carry. Peace to you!

[To use the “If the Yoke Fits” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Gospel of Matthew, lectionary, Ordinary Time | 1 Comment »

The Way of Welcome

June 20, 2011


A Place for the Prophet © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Year A, Proper 8/Ordinary 13/Pentecost +2 (June 26): Matthew 10.40-42

In the neighborhood where I used to live, there was a family a few doors down from me who moved in when their daughter was about two. I would often run into Kyla and her mother when I was out for a walk, meeting them as they slowly strolled, their ginger cat ambling behind. Young Kyla would always greet me as if I were the greatest person in the world and she could hardly believe her astounding good fortune that I had turned up. I saw her do this with other folks, too, so I knew she didn’t reserve her joy just for me. I didn’t mind; I loved receiving her lavish welcome that would be just as enthusiastic the next time around.

I’ve found myself thinking about Kyla as I have pondered Jesus’ words about welcoming in the gospel reading for this Sunday. And as I ponder, I’m wondering what it might look like to fling my arms a little wider toward the world. As I encounter folks in the rhythm of my days, am I leaving anyone with the impression that I think they’re the greatest person on the earth and that I can hardly believe my good fortune that they have turned up?

Jesus’ words remind us that he calls us to be hospitable people not because it’s a nice thing to do—and Christianity depends, after all, on far more than mere niceness—but because it is a holy and whole-making act; it is a sacred art. Welcoming another is a fundamental gesture that encompasses not only the other person but also the God in whose image they were formed and fashioned and whom—though we may sometimes be at pains to perceive it—they somehow reveal in their being.

As I write this, I’m winging my way toward Minnesota for my annual retreat with folks from Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery. A community that draws from both Methodist and Benedictine traditions, our monastery is named for a vibrant and much-loved leader of the early church in Ireland. Like my friend Kyla, Saint Brigid carried her hospitality with her from the time she was a young girl. Extravagant and precocious in her generosity to the point of giving some of her parents’ possessions away (“holy thieving,” as one writer has described it), Brigid grew up to become a woman renowned for the way she welcomed others and sought to restore them to the wholeness that God desired for them. “Every guest is Christ,” Brigid said.

In the coming days of our retreat, I look forward to easing into the welcome that I will find among the community that bears Saint Brigid’s name. In the conversation, in the quiet, in the learning and praying and resting, I will be carrying questions about how Christ might be calling me to extend a welcome to others. How about you? How wide is your welcome these days? Are you finding places of hospitality and rest that help you know what it’s like to receive this gift that lies at the heart of our tradition? How does this help you discern the kind of welcome and holy hospitality that God is calling you to lavish upon others?

Welcoming Blessing

If you say
this blessing
out loud,
it may perhaps
be easier to imagine
how the shape
of this blessing
is really a circle,

easier to see
how these words
hold themselves
like the lip
of the cup,
like the curve
of the bowl,
like the rim
of the plate;
how they compose
themselves
like the O of arms
that enclose you
in welcome.

You can try
to leave this blessing,
but it has a habit
of spiraling back
around;

not as if to stalk
or to snare you—
it’s just that
this blessing
has taken a shine
to you

and so it keeps
turning and returning,
following its arc
about you,
spinning itself
toward you

for the simple joy
of seeing your face,
for the unaccountable luck
that you have come
its way.

P.S. For a previous reflection on this passage, visit A Place for the Prophet. And for more about Saint Brigid, see my post Golden, Sparkling Flame: Feast of St. Brigid over at the Sanctuary of Women blog.

[To use the “A Place for the Prophet” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Celtic, Gospel of Matthew, lectionary, monastic stuff, Ordinary Time | 1 Comment »

A Portable Cathedral for the 21st Century

June 17, 2011

“Although some may find Ordinary Time a lackluster season, I’ve grown fond of it for the ways that it invites me to discover the sacred in the rhythms of unbroken dailiness. Waking, eating, reading the paper, working, playing, talking, doing laundry, doing dishes, doing errands, doing nothing at all: how is God with us in these times? Who is God with us in these times?” —From In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season

As we approach the season of Ordinary Time, I am thrilled to share that my book In Wisdom’s Path has just been released as an ebook! With original artwork, reflections, poetry, and prayers, In Wisdom’s Path invites the reader to enter into the rhythms of the Christian year. From the contemplative “Cave of the Heart” in Advent to the “Daily Way” of Ordinary Time, the book serves as a companion through the unfolding seasons of the sacred year.

First published in 2000, the book is now available in a PDF format that brings the beautiful, full-color layout—designed by my splendid art director, Martha Clark-Plank—from the printed page to the screen. Read it on your computer or, better yet, on your iPad, Nook Color, or other portable reader, so you can always have it with you wherever you go!

As we release In Wisdom’s Path as an ebook, I find myself thinking of the exquisite illuminated prayerbooks of the Middle Ages called Books of Hours (which helped inspire The Painted Prayerbook blog!). Designed to enable folks to pray the same rhythm of prayer as the monks, nuns, and priests who prayed the Liturgy of the Hours, these prayerbooks typically were small enough to carry in a pocket or purse. This medieval prayerbook became, as one writer has put it, a “portable cathedral.” In pausing for a few moments and opening the book amidst whatever was going on, the owner entered into a sacred space—a thin place—for reflection and prayer.

In the spirit of these remarkable medieval prayerbooks, In Wisdom’s Path incorporates 21st-century technology to offer you a sacred space in our own time. We are pleased to provide this book for you in a format that you can download and take with you anywhere to find moments of respite and renewal in the rhythm of your day.

For more info and to purchase the ebook, visit the Books page at janrichardson.com.

P.S. In other book news, In the Sanctuary of Women was recently named a winner in the 2011 National Indie Excellence Book Awards! More info over at the Sanctuary of Women blog.

Posted in art, books, medieval, mystery, Ordinary Time, sacred time, writing | 2 Comments »

Trinity Sunday: Blessing of the Ordinary

June 12, 2011


A Spiral-Shaped God © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Trinity Sunday (June 19): Matthew 28.16-20

Each year when Trinity Sunday rolls around, ushering us into the season of the year known as Ordinary Time, my memory travels back to a Trinity Sunday many years ago. It was my last Sunday living in Atlanta, where I had gone to seminary and was now finishing a bonus year spent working on my first book and lingering with the seminary community. In a few days I would move back to Florida to take my first pastoral appointment.

On that final, bittersweet Atlanta Sunday, I went with my boyfriend to Oakhurst Baptist Church, where one of the pastors preached a powerful sermon about entering into the rhythms of Ordinary Time. At the close of the sermon, she invited us into a ritual of laying on of hands as a way of seeking a blessing as we crossed into the new season. Several teams of church members, three in each team, moved to various places in the church. Folks who wished could go to one of the teams, asking them to pray for something in particular or simply to offer a blessing.

Standing at the threshold not only of  a new season but also of a dramatic life change as I prepared to move from Atlanta, where I had a close and wonderfully engaging community, to Orlando, where I knew virtually no one, I thought I could use a blessing. Approaching one of the teams that included a seminary friend of mine, I quietly told them about my upcoming move. And the team—a trinity of women, as it happened—laid their hands and their words on me in a sacramental gesture of blessing.

It would take a long time for me to find and reestablish some ordinary rhythms in my life. But on that Trinity Sunday, graced by the women who offered a blessing for me and for my ministry that lay ahead, I found sustenance that helped me cross the threshold into the new season and into the new life that waited for me.

As we move from the times and seasons that have been so marked by a sense of story and meaning—Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost—into the long season of year that bids us celebrate the commonplace and to seek the God who dwells within the daily, what sort of blessing might you need? What words or gestures of sacrament and grace do you need to sustain you as you enter into this part of the year? How do you look for the presence of the God who lingers amid the ordinary and seemingly mundane? What rhythms of living do you yearn for as you stretch into the season that awaits you?

Blessing the Ordinary

Let these words
lay themselves
like a blessing
upon your head,
your shoulders

as if,
like hands,
they could pass on
to you
what you most need
for this day

as if they could
anoint you
not merely for
the path ahead

but for this
ordinary moment
that opens itself
to you—

opens itself
like another hand
that unfurls itself,
that reaches out
to gather up
these words
in the bowl
of its palm.

You may think
this blessing
lives within
these words

but I tell you
it lives
in the opening
and in the reaching;

it lives
in the ache
where this blessing
begins;

it lives
in the hollow
made by the place
where the hands
of this blessing
meet.

Spiraling back around: For a previous reflection on Trinity Sunday, see Trinity Sunday: A Spiral-Shaped God.

[To use the “Spiral-Shaped God” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, Gospel of Matthew, lectionary, Ordinary Time, sacred time | 3 Comments »

Pentecost: One Searing Word

June 5, 2011


Pentecost © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Book of Acts, Day of Pentecost (June 12): Acts 2.1-21

Nearly thirteen weeks have passed since the day we stood on the threshold of Lent, our foreheads streaked with ashes. We have traveled through a wilderness season of reflection and preparation as we journeyed toward the cross. We have entered into a season of resurrection in these weeks since the wonders of Easter Day. We have watched Jesus take his leave, blessing those whom he has called to continue his work and become his body in this world.

Now, as the Day of Pentecost approaches, we find ourselves at the other end of the arc that began on the weeks-ago Ash Wednesday. “Know that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” many of us heard on that day. A crucial reminder, to be sure: to know what we are made of, where we are from, to where we shall return. Yet all these weeks later, at the end of wilderness and death and resurrection, the day of Pentecost comes to show us that there is still more to know, and a purpose for knowing that lies beyond our individual lives.

Throughout this Easter season, the gospel readings have placed a persistent emphasis on knowing. To those who heard the Ash Wednesday admonition to know that you are dust, Jesus’ intentionality in telling his followers what he needs them to know comes as a striking complement to the words that ushered us into Lent. Although knowing our earthy origins is crucial in our life with Christ, the past weeks have proven there are other things he needs for us to know as well about who he is, what he has done, and what he is calling us to do.

Yet simply knowing, of course, is not enough. On the day of Pentecost, as the Spirit descends upon the gathered assembly, we see with dramatic clarity how the knowing that Christ gives us is not for ourselves alone: it is for the life of the community and the life of the world. As on Pentecost, when those who spoke in the Spirit did not recognize what they were saying but could be understood by others in the crowd, our knowing and understanding are always incomplete without the presence of community.

The incompleteness of our knowing comes as its own reminder of what dusty disciples we are. Made of common earth, fashioned of ordinary matter, we are called to a humus-born humility that cautions us against acting like we have all the answers and know all of God’s designs for creation. Yet the story of Pentecost bids us to remember what the Spirit can do with dust. Pentecost reminds us that the Spirit draws us together and gives us to one another so that we may hear and see and know with greater clarity. This day challenges us to open ourselves beyond the limits of our individual lives to the Spirit who sets us ablaze for the healing of the world.

In this Pentecost week, are you seeking the presence of others who will deepen your understanding? Where do you go to hear and see what you cannot hear and see on your own? When knowledge and wisdom come to you, how do you share them beyond yourself to help others flourish? Where are you turning your ears, your eyes, your heart, your mind to perceive the presence of the Spirit and the path to which it is drawing you?

Pentecost Blessing

On the day
when you are wearing
your certainty
like a cloak
and your sureness
goes before you
like a shield
or like a sword,

may the sound
of God’s name
spill from your lips
as you have never
heard it before.

May your knowing
be undone.
May mystery
confound your
understanding.

May the Divine
rain down
in strange syllables
yet with
an ancient familiarity,
a knowing borne
in the blood,
the ear,
the tongue,
bringing the clarity
that comes
not in stone
or in steel
but in fire,
in flame.

May there come
one searing word:
enough to bare you
to the bone,
enough to set
your heart ablaze,
enough to make you
whole again.

P.S. For a previous Pentecost reflection, click the image or title below:

Pentecost: Fire and Breath

[To use the “Pentecost” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

Posted in art, lectionary, sacred time | 1 Comment »