Sisters Who Are Sehnsucht

Chapter 6 - What do you want? The Place of Seeing God

This week I found myself in an all too familiar place of trying to be the mad mamma getting dinner on the table, baking cupcakes for a tenth birthday which I had completely forgotten about, caregiver to many, and I was accomplishing nothing successfully aside from misery. I was trying to do and be the super woman that I think everyone needs me to be. Which leads me directly to the question what am I doing with my time? Ann was in that very place at the beginning of chapter 6. In the middle of the busyness that had taken over and suddenly she takes flight to capture the eucharisteo, a full moon, that she had been longing for. Ann certainly was not longing for the brightness of a full moon to capture her eye that evening but the mighty presence of a Creator. Admittedly Ann explains that she hadn’t taken the time that day to stop and capture even one gift. Not one thought penned in the journal nor any photos captured with the camera.

The chapter's beginning is very familiar for so many of us!!  Which one of us haven't felt pulled in too many directions, or overwhelmed and exhausted, near to the breaking point at some time?  It is also a humbling reminder of how one day, full of captured moments of thanksgiving, can seem so different from the next day, when pressures and demands mount and blind the eye to God's presence in His many gifts to us.

On page 106 Ann writes, “ I am a wandering Israelite who seeks the flame in the sky above, the pillar, the smoke from the mountain, the earth open up and give way, and still I forget…I am empty of truth and need the refilling. I need come again every day – bend, clutch, and remember – for who can gather the manna but once, hoarding, and store away sustenance in the mind for all of the living?”   The answer is different for each and every one of us and that thankfully is how God created us to be. However, the question remains the same, what do you want?

 Ann is often weaving into her text deep words that are her own as well as those of other authors.  When she describes herself as "Sehnsucht for beauty, that word C. S. Lewis used from the German - to long for (sehnen) like a mania (sucht)" (p. 109), we have such a strong understanding, even visual image, of the depth of desire she is experiencing.

Ann, in her hunger for God, compares the depth of her desire to find beauty, God's glory,  to an addiction and reminds us on page 110 that "every moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don't see God, I'll bow down before something else."  Oh, I, too, long to see God each and every moment of the day. Developing a true heart of gratitude begins with the eyes.

The eyes and our perceptions definitely impact our ability to express gratitude and thanksgiving.  When Ann writes, "faith is always a way of seeing, a seeking for God in everything... if the eyes gaze long enough to see God lifted in a thing, how can the lips not offer eucharisteo?" (p. 114), I was challenged.  How often do those around us ask, "Where was God when...?" or "How could God allow...?" and the blindness of their lack of faith is so evident.  It is only when we have faith, the "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1), can we rest in knowing that God is being glorified in all of it - even the ugly - and using it to transform and thus be able to offer eucharisteo.

We often find ourselves looking for God as if He is nowhere to be found.  Just as in Isaiah 45:15, "Truly you are a God who hides himself," we think, and may actually believe, it is God who is hiding.  Often we do not even fathom that it is we are in hiding.

I am reminded of a friend this week who was chatting about a quote that used to be up in a Sunday School classroom which asked the reader, "When God feels far away, who is it that really moved and caused that feeling?"  God is omnipresent and yet so often we behave, believe, and blunder through life as if He is not.

On page 116, Ann confesses (on behalf of all of us, I imagine), "I know how monstrously inhumane I can be. Raging at children for minor wrongdoings while I'm the one defiling the moment with sinful anger. Hoarding possessions while others die of starvation. Entertaining the mind with trivial pretties when I haven't bowed the head and the heart in a prayer longer than five minutes in a week. My tongue has had a razor edge and my eyes have rolled haughty and my neck has been stiff and graceless and I have lived the filth ugly, and idolater, a glutton, and a grace thief who hasn't had time for thanks."

This week, sisters, I challenge you to consider: What do you want? What do you hunger for? How have you been trying to satisfy that hunger?  What are you doing with your time?

May we be ever thankful that "His mercies are new each morning."  Lamentation 3:22-23

Blessings,

MM and MS

Discovering and Defining Grace

I love the way that Ann opens this chapter with a quote from Saint John of Avila that really summarizes the heart of this whole chapter.  The quote reads, "One act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations."

Chapter 5 - What in the world, in all this world, is grace?

So very much of this chapter is about discovering how to give thanks in the hard times.  The hard eucharisteo as Ann calls it.  She is faced with a potential tragedy, the first she records, since she's started her journey into gratitude and eucharisteo.

What have been the times in my life when I am suddenly forced to try to offer up eucharisteo in the face of tragedy, or real suffering?  How, and when, did I wrestle with the questions that Ann poses on p. 85, "What is good?  What counts as grace?  What is the heart of God?"  Have I really believed the answer the Bible gives us to these questions?

When Ann describes the Word (on page 87), with nail-scarred hands, who can hold us close and truly share our grief, I was reminded of the Lamentations 3:33 quote she references later about God "who does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow..." and also a teaching of Beth Moore's from her study on David which we did this fall.  Beth challenged us to not interpret or evaluate our circumstances and situations by what they are at face value and as only something that God has done or allowed but to also always use the perspective of who God IS (and was and always will be) when trying to make sense of our world and moments.

When we use the lens of the Word to remember who God is and what He is trying to accomplish, we will recognize, as did Ann on p. 94, that "it is not God who is in [our] debt but [we] who [are] in His great debt" and only then, will we be able to see the gift of every day - that we are even granted another day to look for His other gifts to us.

There have been times in my life and the lives of my family members that we have wondered why God has allowed, or brought, certain things into our circumstances.  It is when we stay focused on the Word, and in the Word, that we have been able to recognize "all is grace only because all can transform" (p. 101) and that God is using everything, even the ugly side of life, to bring about His work of beauty in our lives.  Only with that lens have we been able to be "always giving thanks to God the Father for everything..." (Ephesians 5:20).

What has been the ugly that you have seen, or are trusting God that you will see, transformed into His beautiful?  Where are you in the journey of recognizing what is grace?

Praying for you,

MS

Time Travelers

Already another week has gone by and another chapter with Ann.  The fact that it seems like only yesterday when we posted on Chapter 3 speaks to the subject and focus of Ann's discourse in this week's Chapter 4.

Chapter 4 - A Sanctuary of time

As we open the pages to begin our forth chapter we find almost immediately the never ending conflict of time. We are all living a life with too little time and so many things to accomplish. And here we find ourselves taking on yet one more challenge, to tally one thousand gifts. Ann writes, “Time is life. And if I want the fullest life, I need to find fullest time. I wipe a water spot off the tap; there is a reflection of me. Oh yes, I know you, the busyness of your life leaving little room for the source of your life. I’m the face grieving. God gives us time. And who has time for God? Which makes no sense.”

As I read this passage I hung my head in shame. I am guilty. God has given me so much. Who am I to say I don’t have enough time to give Him the glory? I pick myself up, brush off the wounds and consider this moment of shame a blessing, my eyes wide open. We only get one chance to live this life and I would agree with Ann, “I just want to do my one life well.”

I was definitely challenged by Ann's thoughts on time and her remarks on how "the hurry makes us hurt" (p. 66).  As she wrote about the race, the pushing hard and barking instructions... I humbly had to recognize that I've been there - too often.  So often the feverish frantic fight... but why?  As Ann notes and I must agree, "Hurry always empties a soul" (p.67).  To save a few minutes, the wrestle and push is so painful at times.  I loved her conclusion that  "life is not an emergency.  Life is eucharisteo" (p. 74). 

We discover the truth that in giving thanks we get more time because we are truly living in the moment. On page 71, I was stuck with awe once again. Ann documents the passage in John 6:11, “Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks…” how many times have we read that passage but failed to see the significance of giving thanks and what a difference it would make in our lives. As we continue reading Ann writes, “Jesus embraces His not enough…He gives thanks…And there is more than enough! Thanksgiving makes time.”

I am not sure how many of you are looking for more time but as we seek to discover the gifts in our lives let us truly be aware that, “It’s not the gifts that fulfill but the holiness of the space. The God in it" (p. 69).

In the idea of meeting God in the moment, I was reminded of Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God."  How hard it is for me to just relish each moment with God and trust Him with all the details of daily life.  If I could better recognize His Presence in all the moments of every day, I could greatly diminish any sense of "emergency" and replace it with a spirit of thanksgiving - thanksgiving for even the little frustrations, delays, unexpected detours and little daily headaches.

Let us seek the great I Am! 

How have you slowed time in thanksgiving this week?

MM and MS

Nail and Hammer

Ladies, we're going to try to look at a chapter each week.  Though some of you are still just picking up the book or getting started, we're going to look at Chapter 3 this week.  By doing this, it will be manageable for everyone who needs to, to catch up, and for everyone else who has already started to continue to comment on new material.  If we do a chapter each week, we'll wrap up this book review by about the end of March.

Feel free to go back and comment on past posts and remarks too.  Maybe you don't have as much to say about Chapter 3 this week but you've had some new thoughts on Chapter1 and/or 2.  That's okay. 

Chapter 3 - First Flight

This is where change can begin.  Ann writes. “How in the world, for the sake of my joy, do I learn to use eucharisteo to overcome one ugly and self-destructive habit of ingratitude (that habit causes both my cosmic and daily fall) with the saving habit of gratitude - that would lead me back to deep God communion?" (p. 44). 

I have to stop right there and ask myself, “Am I really going to take this challenge seriously?” My dear sisters we have just begun this journey and if you are logging on for the first time I want to welcome you. I also want to challenge you as Ann did by saying it’s time to start working on that list.

It can feel too simple at first to list little things for which we can be thankful but no matter the size - every gift from God is worthy of a sacrifice of thanksgiving.  Even in the darkest of moments, there is something in that moment or situation for which to give thanks.

Chapter 3 is where Ann introduces the life changing daily attempt to look for and discover the many gifts He has given us so that we may recognize the great love of the Father. For all you list makers you are surely in your glory. I love lists. I could make a list for my lists.

I thought I would try something a little different in an attempt to better relate to my electronic friends, so I got the app! The extraordinary discovery is that I can document those moments that I choose to receive joy by capturing a photo. My inspiration came from a quote Ann used by C.S. Lewis. “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you will find it quite intolerable, think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.”

I am often amazed at how many times we can all get caught up in pursuing happiness as the end goal of all our living.  I am appreciative of this challenging quote by C.S. Lewis too...  it reminds us that our experience here is about bringing God glory and Ann's story shares with us this one way that we can develop of a habit of doing so in fostering an act of gratitude regardless of all.

I hope to use the words written by Ann as a part of my training which leads to quote page 56, “Some days I pick up a camera and it’s a hammer. The lens is my ink, for cameras have sensor eyes and pixels record.” I am better equipped to record the gift by snapping that photo and I have found that I take the time to truly practise a heart of gratitude as I record that special moment. As I learn to familiarize myself with the modern technology I hope to eventually share some of the amazing discoveries I have made, like the day the clouds parted and the sun came through the moon roof of my car. I stopped put the car in park and snapped the shot. This gave me to opportunity to pause and thank God for the “sun” (and Son!) that he sent. When we are truly open to receiving and recognizing His presence in our daily life, amazing things will happen. I believe there are no such things as a coincidence but only God-incidence and there it is on the bottom of page 58, “the clouds open when we mouth thanks.” Sisters, believe me when I say I had not yet read this passage when I deliberately paused to snap the photo through the window glass.

It is important to recognize that not all of us are word-oriented...  Ann's use of her camera (and MM's!) show us another way to capture our thanks.  For some of us, there may be a song that comes to mind that we offer up in thanksgiving, hands lifted when out in the glory of a beautiful sunset...  so if you don't feel as poetic as Ann when listing your items - it's okay.  How you capture or record your thanksgiving is not nearly as important as our making a point of doing so.

As I sit at my keyboard reviewing the third chapter, I find that in this review there is far more that I must open my eyes too. The second time reading through the chapter makes the highlighted notes jump vividly off the pages. I find myself open to receive all that He wants to reveal to me and the sheer slippery pages of my bible sing a sweet hum as I flip to find Ephesians 5:20. If I may be so bold to add my desire to the word, “I will be thankful for everything.” I love Ann’s word on page 57, “…slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life…life changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time.”

The quote by Erasmus that Ann includes on page 48, "A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit" speaks to me as to why it is sometimes so difficult to change our behaviours.  I will not be very successful at becoming less discontented or ungrateful by simply "stopping" that attitude or its thoughts... but if I deliberately replace that behaviour with the gratitude that I need to foster then it becomes a possible task.

The concreteness of the nail and hammer for changing our behaviour is striking.  It gives us a significant image that we're all familiar with to wrap around the concept of being deliberate in fostering this new behaviour.  And just as when we're using a real nail and hammer and may sometimes miss the mark and even hit our thumb, any frustrated effort or pain in the process is always worth the gain of what we can accomplish if we persevere.

Sisters…grab your hammers.  And let's lift each other up whenever we hit a thumb or miss the mark.  It will take practice.

MM and MS.