It’s Great to Be Home
I just returned from a 5 day directed retreat, just in case you were wondering where I was. It was a good time. Not really rested, but definitely some new views of God and my relationship with God that will keep me busy for a while. I think I will just drop a few random thoughts before I go to work on tomorrow’s sermon.
It is hot here in Iowa. (One bank sign I saw today said 96, I think I will wait to cut the grass when it is cooler.) So in celebration, I shaved and decided to join the emergent church pastor’s look (I have noticed that almost all the male pastor’s who have been profiled on Locust and Honey have that goatee look). I haven’t shaved my beard in 20 years, so this is going to take some getting used to.
The site of my retreat was a small Benedictine monastery where 2 nuns live and one of them does spiritual direction (and is a licensed massage therapist). They treated me very well, even if I did have to eat off a card table in the retreatant’s dining area (so they wouldn’t bother my reflection and my presence wouldn’t bother them.)
It has been a long time since I just sat and listened to the rain. They received three inches of rain my first day there and since there was no lightning, I sat on their screened in back porch and listened to the falling rain while reflecting on some Psalms about the care of the God of Creation. Way cool.
The last night I was there, we had a thunderstorm. I tried to get pictures of lightning with my digital camera, but instead was able to get a few of a double rainbow. I thought that was a good lesson for life: often we are looking for the flashy, exciting things but God gently provides hope in the storm instead.
Did you know it takes a while to go through about 200 emails that accumulate over the course of a week, especially when you want to spend time with a dear wife who you haven’t seen for five days and a lovely daughter you haven’t seen in three weeks. They are more important then the emails and the blogs to read.
I understand while I was out of touch with the world a new war has started with the Israeli army sadly taking notes from our Iraqi war playbook and using the threat of attack as a good reason to invade both a treaty created Palestinian land and now Lebanon. I do pray for peace in Israel and the whole area, but the leaders of the nations need to help by not breaking peace at the slightest hint of fear. I mourn the loss of peace and reason in that place where the Prince of Peace came to bring healing. Ironically, tomorrow I will be preaching on Ephesians 2:11-22 (I know I am a week ahead of the lectionary) where Paul talks about Christ coming to be our peace and to bring an end to hostility in the name of god (lower case intentional, I do not believe that God any longer wants wars fought in that Beloved Name).
I was wanting these random notes to be fun, but that one just spoiled it, didn’t it.
I better stop before I think of something else that isn’t fun. Hopefully something will come later.
