Belong to the day,
friend. Pull back
the curtains and remove
the blinds—
let in the Light.

Here, the shadows
in the living room
only suggest
a great Radiance.

"But I'm accustomed
to the dark—
will I fade when
Light invades?"

"No. We will
become one.
From your eyes
I will stream."

This poem was inspired by this prayer attributed to Theresa of Ávila:

I find it difficult to let God’s radiance invade my life. I recently read someone who wrote: “Thy will be done. My will be dumb!” as a supplement to the Lord’s Prayer. While I wholeheartedly agree, I do worry, “What will become of me?” Or, more honestly, “What will God ask me to do that I am deeply uncomfortable with?”

But in God, there is no doom. The promise is that we live with and in Christ. Because Jesus lives, we live.

What does it look like to let the Light in? In the poem, I describe it as opening the curtains in a dark room each morning. Through the small moments of letting God’s Light in, Christ’s radiance grows. Some days we won’t be as open as others. Some days our faith may feel greater or weaker. Some days we will hold to darkness and not to light.

So open up. Let in the Light. Each time I let even the smallest part of God’s presence into my life, I am left glad and transformed. There is no turning or shadow in God. God’s compassion never fails. God is faithful. God is faithful. By some mystery, God is faithful. I can’t understand God. But I can cling to God in the same way that I rely on light to move through the night.

The regret
swallowed my heart
as I heard Jesus say:
"I don't know you."

Worse, I knew
what he meant:
"You don't know me."

I wanted in.
But not enough to
put aside
what was unnecessary—

I see that now.

Oh how we can
do so much
and accomplish
so little.

Oh how we can
speak so much
and  say
so little.

Oh how we can
live so many lives
and not yet
live.

Journal with me.

In your pursuit of a life with God, what moments of presence have you mistakenly given up for things that mattered less?

Some thoughts.

Jesus tells a story about ten unmarried women who had the important task of escorting a groom with lamps during the night to the next part of a wedding ceremony.

Five were wise. Five were not.

The wise ones took extra oil for their lamps and the other five didn’t.

The moment came, and the five were able to continue their task and made it to the wedding banquet, while the others, after purchasing more oil, knocked on the door after it was already shut and heard the groom on the other side, “I don’t know you.”

There are numerous directions to take this parable. What it says to me is that when something, or someone, is important, we make the space. When that doesn’t happen, and we feel regret, it often reveals not that we didn’t do anything, but that we prioritized what didn’t need priority—often at our expense.

Last week, in the middle of all the swirling activity of my life, I sat down to journal at about 1 pm, which is my regular journaling appointment. I love this time of day, but it can quickly become another work brainstorming session. But luckily, God is God, and I read this parable. As I read, it was as if I heard Jesus say to me, “Drew, where have you been? What have you been doing that is so important?” In that moment, I realized that if I were in the parable, I would be among the fools—the ones who didn’t make appropriate space for what was necessary—the ones left out while the party went on.

Regret. I have many. Most of them are those small moments of potential growth or relational connection, when I turned instead to something that was, in a way, important, but in the grand scheme of things, not.

In the book Unwinding Anxiety, Judson Brewer suggests an action plan when it feels like there is too much to do or anxiety becomes the driving force: “Don’t just do something, sit there!”

Today, you may get swept into the frenzy that is your life, or you may have a relatively calm life, and you’re quick to fill it with anything. But don’t just do something. Sit there. Consider what is truly critical today. How can those regrets from yesterday better shape today? How might you be among the wise who make it into the party with Jesus?

Get specific: How? When? Where? What?

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Messenger by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Journal with me.

When was the last time you stood still and truly were astonished? What astonished you?

Some thoughts.

Oliver’s poem Messenger and I met when I borrowed her book, Thirst, from my local library.

I remember sitting on the front steps of my house in Fayetteville, GA, early one morning; I opened to the first poem, Messenger, and found myself happily stuck on the line about her important work of standing still and being astonished.

I recently started thinking about it because, in theory, this is the work: to bear witness to the magnetic pull of God's grace everywhere. This work requires us to point away from ourselves to something we can’t explain, and likely won’t be able to explain.

And yet, on some days, I don’t do this job well.

A few days ago, someone asked me a question. The question probed my stance on a social issue debated in many mainline American Christian denominations since the 1970s.

I did what I shouldn’t have done—I gave my opinion. I heard someone say recently that opinions tend to be underdeveloped thinking. But in my anxiety, that’s what I had access to. Later, I realized what I should’ve offered: a story.

The story I would tell if I could go back would be one of astonishment. Of how my mind was made up until I met someone, and then I met another person, and another person after that. Through friendships, I began to realize how my position couldn’t contain the complexity, the heart, and radiance of God’s image in another person, and how grace unfurls in all situations. My previous position was that some variety of God can’t. The Messenger said to Mary about her pregnancy, “For with God nothing will be impossible.” Living within the paradigm of the Gospel is a continuous examination of your assumptions.

The story I wish I would’ve shared is one of astonishment.

No harm comes from stories that expose our growing edges because they testify that most of reality cannot be explained; it just is, and we say, “Wow.”

So today, I dare you to leave your opinions aside. Take them off the table of your conscious mind. Be astonished by something—anything. Pay attention. And then, tell someone about it. This is the work.

Get specific: How? When? Where?

When I look
at Jesus
I see the
complete opposite
of a moth circling
false sky.

No, Jesus sees,
really sees.

Jesus sees
the forged masks
we put on.

Seeing accurately
will make your life
rich and full and also
sad—maybe mad.

Jesus saw
religion’s marketplace—
the repackaged selling
of formerly accessible things;
he was mad.

Do you want to be
like Jesus?
Do you want
to see?

Sit quietly.
Listen. Learn.
Then live within
the full expression
of non-withholding
love.

Journal with me.

How can you be/become more like Jesus today than yesterday?

Some thoughts.

Being a Christian can sometimes feel more like a stagnant title than a way of living. But the Christian life comes from the ancient dynamic between a rabbi and disciples.

The Hebrew word for disciple simply means "learner." We tend to think about learning as cognition only, but rabbi and disciple relationships were just that—relational. In these relationships, learning is understood as a high form of devotion because you can’t love a person unless you learn them.

To follow Jesus is to learn Jesus. The term “spiritual formation” in Christian circles means the process of being formed in the image of Christ.

Living a Christian life isn’t as difficult as we sometimes make it. It’s about listening to Jesus, delighting in the wisdom Jesus shares, and allowing Jesus’s way of being to become our way of being.

We do this first by recognizing how we weren’t like Jesus yesterday, in one way or another. Then, as you remember yesterday, ask, “How can I be more like Jesus today?”

Maybe you could reach out in the spirit of reconciliation if there was a fallout between you and a friend.

Maybe you could pray for the person who is really bothering you and ask Jesus to help you love and appreciate them.

Maybe you could spend time with people who might not be particularly admirable.

These are all very Jesus-like things.

How might you be/become more like Jesus today? Get specific: How? When? Where?

Praying this prayer by Howard Thurman might help you as you consider this:

What if God waits
like books upon
library shelves,
like invisible mist
above the lake,
like the aromas of coffee
beneath your nose?

What if God speaks
like the breeze
between grasses,
like the rain upon
sidewalks and cars,
like the shuffle of feet
in hospital halls?

What if God
has never been away
but has fingers
and palms, digging
and planting, unfamiliar
and familiar, new things
in the tired land
of your life?

What if God
is here?

Journal with me.

Where was the most unexpected place you felt you encountered God?

Some thoughts.

My biggest struggle is sitting still and not jumping into action. This is probably why most of what I teach is how to develop a life that is prayer, or a prayer that is life, and imagining every moment as a moment of deep connection and rootedness in Christ’s life.

God says this to me a lot: “This is your life. This is your life. Wake up.”

I often hear God saying this in the franticness of the morning as I try to get the kids to school on time. The first time I heard God say this so clearly was about a month ago—though I now see that God has been constantly saying a version of this all my life.

I was stressed. We were almost to the school. I had probably shouted a few dozen times in the course of that morning, “We are going to be late!” Before I made the turn into the drop-off line at 7:43 a.m. I looked in the rearview mirror, saw my kids, and God said, “This is your life. This is your life. Wake up.” It felt like a dagger in my side. I realized how much I’ve let slip through the sands of time.

Odd, isn’t it? That I would hear God when I was most closed off or unaware of God, and yet this was when I needed to hear. I get stuck in the grind of life, and sometimes I have a hard time looking up. Without God’s prompting, I’d miss a lot, and my life would become dust.

God meets us, interrupts us, calls us out, calls us forward, challenges us, or puts us on a healing quest, and we are led to a new understanding of wholeness.

All of my encounters have made me ask the question: “What if God is here?”

God is in the busyness and the stillness of life. God is motion and constant. God is constant and motion. There is no place where God isn’t, and there is no place where God might not be revealed.

I think, if you take the long look, you’ll remember moments that evidence this reality. You may have been at the grocery store, on a flight, walking down your street, singing in church, starting your shift, driving home, or gazing in another’s eyes, and a veil is lifted, and you see this is your life—wake up.

I am becoming more convinced that a life that is prayer and prayer that is life is about developing our senses. Sensing things for what they really are: where God is and where God might be.

What if God is here? How might you look up today and see a new invitation to know God and to be a witness of an awakened life for others? Get specific. How? When? Where?

After last week’s article on how to write a prayer of consecration, I began thinking about pastoral prayer during a worship service. If you are enjoying content like this and would like more, leave a comment below.

1. The Case Against Co-opted Prayer

I saw it—faces glazed over as I said, “Amen,” after my sermon. It was clear that I had violated the space. My sermon was good (at least that’s what I thought), and my prayer afterward was polished. What went wrong, and why did it feel like I had broken an invisible, spiritual rule?

My prayer after my sermon sounded a lot like my sermon, as if it were the conclusion. But is this the true function of prayer in a worship service? My big question has become this: Is prayer a means to an end or an end in itself?

2. Why This Happens

Part of my role in the world is as a pastor. In this role, I spend much of my week preparing for the Sunday sermon. As someone who cares deeply about words and language, I often spruce up my vocabulary and practice the delivery. This is where much of my energy goes.

A sermon is a mix of things. It is technical: you are interpreting ancient accounts about God’s action in the world. I search my mind for what I already know that could provide some illumination, and I seek sources that can help shed light on what I don’t know—which is often a lot.

Then I move from the intellectual to the pastoral: I think about how the Scripture might spark hope, challenge, or invite the listeners. I think about those weary places that the text addresses. I dig into my own personal story. I think about the stories of others. A sermon ends up being a truly strange combination of technical skill and a journey that awakens emotions.

For a preacher, the sermon becomes part of them. I can read sermons I wrote years ago, and after reading the first paragraph, I can remember each one so clearly because my heart was in it. My seven years of formal theological training taught me a lot about preaching, but not as much about prayer.

Prayer is so personal. It has to do with the deep matters of the heart. It is a mystery. It only makes sense, then, that my prayer, and sometimes yours, might sound like the sermon because it is familiar. Prayer feels unknown, unfixed, wild. My sermon fits onto a page. A praying life does not.

3. The Difference Between Preaching and Prayer

It’s clear when you put prayer and preaching side-by-side that a distinction is made. These are not similar things, though they interact with the same subject, the same dilemmas, and the same challenge of staying rooted on shifting ground.

The English word “preach” comes from the Latin praedicāre, meaning “to proclaim publicly or to make known.” One of the Greek words in the New Testament for preaching and proclaiming is kērýssō. It appears in the following verses and among others: “And [Jesus] went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” (Mk 1:39); When Jesus restores the demon-possessed man in Lk. 8:26-38, the delivered man becomes a preacher. Jesus says to him, “‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.” (8:39). When Paul makes an appeal to the Christians in Rome to support his mission throughout the Roman Empire, he asks these rhetorical questions: “How then will they call on [Jesus] in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14.)

The origins of the word prayer are a bit more confusing. Most of the Latin and French words from which the English word prayer is derived mean “to plead, beg, or ask.”

The Jewish understandings of prayer are incredibly rich, and align with what many Christian mystics have taught. Jewish sages taught that Jacob’s ladder, with angels going up and down, was the symbol of prayer. Prayer is the ladder that connects people to God. That ladder has steps, and the highest step on that ladder is “Attachment.”

Nissan Mindel on chabad.org describes this desire for attachment in this way:

“Our soul is ‘truly a part of G‑dliness,’ and it therefore longs to be reunited with, and reabsorbed in, G‑dliness; just as a small flame when it is put close to a larger flame is absorbed into the larger flame. We may not be aware of this longing, but it is there nevertheless. Our soul has, in fact, been called the "candle of G‑d." ^{(Prov. 20:27)} The flame of a candle is restless, striving upwards, to break away, as it were, from the wick and body of the candle; for such is the nature of fire—to strive upwards. Our soul, too, strives upwards, like the flame of the candle.”

The Psalms, too, are known as the great prayer book. Most of the methods of prayer taught to me were derived from the soul-baring posture of many of the Psalmists before God.

From this brief discussion, we can see that preaching is about proclaiming and bearing witness to God and God’s acts, and prayer is about connection.

4. The Unspoken Spiritual Rule and the Undefended Heart

The unspoken spiritual rule that is broken when our prayers become the summary or closing statements of the sermon is that prayer becomes transactional—a means to an end. In that moment, I, as a preacher, am making it clear that what matters more than connecting with God or baring one’s soul before God is the sermon points. A true posture of prayer is coming to God defenseless. When our prayers end up being the closing argument of the sermon, we are defending ourselves and not truly opening ourselves to the God who cannot be contained.

Step back and ask: “This sermon that I’ve been poring over throughout the week—is it truly the most important thing? Is it more important that people listen and remember my sermon, or is it more important that people wake up Monday morning and pray?”

When we begin asking this question, we realize that our sermons are a means to an end, as beautiful and inspiring as they might be. They are in service to helping other people love God and love neighbor—and genuine prayer will expedite that process more than any sermon we preach. Ouch. I know. We can’t forget this. What a preacher does is so important. We need good preaching. But we also need preaching that is aiming toward supporting people in their connection with God and neighbor.

In The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson shares something that George Arthur Buttrick said,

“Pastors think people come to church to hear sermons. They don’t; they come to pray and to learn to pray.”1

5. Moving Forward

So, it’s Sunday morning. You’ve delivered your sermon, or you're about to; everything within you wants to start repeating or introducing the sermon. You so want to share what you’ve been preparing. You are about to burst, or you already have—how will you pray?

First: Be vulnerable. Speak to God as you do in the secret place. Be defenseless. Seek attachment to God.

Second: Take a deep breath. Think about what you personally learned about God, about yourself, or about your congregation or world through Scripture and share that. If, for example, your sermon was about Jesus’s command to love your enemy, you could pray, “Jesus, what I’m learning is that you love way beyond what I can understand. We desire, in some small way, to embody your love and to be the balm in a world torn apart by hate and division. Grant us the courage to turn the other cheek and to always bless those who give us a hard time. Amen.”

Third: Analyze your sermon. Is your sermon more about God, or is it more about you or about the duties of the Christian life? No judgment. There’s a whole range of things, and most of us are constantly mixing and blending. When your sermon is squarely aimed at sharing something about God and helping people see God more clearly, prayer flows more naturally. Think of it this way: you are meeting someone you have never met for coffee. You want to know them, their story, the way they see and interact with the world. Once you know the person, it is easier to develop a relationship. Likewise, a sermon can work the same way by answering these questions: “What is God like, what does God do, who does God spend time with, and where is God?” When we describe God in the best way our limited language can, doing so often leads people to want to develop that relationship more. If your sermon leans more toward what we should do, or be doing, prayer can be a bit more difficult—not impossible, though.

This picture is a stone carving of Mary and Jesus. Different versions of the Madonna and Child have been sources of Christian meditation for centuries. What it depicts is a relationship. There’s no agenda. There’s no plan or five preaching points; there’s no theological agenda—there is just the fact that Jesus’s incarnation became the ladder upon which we can have oneness with God.

The River Bed
After God's lovingkindness

there's a worn path
within forged by years
of presence and flow.
much like the ancient
stream and the beds of rivers—
in stone, carved.

a bed has been made
and sometimes unmade
and made again, 
every time deeper.

it also widens
as waters rise
and it hurts as more stone
is shaped and shifted 
by the Current's gentle
persistence, but always
for good and always not
understood.

the love of God;
God's love;
love that God.

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Worksheet | Writing A Prayer Of Consecration

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1. The Case for Consecration

What is the significance of a prayer of consecration and why should you write one? To consider the importance of consecration, consider the opposite of consecration, “desecration.” One meaning of desecration is:

to treat with sacrilege; profane.

Desecration can look like deforesting a hillside or treating everything as merely things. The Christian life, however, stands in protest to desecration and awaits and pursues a new heaven and a new earth—the will of God here on earth as in heaven. Christian living is about having a consecrated life, and if we want to have a consecrated life, intentionally setting apart things for that purpose is one way to live more fully into being consecrated.

I argue that the events of Jesus Christ are the re-consecration of everything—saints and sinners, food and animals, wood and stone. Jesus’s entering into time and taking on finite materiality is the re-proclamation of all things being good and very good.

Therefore, a congregation’s sanctuary should be consecrated, but so too the garden, the home, the notebook, the kitchen dishes—all things.

2. Defining Consecration

Here is my working definition of a prayer of consecration:

A prayer of consecration is a volitional prayer that offers an object, place, or defined season or time to Christ. It addresses and names a deep longing, a desired transformation, or an intention. You can repeat or remember the prayer often. These prayers draw our attention to how the object, place, or time is set aside for deep formation and kingdom expansion.

There are two types of prayers of consecration:

• For something that is clearly fashioned or built for set-apart purposes. e.g., a sanctuary, a baptismal font, a retreat center.

• For things that we wish to relate to as holy and use for holy purposes. At first glance, the item itself is not set apart in the same way a sanctuary is, but through a Christ-renewed mind, we can ask, “What might this be if consecrated and set apart?” If we want holy lives, we need holy things.

3. Considering Our Language in Prayer

In the context of this quote, Thurman describes the common experience of praying the Lord’s Prayer during a worship service. The mind drifts and, all of a sudden, you say “Amen,” and you realize that you weren’t present in the slightest—it was all by rote. Your heart wasn’t in it. This quote helps us to realize what a balanced prayer might be: Seriously approached, as if you were leading others in prayer, while also tender and defenseless, as if prayed from a secret place. The goal of prayer is connection, but so often public prayers are filled with devotional clichés and theological words or concepts that do not always address the matters of the heart. The words we use, and how they posture our lives and the lives of others, matter.

We must consider language carefully, because we can use language to expand our sense of closeness and connection with God and with others in prayer, or just say words that make us sound smart. I’m sure you can think of examples of both. But what makes them different? How can we explain why some prayers sound personal and intimate while others sound aloof and nonconsequential?

It turns out that twentieth-century philosophers began wondering the same thing when it came to the language used in philosophical dialogue. Western philosophical discourse up until then was vast: the nature of being, the nature of knowledge, and ethics. Many philosophical problems and questions were raised, and answers proposed.

It was during the linguistic turn that language itself was examined. These philosophers began to wonder whether philosophical problems were problems of language, and whether analyzing language might itself prove beneficial.

Eugene Peterson, in The Contemplative Pastor,2 applies some of these philosophical findings about language, and it connects with religious language by breaking language down into three types.

• Language I: This is the language we learn as kids. Our first words. It is the language of intimacy. Here, the words and explanations aren’t very long or fancy, but they pierce the heart. A child might not be able to describe all the reasons they love you, but if they say it, you stop in your tracks. A good example of how undefended and heartfelt Language I is: think about a time when you meant to send a text message to your close friend or spouse, but accidentally sent it to a coworker, or someone you hardly know. In that moment, you feel unmasked or exposed because you wrote in the language of love and intimacy.

• Language II: Language II is what we learn at school. It is the language of description and reporting. A young child might befriend a rock and tell the rock that they love it, but in Language II, a child learns what a rock is, how it is different from a piece of wood, and what minerals the rock is made of. Most of this how-to guide? You guessed it: Language II.

• Language III: This is the language of motivation. Here, words are used to cause an action. Think of a parental command or someone trying to intimidate you by saying something rude. The words matter, but it is more about how those words are being used to elicit a response. Do you remember a time when your parent said, “Go to your room now!” That is Language III. This is the language employed by politicians because they want your vote!

Language I is what we should use in a prayer of consecration, and in prayer in general, even if you are writing a prayer for communal use, because, let’s face it, you can say all the expected and so-called “right” words, and no one will be in a tizzy about it—but what good is that? Say something to God from the heart. Think about it from the perspective of someone in the congregation. What tone and words might they use if they were writing the prayer? What might they be longing for?

As an aside, have you ever been part of a liturgy preparing for Holy Communion or a baptism, and everyone seemed completely checked out? It’s probably because most of it is written in Language II and III.

If you look at the prayers that have moved many over the centuries, they are almost exclusively in Language I. Looking at the Psalms, you can tell they come from a deep place of the heart.

4. The Five Steps for Writing a Prayer of Consecration (Plus a Bonus!)

   1. Decide what you are setting apart.

   2. Why do you want to consecrate it? What is the deeper longing or desire you have, and how is God a part of that?

   3. Use personal, relational words. Consider how you would talk with someone at a coffee shop, or in a relaxed, intimate setting. Make it personal.

   4. Consider how you address God. We all have our default names for calling on God—for this exercise, use a different title. The Apostle Paul called upon God as “Abba.” What I’ve noticed is that when I begin my prayer calling on God as “Almighty God,” my prayer begins to flow in a way that is a bit more like Language II—or it becomes vague and out of touch. Try something new. Don’t worry so much about being “respectful.” You can always change the way you call upon God later on if you are going to be using this prayer in a communal setting.

   5. Mimic other prayers. This sounds counterintuitive, but I’ve included example prayers in the worksheet for a reason: mimicking is a good way to learn. Many writers and poets suggest that if you want to become a better writer or poet, mimic the style of someone you greatly admire.

   6. The bonus step: Have fun!

   ---

   Here are two prayers from recent participants in my writing circle who have agreed to share theirs to help you craft yours:

   A Prayer of Consecration for a New Prayer Room
   The Rev. Julianna Sunrich
   
   God who watches and waits for us, who hears us and welcomes us home,
   We set aside this meeting space, this room of prayer and conversation with our heavenly parent. May what was once a room that collected the remnants of construction projects long past be transformed. Let this space become a repository of the unneeded and unwanted burdens of our lives, the dented and deteriorated dreams, the cracked and crumbled spirits borne by the pressures of this imperfect world, the bent and broken hearts and bodies that hold the weight of injustice and grief. Let this space of holding allow those who enter to come away renewed, refreshed, redeemed, and refined through your loving kindness and healing, attentive presence.

   
   Let it be so. Amen.

I had a participant from an in-person session write a prayer of consecration for his sunroom, and other participants wrote prayers for their new life stage as retirees.

What will you consecrate?

Carried
After Philippians 3:4b-14

Have you 
ever thought 
you had it
all
then awoke
in the middle
of the night
freezing in the
thin air?

The view
was grand—
but the wind
was stronger
than the fire you
built, and the ground
harder than
the pegs
of your tent.

Come down
the mountain.
Throw the map
in the bin.

Descend into the valley
and be carried up the true mountain
in oneness with Christ.

—

Can you relate to the narrative of this poem? Have you ever reached a destination you dreamed of, only to find it wasn’t exactly right or what you truly needed?

Paul’s plummet into Christ is one of the most dramatic events in the New Testament apart from the resurrection.

What is Paul saying in Philippians 3? He is saying that at one point he checked all the boxes. He had it made.

Yet after encountering Christ, he found all that he had amassed inferior. It was as if he invested everything into a currency that was no longer traded. He collected dust, and Christ was gold.

Most of the translations I read didn’t give the full picture of Paul’s feelings toward his previous religious achievements. In Phil. 3:8b, Paul says, “For [Christ’s] sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” (NRSV)

“Rubbish” reads less dramatically than what Paul is saying. John H. P. Reumann’s commentary in the Anchor Bible Commentary Series translates it as “crap.” In that context, Paul means something more like garbage from the dump or sewage.

I think it’s worth sitting with Paul’s very strong statement. I see in my own life how quickly I can cling to things that offer me temporary success, safety, or some notion of status. Well, Paul had pretty much all of that, in the form of a spiritual-industrial complex.

It reminds me of when C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory,

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

He threw it all away and took the costly route of uniting his life with Christ’s death and resurrection.

I pray I can be as daring and courageous as Paul. I pray I can seek to know Jesus and be known by Jesus more fully because that is where my true riches reside. That is the climb I long for.

Clean

The rag
dabbed in
solution wiped
cleanly away
the crusted oil
and cast iron's rust.

I thought about
being clean:
the ragged state of 
my heart's cupboard,
the grime that's
clung for far too long.

Could I be clean?
"Yes," the Word said.
"I will wipe you
clean."

Journal with me.

In what ways do you feel dirty, cluttered, or worn? Physically? Mentally? Emotionally? Spiritually? What have you done in the past to feel clean again? How has that experience connected you with God’s cleansing love?

I spent a chunk of yesterday deep cleaning the kitchen.

I had to face the areas I had been ignoring.

I suppose there are some areas I thought I'd get to eventually.

It was a daunting task. In fact, I thought most of it was impossible: “What good is this effort when I know those marks aren’t truly cleanable?”

Well, to my surprise, they were—when I applied some good old-fashioned elbow grease.

I’ve let this fester for too long—why have I let this go so long?

I don’t know about you, but the sense of having a flourishing life can feel intimidating. It’s daunting because we see the work it will take to get to the other side: exercising, eating healthier, praying more, waking earlier.

What I’ve learned over the years—though I don’t want you, dear journaler, to get the idea that I am anywhere near disciplined—is that sometimes it’s easier and more joy-filled than I first assumed.

God, what I assumed would be a chore (asking for your help, admitting my weakness, doing the hard work) has tasted like sweet wine. Help me remember. Help me remember.

There are many ways you might feel less than optimal today, and that can feel even worse in a culture where everyone seems to have the right way to become more optimized.

There is no silver bullet. There is no hack to a life well lived. It just has to be lived.

The truth is, most of us are closer to a sense of abundant life than we’d like to think. What are you putting off? What are you avoiding? What needs your attention that you’ve been ignoring?

Paul reminds us of a time when the Word told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in your weakness.” What did Paul learn? That when he is weak and faces it, he is strong.

I hope you are having a great season of life—I hope the sun is shining and all is well. But if it’s not, sometimes admitting it before God and before others is how we discover that, by some mystery, Jesus holds us, mends us, cleans us, and offers us joy for the way. The more we allow God to make a home in us, the more the light casts out the dark, and the more radiant our lives become.

God, shine in me. Live in me. Patch me up.

Get specific about what you could admit: What? When? Where? How?

A Swoop of Swifts by Brit McReynolds
After Philippians 2:1-13

The Spirit moves the way sound shivers
in the gyre of the swifts whose air
takes on a countercurrent light
against the dusk that draws them there.

It has been granted to you—
to suffer such—as on the unrelenting wing
the swoop both rises, and descends.
You see, all the light’s the thing

we’re trying to hold, and catch
a glimpse of Heaven’s latent flare—
a shining back as seen within the swifts 
all reeling in defiance of despair. 

—

The region of South Texas where I live is a birder’s paradise. People will travel from all over the country to get a glimpse of some of the rare bird populations we have in the area, and it isn’t uncommon to run into groups of birders with their telescopic lenses in the city parks or wandering the local University campus. While I don’t count myself among them, I have grown a like appreciation for our avian friends. Being on the border of Mexico, we live along prominent migration routes for many species. Fall, in particular, means the arrival of such passing neighbors, one in particular being the chimney swifts.

If you have never had the good fortune of watching them funnel themselves into a tree or chimney against the backlight of the evening, you’re missing out. They are loud, but in a way that makes the space reverberate with a particular lightness. There is a harmonizing fellowship, similar to the murmurations of starlings, in the way they move that I couldn’t shake from my mind when reading through Philippians 2.

“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” (vs. 1-2)

What is it Paul is getting at? In order to understand what he is saying we must go back.

Philippians 1:29-30 says, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”

Paul is speaking of the fellowship of suffering within the body of Christ for the sake of Christ. As for my own life, it is in my suffering that I have felt nearest Him, and this ought to be a hope to all those upon the ash heap. That the God of the universe draws near to the brokenhearted is the greatest comfort in all the world.

For the Christian, this means an active rebellion against despair in a world that often indulges in it. Grief without hope lapses into despair. Despair is a fatalistic mindset that brings about the ruin of the soul. But we hope, not in our ability to lift ourselves by our bootstraps out of the mire, but that Christ has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. To suffer for his sake then is a privilege. “It has been granted to you,” he says, and I cannot shake the words. They haunt my steps with a holy life making everything dead and dying green again.

I think of the swifts, and how to watch them is to catch a glimpse of the glory of God. Those soot covered birds flinging up from the coal-black flue make light and beauty out of their return to the dark hollow where they roost. How much we might learn of God by being attentive to creation.

In his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes,

“Don’t you understand? The Glory flows into everyone, and back from everyone: like light and mirrors. But the light’s the thing.”

This participation in the Spirit is a shining back of the light of God for others to see—to move in one accord with the person of the Spirit and with one another and rally against despair. The world already knows it, though seldom knows where to find it—“all the light’s the thing we’re trying to hold.” In everything there is a trace of the divine. If only the church at large might remember there is only one story we’re trying to tell, we might offer something of that “countercurrent light” to an aching world.

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The Mist

The mist misted
inches above
the spring-fed stream.

It could be
103° but that spot
beneath the tall pines
and the wild kudzu 
possesses a constant cool.

I dip my hands.
I splash my face.

O to radiate goodness.
O to carry passion
in your eyes.

O to see your people
and know
that you open the door
to the significance
of right now.

Journal with me.

Who do you know who seems to carry a constant, uncanny aliveness? What do you think makes them this way? Could you permit yourself to have that level of vitality? What stands in your way?

It was Mort. I never quite understood what Mort talked to me about. He was always waxing eloquent and devotional. Things far out of reach for me at that time—and still, probably.

But I remember once standing with him after he wanted to pray with me. It was the kind of prayer that felt like being driven to the hospital after an injury; it wasn’t just words, it was action.

I remember nothing of what he prayed for specifically; it was honestly weird and uncomfortable. Then, after “Amen,” I looked at him, and he had this fire in his eyes.

I thought to myself: “Bartender, I’ll have what he’s having!”

Like the mist hovering above the stream I drive past every day, Mort had an unmistakable radiance. He wasn’t someone who talked about prayer; he was someone who prayed. He knew Jesus.

I knew in that moment how precious a gift it is to embody a deep alertness, and I’ve been on the hunt since.

People have said that Howard Thurman would give this advice to people who sought his counsel: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask, what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

What makes me come alive? Why don’t I create more space for that in my days? Why does pursuing that seem so risky?

I think there is a true version of you and me that has this unmistakable aliveness—it’s just buried somewhere, waiting to be dug up again. Maybe it’s been hidden for a long, long time.

Would it be possible to resurface again?

I keep coming across stories of Jesus being close to, or followed by, people who, let’s say, weren’t anyone’s role models. But the example of “good” religion was undesirable, so they chose a different life entirely. But then, Jesus comes and sits at their tables, and there they encounter a rabbi who is life and goodness distilled. We can begin postulating why this is, or we could just follow the lead. Jesus is the encapsulation of the world’s deepest longings. Let’s get swept away by the contagiousness of Christ’s single-heartedness.

Perhaps the only way to become this is through osmosis. That person you are writing about—why not reach out? Now and then, what we need more than anything is to dip our hands in the coolness of pure water and splash our faces to remind ourselves that right now we are living. And whatever it is that might make you more alive today, go and pursue it on purpose because whether you like it or not, you change the world. You can either do it with gusto or add to the meh.

How might you come alive today? What would restore your sense of vibrancy?

Get specific. How? When? Where? With whom?

You See Me
After Matthew 20:1-16

You see me.

You dive deep within
and pull apart the metal
walls of my fabricated
being and say,

"Come out. Why are you
hiding?"

You see me as the unmasked
and unhurried
child who plays
in the safety of
your gaze and
keeps playing.

You see my need
my potential
my the pain
and my future
and you give

what I need

is to be seen.

I might be first. I might be last.
But best of all
I am seen.

The first will be last, and the last will be first.

That’s perplexing.

I’m beginning to think that Jesus is less concerned with what we deserve, or think we deserve, and instead focuses on what we need. Grace, like love, is not an abstract or general principle—they raise us to new life!

I’m becoming more convinced that Jesus, and so much of the ministry of Jesus, sees people. In the parable found in Matthew 20, the people who had worked the longest were frustrated that the ones who worked much less were paid the same. But it’s the landowner’s choice, and this is what is decided.

But it’s this need to compare ourselves and our merits and what is due to us and others that gets us into trouble. The ones who came later to work that day, sure, they didn’t do as much, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t just as important.

Our importance is based on the fact of our existence—not what we do or what we have accomplished. God sees us and works in our lives in the ways we most need. This isn’t always completely obvious to us, but the more I look back on my life, I notice a consistent pattern of God seeking to break me out of my too-serious religiosity and rigidity so that I can breathe and begin to see others in the way that I am seen. God has been restoring my sense of play—and that is not what everyone needs, but that’s one of mine.

There’s a modern parable that I first heard from Howard Thurman, that goes something like this:

A mom, her firstborn daughter, and her son go out to eat. The waitress comes to take their orders and asks each person what they would like to have. The mom says what she wants, the daughter puts in her order, but the son is shy. So, the mom speaks up, “He would like the kids’ burger with fries.” The waitress ignores the mom, looks at the boy, and asks, “What would you like to eat?” The boy doesn’t answer, and so his sister chimes in with an annoyed tone, “If my mother can’t order for him, then I will. He would like a kids’ burger with fries.” The waitress ignores the girl and looks again at the boy and asks, “What would you like to have for lunch?” The boy finally speaks up: “I’ll have the kids’ burger with fries.” “What would you like on your burger?” Asks the waitress, “Ketchup, mustard, pickles?” The boy repeats back, “Ketchup, mustard, and pickles.” The waitress, as if everything is completely normal, says, “Great—your food will be out momentarily.” By this point, the mom and daughter are already making mental notes about how they will never come back to this restaurant again when the boy says to his mom, “Mom, the waitress thinks I exist!”

God is like that waitress: sees our deepest needs—that need we have to feel like we exist, and the good news is, in God’s eyes, you do!

You are important. The people who are first are important, and the people who are last are important. The somewhat right people are important, and the ones who are somewhat wrong are important.

What lessons is God teaching you?

Travel Out Back

I know the reasons
why I love
to wander.

I remember traveling
out back
behind the house
for hours.

I climbed trees
infested by pine beetles.
I fed horses tall grass.

We so dream of distant
treks—to venture far.

But the most important trips
might be the ones
we most often take.

—

Journal with me.

What is immediately available to you that brings you joy, or even restores your soul, within reach?

Some thoughts.

A professor of mine used to talk about gold buried in the backyard—goodness in places we least expect, or overlook.

I remember driving through Namibia on sand roads all the way to the coastal town of Swakopmund. So breathtaking. So beautiful. I face a different beauty, but just as healing, walking the nature trail ten minutes from my house now.

The spiritual life is ultimately about this conundrum, or dilemma: we want heaven, and yet, in our search, we miss heaven coming to us; we strive to reach the stars, but God walks the very dusty roads of our lives. We seek escape; Jesus seeks encounter.

Journaling has been the constant reminder of this for me. There are many things I love—new gadgets, books, art—and I love the expectation of receiving a new item in the mail. There’s always that excitement of opening the box. Yet how quickly that experience falls away, and the thing purchased becomes a thing among others?

But then my journal. It’s always there. It’s always available. Ten minutes of writing out my defenseless and bare thoughts before God, and wow—I feel rich—like I might know the One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

I wrote this poem above a little over a year ago. It’s fact. When I was little, in the Rocky Mountains, I spent so much time just wandering around the woods. I can still smell the thin, crisp mountain air—even as I sit here in North Georgia. I took those walks often, and those walks changed me.

Do you want an adventure? Do you want to go somewhere with God? Go to the porch. Go to the library. Go to that coffee shop down the road. It might be a bit inconvenient—I know you have other plans for your day.

But there’s gold there.

Pico Iyer, in his book The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, writes about a research experiment at the University of Wisconsin where scientists attached 256 electrodes to the skulls of volunteers for three and a half hours and compared the brain activity of a group of people who were quite similar, except some of them had regular practices of stillness: “The researchers . . . felt obligated to conclude that those who had sat still for years had achieved a level of happiness that was, quite literally, off the charts.”1

Wha…? They must have done something wrong—surely the people with the most miles, who were swept into the frenzy of going places, would be happier than those who regularly sat still…

I experience joy when I am least hurried—why do I hurry myself most often?

These thoughts aren’t to suggest that stillness is the only way to happiness. I’m suggesting that often the things that can actually give us a significant and healthy sense of aliveness are right there before us—we’ve just overlooked them.

Perhaps the most important trips are the ones we most often take. Perhaps the dailiness of my days is hiding treasures I have yet to uncover.

What is something you can do today, something very much in reach, that will expand and grow your heart in the direction of love and union with God, neighbor, and creation?

Get specific: What, when, where?

The Sledgehammer
After Matthew 18:21-35

Forgiveness is
the sledgehammer
on load-bearing walls
during renovation—
use it and duck!

See after, how the
lightness and openness
of a previously crowded
room exhales.

Forgiveness is
pouring out
the poison stored
in your pantry—
how'd it get
there in the
first place?

See now how much
more freely
you reach for
the spices?

O messy world,
O noisy mind,
O friend, spouse,
lover,
you are forgiven.
I am forgiven.

—

Writing this poem took longer than I expected—probably because forgiveness is one of those words we hear so much that we no longer hear it.

Just forgive and forget, they say.

That’s easy advice when a wrongdoing was relatively minor.

But what about those major betrayals? What about the anger and resentment we sometimes feel we need to keep us watchful and safe?

Forgiveness might be the most costly act of all—when offered from the fluid center of our consent.

Could you be like Christ, handed over, rejected, impaled, and say, “Forgive them, God; they are out of their minds?”

I couldn’t.

But we live in such an imperfect and lovely world, don’t we? We hurt each other, and we are often hurt. The longer you keep your feet on this earth, the more you become part of its landscape, and that landscape can be quite vicious. Ever notice people screaming at each other in traffic?

Peter asks Jesus, “How much should I forgive? Seven times, perhaps?” That was a generous amount—the same amount God forgave Israel in Amos 2. Surely there must be quantifiable limits?

Jesus responds, “Seventy-seven” or “seventy times seven.”

Which I think means, “Stop keeping score.”

I’ve heard it said that God understands all the sciences but refuses to do math.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized forgiveness isn’t truly a gentle work. It is merciful, but it is by no means gentle. To forgive is an act of reordering your life. It is like giving up the junk food so that your heart can actually consume what it needs.

So, I thought a sledgehammer might be a more appropriate metaphor.

I’d like to give inspiration credit to Annie Dillard. In The Writing Life, Dillard talks about how a line of words is like a hammer you use to tap to discover what walls are load-bearing in a story or essay. She writes, “Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck.” You can see a similar idea and language in the last sentence in the first stanza. Thank you to and for pointing me Dillard’s writing.

Also, the “fluid center of consent” in the reflection is a nod to Howard Thurman, who said in his third lecture on The Dilemma of the Religious Professional, “Let me call your attention now particularly to the ministry of silence and of quiet. There is in every man an inward sea. And in that sea, there is an island. And on that island, there is an altar. And standing before that altar is the angel with the flaming sword. Nothing can get by that angel to be placed upon that altar unless it has the mark of inner authenticity and authority. Nothing passes the angel with the flaming sword to be placed upon your altar unless it be a part of the fluid area of your consent, the fluid, the dynamic, the pulsing area of your inner consent.”1 I am forever indebted to for introducing me to Thurman’s luminous spiritual mind.

Want to go deeper?

Join me for a Prayer of Consecration Writing Circle — a guided, online session to craft a prayer that helps you intentionally engage and offer an item or place for Divine encounter and purposes. Bring something (or have in mind) what you’d like to set apart as sacred, big or small.

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September 21, 2026 · 10 a.m. EST · 60 minutes

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The Cave

Through the cave
of the winding
way of my story
you came after
me.

By the middle
point, I had
lost my name—
the child within
only a memory.

I wasn't sure
if I would be safe.
I was only sure of your pursuit
so I ran.

The further in
the darker it became.

Ouch! 

Now pain.

And You said my name.

Everything. Stopped.

At the expanse
of Your Word
the cave
crumbled

I'd never be
the same.

Journal with me.

How would you describe yourself apart from your roles and functions? What about your essence is a gift to the world?

Some thoughts. How about a story?

The two sat down for lunch for the first time. H looked across the table and asked, “So, who are you? Tell me about yourself.” The graduate student began explaining their current year in grad school, professional hopes, and connections. H’s confused reaction signaled that another question was necessary: “Who are you really?”

It is so easy to instrumentalize people, and even ourselves: That person is the person who teaches children; there is the delivery man; there is the doctor; I am the pastor.

But who are we really? Who really are the people surrounding us?

A famous Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, noticed an important distinction between “I-Thou” relationships and “I-it” relationships.1

Our relationship with a spouse or a close friend: I-Thou.

Our relationship with the cashier at the grocery store: I-It.

I-It relationships are utilitarian—people become more or less like instruments.

Sometimes without noticing, we get so enmeshed in our social settings and the expectations put on us that we forget we too are a thou.

I marvel at the snail shell—but why aren’t I marveling at myself? Whose eyes are seeing this shell? Is this all perhaps a miracle? Am I a miracle?

In the poem above, I describe God’s pursuit. I think sometimes God’s movement toward us is frightening, not in an ominous way, but because of the unknowns of it all. What could it mean that the Creator would dwell with me? Surely this must be transactional! Surely I will be used!

And then God speaks our name and reminds us of who we truly are.

And we finally find rest.

What if God’s agenda is your restoration? How would you walk through today if you knew that somewhere in the deepest part of you, God speaks your name and invites you to be the gift that you already are?

Get specific. How? When? Where?

—

My weekly poem and journal prompts are now free. I’d been experimenting with a paid-subscriber model for these—but somewhere in that experiment, I discovered I wanted to offer this work freely. So that’s what I’m doing. Thanks for reading and going deeper with me today. Stay tuned for more information about my upcoming prayer and liturgy writing circle, where we’ll craft a prayer of consecration for the big important things and the small important things.

“Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Romans 13:8-9, NRSVUE

There's Always Love
After Romans 13:8-14

These sore
shoulders worn
out and also,
strangely, and
importantly, alive
but stiff.

How many times
have you sought
relief? To do better?
How many times
have you put on those
heavy coat-like words:

Ought. Should. Must.

I can see now
the fatigue—
I feel it more.

And then
there's always love.
It's always a possibility.

Love might
mean messaging 
that tough knot 
from yesterday—
yes, that one.

Do you want to be excellent?
Do you want to become
a saint?

Love is
the willingness
       to change.

—

The Bible seems to be constantly asking the questions: How do we become part of the flow of God? What is it that God is infusing into our world and experience? What will vanquish the decay and misery of our lives?

The answer? It’s not by being better at adhering to religious practices—though that might happen. It’s love. Rabbi Shai Held, after releasing his book, Judaism is About Love, received pushback from some saying the title sounded too Christian! But Rabbi Held argues that the center of the Hebrew Scriptures is a God of love.

But so often, our faith communities don’t talk about this. They don’t remind us about love being the pathos of God because, well, haven’t we already heard that before? Did it work? Will it really work if we try it again—or should we just try to be a pretty good person so we go to heaven?

I think God is compassionately concerned about our attention and worries about what happens after we die. God is probably thinking, “They’ve missed the point.” Duty, obligation, a kind act here and there—that makes the world go around, but what about going forward? Love moves us forward.1

I think saints are the ones who move us forward.

“The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”

-Léon Bloy

Often, the best solutions are the ones that have been available all along. We’ve just stopped paying attention.

We look at Jesus, and we think, “Jesus, it’s great that you love, but I’m going to work at this from a different angle, because I probably know better.” We don’t actually say that, but that’s what it looks like from the outside.

My favorite definition of love? M. Scott Peck’s from The Road Less Traveled, whose definition I encountered in bell hooks's All About Love: New Visions.

“Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

Spiritual growth is used in a holistic sense in this definition as a progressive process of becoming more aware, responsible, mature, truthful, and loving.

We are afraid to love because we are worried about what will happen when we do and how tangled and costly life will become. Spoiler alert: it will. And in the midst of feeling so confounded, we will also feel full. Love is like standing in a spring from which living water flows. We will be transformed.

This Light
After hiking in the Chickamauga Battlefield

Between the Elm
and the Eastern Red Cedar
light poured through leaves
and branches.

I went on down
the dirt trail

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