Commit your life to the BELOVED.
Live confident that LOVE will act on your behalf.
Enjoy the bountiful gifts that LOVE provides.

                              Psalm 37.4.5 - Merrill 

 Simeon Holding Jesus

Jesus knew he was Beloved and invites us to follow him into a confident, Beloved Life. During our prayer groups this week we have been meditating on these verses from Psalm 37. I have heard a compelling invitation to live deeply and richly in God's LOVE.

You are the Beloved of God.

What does living confident in LOVE look like for you?

(In case this picture isn't familiar to you, Simeon had waited his whole life confident that he would see God. This is Rembrandt's rendition of Simeon, at last, holding Jesus.) 

with love and prayers

Anne

The Revd Anne Crosthwait
Contemplative Fire Community Leader (Canada)

Commit your life to the BELOVED.

Live confident that LOVE will act on your behalf.
Enjoy the bountiful gifts that LOVE provides.

                              Psalm 37.4.5 - Merrill 

 Simeon Holding Jesus

Jesus knew he was Beloved and invites us to follow him into a confident, Beloved Life. During our prayer groups this week we have been meditating on these verses from Psalm 37. I have heard a compelling invitation to live deeply and richly in God's LOVE.

You are the Beloved of God.

What does living confident in LOVE look like for you?

(In case this picture isn't familiar to you, Simeon had waited his whole life confident that he would see God. This is Rembrandt's rendition of Simeon, at last, holding Jesus.) 

with love and prayers

Anne

The Revd Anne Crosthwait
Contemplative Fire Community Leader (Canada)

God trusts you and me. 

Fragile. Vulnerable. Dependent.

God trusted himself to Mary and Joseph.

Last week, we welcomed our new grandson Aiden into the world. At our last Gathering, we celebrated Mary the mother Jesus. She is most special for she cared for Jesus in his fragility, vulnerability, and dependence.

God trusted himself to her care.

God came into the world just like you and I did; curled up in womb, struggled down the birth canal, blasted by cold earth air, wrapped in something far rougher than womb water, breathing the same air we breathe, needing food, needing to pee, completely vulnerable and requiring total care in order to survive. Mary and Joseph provided that care.

Today, you and I bear God's Spirit into the world.

We allow God's Spirit to flow through us to love, to care, to provide for our world.

Fragile. Vulnerable. Dependent.

God trusts you and me.

TRUST

How much we are loved to be entrusted with God's presence. May you rest deeply in God's presence within you and allow The Spirit to flow freely through you this day.

With love and prayers

Anne
The Revd Anne Crosthwait
Contemplative Fire  Community Leader Canada

You, O eternal Trinity,
are a deep sea into which,
the more I enter,
the more I find,
and the more I find,
the more I seek.
O abyss,
O eternal Godhead,
O sea profound,
what more could you give me than yourself? Amen

This is a prayer from Catherine of Siena that we used at our last Toronto Gathering as we explored the depths of prayer that Jesus invites us into. Imagine the ocean: shallow waters, swimming waters, deep waters. Different waters for different seasons, occasions of our lives. What prayers might you associate with the different waters? What prayer is Jesus inviting you to join him in right now?

While walking my dog...

In the spring I noticed green cones; their scales tightly held together, forming on the branches of the stately pine trees.  Recently, I have begun to find these cones now brown on the lawn with their scales wide open. There is a particular beauty about them. As I gathered a few each day, I realized that they had been nurtured and protected by the tree for many months or seasons, caressed by the warmth of the sun: fed by the rain. When they were mature, they opened their scales and shed their seeds to bring new life. Some, I learned, were only able to open their scales when birds helped them.

How like us they are. We are nurtured and protected by God; warmed by Love, fed by Spirit.  As we grow and become secure enough, we are able to open ourselves more deeply to love and to share that love and life with others. Sometimes we need the support of others to help us to open up. As the pine cone changes and loses its life, so we may begin to lose our false self and to become all that God intends us to be. Like the mature pine cone, there is a particular beauty in that.

by

Shirley Herron - member of the Toronto Core Team

Beloved Ones

Sitting beside my desk I have an image that I painted while on retreat last week. It is small, basically blue with the bottom resembling waves of the ocean. Riding the wave is a white feather. The main feature is a figure cradling a child. In my prayerful imagination this figure is God - the Source of all that is, all that has been and all that will be. The tiny one being cradled is the whole cosmos, our universe, our planet, our homes, you and me. God has us swaddled in a blanket that is covered with the word 'BELOVED'. We are so close we can hear the beating heart of God which whispers, 'BELOVED'. In my prayerful imagination I see the entire created order being able to hear and receive that they are 'BELOVED', and that is enough, no more fighting, no more striving, no more contending. We know our 'BELOVEDNESS' and that is enough.  

 Dear Friends of Contemplative Fire and Companions on the Way - if this is a prayer you can embrace - please join me.

 If you have a response, I'm always pleased to hear from you. Last month my computer crashed and with it some of your responses were lost. My apologies. If ever you find you'd prefer not to receive these reflections a note to info@contemplativefire.ca will take of that.

With love and prayers

Anne

A few years ago, after a Sunday morning at church, I began reflecting on what church was for me.

What I longed for was a small group of people with whom I could share faith and life.  Together we would provide a container for worship and propulsion for service. Our honest relationships would help me see myself and others as God sees us. Transformative and challenging, wrestling and resting, supportive and exploratory - these were some of the qualities I was looking for in this imagined church. 

It is easy to see why Contemplative Fire appealed to me. The community life contains all these qualities, plus it is contemplative with a clear rhythm of life and mission to live on the edge. I'd found a spiritual home. Last spring I was in England enjoying the discovery of Contemplative Fire Community life. Now I am eager to help seed it here.

Much of our community life will centre around small groups. Four have already started, but I imagine many more, throughout the GTA and across our country.

What is church for you?

I'd be happy to hear from you.    

The Revd Anne Crosthwait
Contemplative Fire
Community Leader (Canada)

Entering Easter

Easter is not a day but a season. We’ve entered into The Great Fifty Days of Easter.

The celebration of Sunday, April 4 continues. Long after the last note of music, the last flower, the last bite of food or piece of chocolate, long after all of that has faded into memory and the whirl of life has picked up again after a holiday weekend, the celebration of Easter continues. Within the liturgical schedule of the church we are now in Easter and will remain there until May 23 when we celebrate The Day of Pentecost.

During these fifty days many people had glimpses of the Risen Jesus. He kept appearing in unexpected places and in unexpected ways.

Would you join me in continuing our celebration of Easter? Let’s watch for and recount unexpected glimpses of Jesus. This is a new Easter Hunt, not for eggs and chocolate but for Jesus. What will he look like? You and me and others all around us. Acts of kindness, of mercy, of grace. Acts that change the world into a more just place, a more loving place. Jesus is alive. His spirit is working within us. Where can you see him?

Each day – take a moment to reflect – where did I catch a glimpse of Jesus today?

The hunt is on! Maybe we’ll discover that Easter is not a season, but a way of life.

The Revd Anne Crosthwait
Contemplative Fire
Community Leader (Canada)

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Crosthwait

Will you come to me in prayer so I can empower you? 

Joyce Rupp: May I have this Dance? 

Dear Companions and Friends of Contemplative Fire 

The question leapt out to me - asking for a response. During a retreat week, the leader offered us Rupp's forty questions for prayerful reflection and there was no doubt for me which one I needed to spend time with.

At first I wanted to re-word it. I'd like to change 'empower' to 'heal' or 'cleanse'. That would be more comfortable for me. But that wasn't the question.

Then I pondered all the different ways that I could pray. How was the Spirit inviting me to pray? What schedule might I create? What new discipline might I cultivate? But that didn't quite sit right.

Then I heard the words 'to me'. It's not about prayer styles or techniques, or knowledge or discipline. It's all about God, the Divine Mystery that I know so well, yet barely know at all. Will I slow down to be more intimate with God? Will I give the Source of All Life a peck on the cheek or receive the deep hug that is offered?

 'Will you come...' - will I? Will you? Are we willing to move closer, to surrender a bit more deeply into the One Who Is, Who Always Has Been, who calls us - Beloved.

With love and prayers for your journey

Anne

The Revd Anne Crosthwait
Contemplative Fire
Community Leader Canada

Note From the Revd Allan Ross Gibson

Contemplative Fire is an Emerging Community.....

We are adventurers and explorers,

Intrigued about understanding the Christian faith

With our whole being... beyond its common popular expressions.

          We are especially drawn
                   To that strand of Christian spiritual traditio
                             Frequently referred to as contemplative silence/stillness/prayer
            Where transformative intimacy
                             Is experienced by the practitioner
                                      In communion with the Divine Presence.
 
          We are trusting that we are responding to a call from God
                   To live this ancient and universal practice
                             In a form appropriate to the twenty-first century
                                     Through dispersed community ('a monastery without walls')
 
           We are risking that God's Spirit will 'set us on fire'
                   In order to nurture the Divine will
     that human beings might know
                                   with all they are
          how to receive love
                   and
          to offer it to pain distorted people and
          a pain wracked creation.
 
We are women and men of hospitality
                   Eager to set forth a great feast
                             For all whom God would see
                                      Filled with good and nourishing things
                                   Both material and spiritual.
 
               We are quiet revolutionaries
                   Who like to laugh, sing and move
                             As much as
                                      To be stopped in our tracks
                                                And
                                      At a loss for words
                                                When we are encountered
                                           By wonder and mystery.
 
We are who our Creator will make us
                    As long as we hold to faith in
                             The resurrecting God of Jesus -
                                      Prophet, Mystic, Healer, and Wisdom -
                                                And his gift with that God
                                                          Of the
                                                                   Creating and Empowering Spirit.

Contemplative Fire is a movement which seeks to partner with God in birthing a welcoming, safe and hospitable community for people who would like to explore and experience the spirituality and communal life of a contemplative Christianity, beyond the familiar and common forms and practice which have been available in the traditional expression of 'church' they have known.

It’s early days of 2010. Let’s pause together, right now, and breathe deeply.

A shared breath. Shared with others who read this and take the time to pause.

This year may you have in your life many more moments of stillness. May you have  room and space to breathe deeply the realness of God’s presence. 

As a daily practice this year I encourage you to take time each day to slow down and reflect on your day. Where have you seen God today? Where have you known the presence of God? Perhaps it is in a connection with someone, a moment of kindness, gentleness, an opportunity for forgiveness, the sense of love, joy or peace. Perhaps it is in the movement of the clouds, the flicker of sunshine on a snowflake, a work of art, a note of music. Return to that place of connection, breathe deeply and give thanks to God. If possible practice this with others so stillness and spaciousness can spread. 

The Revd Anne Crosthwait
Community Leader (Canada)
January 2010

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Crosthwait