Sylvia would love to hear your thoughts about this week's encounter.        Please send them to sylvia@pastorsylvia.com

Living in Wonder

Spring is my favorite season to experience wonder and delight. A new house is a great place to be when God gets busy with dirt, seeds, water, and a little sunlight. Our yard suddenly woke up! I’m not exactly sure what all the “green things” are, but some of them are quite robust and growing at a startling rate. (Is it just me, or do weeds grow faster than plants you value?)

To the atheist who says God has given no evidence of His existence, I invite you to walk with me through our yard in spring. Every bud, each blade of new grass is a miracle, whether I know the name or not.

Today while I was pulling the obvious weeds and planting red geraniums in the front of the house, I was so grateful for the gift of simply being present with myself and the Holy Spirit. It reminded me of a scene from the movie, “Shawshank Redemption:”

Andy locks himself in the warden's office, puts a record on the turntable and sets the prison intercom microphone near the speaker. The music pervades and suffuses the entire prison. Red, the narrator, says, "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."

We all need to be lifted out of the ordinary from time to time. Music, art, nature, a meaningful conversation—when we are able to experience something extraordinary, we see ourselves and God slightly different moving forward. Whatever touches our humility and helps us to accept our humanity, becomes an agent of change.

Richard Rohr writes, “All the truly transformed people I have ever met are characterized by what I would call radical humility. They are deeply convinced that they are drawing from another source; they are simply an instrument. Their genius is not their own; it is borrowed. They end up doing generative and expansive things precisely because they do not take first or final responsibility for their gift; they don’t worry too much about their failures, nor do they need to promote themselves. Their life is not their own, yet at some level they know that it has been given to them as a sacred trust.”

I can barely stand to watch the television news. We live in a world that is morally unsustainable. It would be easy to shut down, but instead I am planting red geraniums and choosing to appreciate the moments I share with the “green things.”

I love Rabbi Chaim Stern’s prayer, “Days pass and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles. Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing; let there be moments when Your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder: How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it!” (Taken from the Mishkan T’filah, A Prayer for Shabbat)

I hope to be filled with awe wherever God has placed me.

RECENT COLUMNS

Ten New Commandments

Dancing in The Dark

Stations of the Cross

He Remembers Our Sins No More

The Bottle Tree

Making New Lists

Beachcombing in Lent

Do You Have a Super Power?

Resilience As A Path To Holiness

What is the Wallet Analogy?

The Pygmalion Effect

What is Your Story

Encouraged by Pooh

It's Who Owns Us

Whose Faith Will You Copy?

What I Want in the New Year

A Christmas Letter From Jesus - 2023

Remembering That Santa and God Work Together