I chose three stones from the farmer’s field.

I chose three colored pens from my box of art supplies.

As a Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire, I’d received Lenten Resources written by Rob and Tina Husband, two UK Companions. All Lent we had focused on Letting Go, and now in the last reflection before Easter we were offered several very tangible exercises in letting go. I chose the stones.

Over the course of the reflections I had become aware of three ways of being in the world that I wanted to let go.  I wanted to acknowledge them to Jesus and then know Easter Freedom. With the fullness of parish Easter life I found I wasn’t able to offer and release them as I needed to within traditional worship, so I waited till I was on retreat the following week – a glorious week of solitude, stillness and spaciousness at a hermitage.

The first day I found the stones. I named each one with a different concern. I placed them on the prayer table in the hermitage and allowed them to be embraced by our Loving God. After several days I carried them to the river near my hermitage and with a mighty toss sent them to the bottom of the river and welcomed the arrival of Easter Freedom. Physically, my stones are at the bottom of the river – the concerns being washed away by the water.  Spiritually, the tomb is empty. The world is washed with the love of God. Freedom is ours. Life is ours.

Over the last year I’ve begun to wonder about the Lenten tradition of giving up temptations in our life like sugar, alcohol, nicotine, or any excessive behaviour only to welcome them back when Easter comes. Isn’t Jesus’ victory about victory, about freedom from captivity? Why do we return to temptations that we’ve been freed from? Maybe Lent is a preparation time, a soul searching time when we discover what we need to take to the cross on Good Friday so that Easter can be freedom.

Is there anything that continues to pester your mind or your heart or both? Something that you know it is time to be free of? .... take a stone.... find a 'river' and remember the empty tomb.

Many receiving this are not Companions on the Way with Contemplative Fire. Curious? Interested in growing deeper spiritually? Check the website and do be in touch with your questions. Let’s grow into the freedom that God has for us!

Easter Freedom continues.....

Love and prayers

Anne

Easter is coming.... At our Gathering last week we held the grain of wheat image closely. Jesus speaks about the importance and power of a seed that gives up being a seed to become a sheaf of wheat and bear much grain. Such possibility.

Sometimes we hold onto old ways, old habits, old beliefs, old wounds, old ways of seeing things. They enclose us, contain us, constrict us. Sometimes we don’t even know we are being contained in a seed shell. We only discover it when we experience some warmth, some new life stirring within or calling from without, perhaps gently at first. Only then can we realize we are contained within a seed shell. Only then can we realize that there might be something to let go of, to step out of, to move on from so that we can begin bear new fruit. In those times, I know I can feel so vulnerable, unprotected, scared – what will come? Will I be hurt? How will I be when I’m not my old ‘seed-self’?

 Do you feel like a seed, closed and contained?

Or like a seed cracking open, unprotected and vulnerable?

Are you sprouting new life tender and green?

Are you sprouting new life in a difficualt place?

Or are you sprouting new life, alive and vibrant?

Is your ‘seed-self’ being warmed, stirred to become an offering of wheat to feed the world?

We are entering Holy Week. I invite you to read Jesus’ story this week – try Luke 22-24. Listen as he sheds his seed-self to become nourishment for all of us.

May your Easter journey leave a mess of broken shells all around!

Love and prayers

Anne

The Revd Anne Crosthwait

Community Leader (Canada)

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?

Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.

I’ll show you how to take a real rest.

Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.

Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

 A member of our last RHYTHMS group pointed me towards this passage. I think this bit of Petersen’s The Message from Matthew 11, says it all. I’m not tired or burnt out today, but I love the invitation to simply be with, and learn from Jesus, an uncluttered Jesus. I believe there are ways the Christian community has overlaid Jesus with moral and behavioral expectations, rituals, theological wranglings and programs. To simply find Jesus  - walk with him, watch him, work with him. To see him with fresh eyes, unforced eyes, gentle eyes.

Are you tired today? May be some fresh time with Jesus would help. Maybe learning his unforced rhythm of grace would help. What does that mean to you? In what way does this description reflect the Jesus you’ve encountered or are exploring? 

I value the freedom Contemplative Fire gives us to explore, to discover spiritually. I value too, our Rhythm of Life: Travel Light – Dwell Deep.  I’m continuing to explore lightness and playfulness in my life, no To Do List, but a To Be List and I need Jesus who wants me to keep company with him, freely and lightly.

One of our Companions on the Way wrote to me last December:

“Once I said to a person who didn't believe there was a God, that I know there is a God in my guts. I wonder if Contemplative Fire helps people to discover and experience the God that dwells within their hearts or "their guts" and not just "out there", a God who is external or contained in the walls of a building. And I wonder if doing this in community enables people to discover and experience the God who dwells in the hearts or "guts" of those travelling with them.”

An elderly parishioner in a traditional parish said to me last week:

“I’ve been going to church for well... more than 40 years and it is only in the last few years I’ve begun to discover Jesus. God was always out there somewhere, but now Jesus is, well this is different.” I touched my chest. “In here?” She nodded. “Yes, so different.”

I often offer a large and simple body prayer of sweeping my arms all around and then bringing them to a traditional prayer position at heart centre. God is everywhere. God is within. How beautiful. How simple. How beyond my understanding, yet the ground of my being.

The challenge of life, is not to stay alive but to stay in LOVE.

(adapted from Rob Voyle and Appreciative Inquiry)

The challenge of life is to stay deeply grounded in LOVE within us, seeing LOVE within others, knowing LOVE sustaining the world, even when all around us seems in turmoil and tears. Living from our ‘guts’, the deepest part of our being.

What helps you keep your eyes set upon LOVE, upon the Beloved, the Source of all Life, the Sustainer, the Mystery, the Spirit, Jesus?

Draw a deep breath, and with me find your rest in LOVE for one simple moment. And then again. Seeking to continue to stay in LOVE as you move through you day. Gutsy way to live, isn’t it?

Love and prayers

Anne

The Revd Anne Crosthwait

On the radio this week I heard an announcer speculate that most people took more time planning their vacations than they did planning their life!

I’m sure many receiving this note have a reflective quality to their lives and already do an annual review. If you don’t, here’s an opportunity to try it. I offer some questions that I have used.

Try taking some intentional time over the holiday period or very early in the New Year, even January 1. Settle yourself, perhaps a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, in front of the fire or looking out your window. Setting all needs aside, seek some interior stillness.

Time to look back – Time to look ahead

Looking Back Over 2011

-      Recall moments of joy – Offer thankfulness

-      Recall moments of sorrow – Allow yourself to know God’s presence in those moments. As you experience that pain, recall that God is closer to you than your heartbeat. You are never alone.

-      Focus on your spiritual journey

o   Who is God to you today? What images or metaphors help you describe God?

o   Where has God been real to you this year? Where have you encountered love, kindness and forgiveness?

Looking Ahead to 2012

-      Is there a yearning within you for this year?

-      Is there a change you’d like to bring into your life? This is not a resolution that you make and discipline yourself towards, but rather a seed within you that you release into the wind of the Spirit.

-      Perhaps there are practical steps to take towards that change, but again it is not about imposing a structure on you, as much as releasing something within you, something you want to have happen.

-      Is there a word that feels core to your desires for 2012?  

-      Is there room within you for that to be fulfilled in ways beyond your imagination?

-      Is there room for something completely different to happen?

Let us live intentionally, open to God, allowing God to flow through us this year.

With love and prayers as we journey together

Anne

The Revd Anne Crosthwait

Community Leader (Canada)

Anne@contemplativefire.ca

416-834-3400