Vera Topinka

This past week I was out in Joshua Tree California on a retreat to set my personal goals for next year. I do it now in a special way discovered several years ago when taking a course that changed the way I think about goals. In the course we were taught that life can change in dramatic and exciting ways if you are clear about what you want and you understand how to accomplish what you have dreamed. The course was offered by Vera Topinka, a self-employed photographer and entrepreneur who moved from the San Francisco bay area to Joshua Tree after purchasing five acres and gradually adding onto a tiny cabin. When I met her she impressed me with how much she had accomplished in her life, how happy and content she was and all of this while making a good living as a self employed artist. She shared that for the past 20 years she had developed a way of approaching planning and envisioning that is a combination of many different teachings which she synthesized in her own unique way. After years of using these teachings for her own life, Vera started offering a course she calls VisionBook, after the actual book you make in the class. What I found interesting was that she has also planned for ways to get around our objections and reluctance to make the changes necessary to accomplish our goals. I watched in our class how she helped each of us work to uncover our dreams and desires and overcome our resistances to change.

There are many good courses in planning out there but because I know Vera and I have seen what she has accomplished for herself I wanted to absorb what she had developed for herself. I wasn't disappointed in the course and now I think in the ways she taught in the class. I keep my VisionBook and work with the tools in it regularly. About each year I revise my goals and regularly take stock of the accomplishments that have occurred because I knew what I wanted and calculated the work it would take to reach the goal. Because each person's dreams and plans are different each of the VisionBooks are unique, both visually as well as in their content. She has decided in her own planning this year that she will focus more on offering regular VisionBook courses as it is one of true gifts. Her pleasure is to work with people who want to reach their dreams. If you are interested in talking with her more about this course and find out about enrolling call her at 760-366-1030. Her next classes in the desert are on 4 Saturdays: January 12 19, 26, and Feb 2. The materials and workshop are included. She can also help you with ideas of where to stay in the area. This is a beautiful area to consider life and dreams, as well as an excellent course. We are hopeful that a some point she can come over to this area to offer the class, however taking it in the desert in Vera's unique home studio with the birds, quail, and bunnies hopping around is worth the 2 hour trip from Los Angeles area to Joshua Tree. As Martha Stewart would say... "this is a good thing". I recommend you find a way to take advantage of this opportunity.

were Christy Brink, collage journal, Grace Weisenstein, photography,

and Margaret Jensen, poetry and watercolor.  They will all be

interviewed in more detail in future blogs.  Each are talented artists

who we hope will share both their art as well as their how their faith

has shaped their views and choices related to creative endeavors.

On Friday night the focus of our art activities were inspired by the new book, 8 Habits of Love,  written by the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church.

This wonderful book inspires us to learn to live a life of love and in it Rev. Bacon gives us these 8 habits which will show ways to live into love.  On this first Friday night of being inspired by this book we had an art activity based on the Habit of Generosity.  Here is the handout which was created to inspire us to create images leading to actions to develop this habit.

After supper and art making spirit image/collages the participants were then invited to bring those images into the Taize service and if desired to the altar to consider these as prayers, blessings, and intentions within our lives.  We then went back to hand made desserts and more art making & discussions. It was exciting to see some of the work that was made.  We would love to have as many people as possible to participate in this once a month first Friday night, an opportunity to consider what is really the Good Life.  We seek to explore this life with people of all different faiths, and people who are within and without churches.  What do we see as the essentials of a Good Life?  Let's explore this with art, and discussions.  

More will follow in a future blog on the Mixed Media and Computer art spirit classes on Saturday and Sunday, and the Art 21 video and discussion on Sunday.  

Proper 19, Year B, Is. 50:4-9a , Mark 8:27-38; Sept. 16, 2012 St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Eagle Rock, Samuel H. Pillsbury, Deacon

Hearing God

Why can't we hear God better? Surely God can speak loudly enough to be heard anywhere. So why do we have to work so hard to hear the divine voice? What's getting in the way? We get hints today from both Isaiah and Jesus. How the problem is with us and not with God. We can hear God perfectly well, if we want to. If we have the courage to trust God's goodness. 

Awakening with Isaiah

Isaiah tells us that God is his alarm clock. God wakes the prophet up with the divine word. 

"Morning by morning he wakens –wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught." From the break of day, Isaiah is an eager student of God's teachings. He wants to hear it all. And while God is doing the waking, Isaiah is doing the hearing. Which takes work. It's a choice, you see. 

Isaiah says:"The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward."

Isaiah could have rejected this awakening. He could have turned his back to God. God gives us that choice. But Isaiah chooses to hear. Then Isaiah tells how hearing God changed his life. 

"I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;

I did not hide my face from insult and spitting."

You might think that hearing God's word would make everything easy, that it would smooth the path ahead. At least for Isaiah – not so much. For him it leads to beard pulling and insult and spitting. Which sounds physically painful and nasty, but -- far worse for a man of his day, for a man of honor -- would have been the shame of such attacks. No wonder that so many people then were rebellious and turned their back on God. They didn't want to hear God's message.  

Turning One's Back to God

The Bible is full of prophets who hear God speak. Who heard that voice and said "here I am." Who accepted the truth and force of the divine message. Throughout the Gospels we see fishermen and tax collectors and sinners of all kinds flocking to Jesus's call, and accepting his teachings. But there were many more who turned away. 

You might recall the many disciples who left Jesus's movement after his hard teaching about eating his flesh and blood. This from our gospel passage from John several weeks ago. Then of course we have the many Pharisees and scribes and Temple leaders who rejected Jesus's teachings.

But I especially remember that young man who followed all the laws of Moses and led a righteous life, who asked Jesus how he might gain salvation. Jesus told him he had but one more step to take. He should sell all he had and follow Jesus. This the man could not do, for he had many possessions. He went away heartbroken. The man rejected the message that he had so eagerly sought. Actually, lots of people refuse to hear or heed the word of God. It's very common. We've all done it. 

Consider today's gospel passage. Jesus is preparing his disciples for the days ahead, for his death and their ministry. Peter doesn't want to hear it. He rebukes Jesus. No, don't say that, he cries. That can't happen. Which makes Jesus angry, to the point that he claims Peter speaks in the voice of the devil. Because Peter won't hear God's message. 

Jesus then turns to the disciples as a group and offers another hard teaching, telling them that, "those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" Jesus is preaching sacrifice. Never a popular message. 

Peter doesn't want to hear Jesus's message because he doesn't want to give up the living Jesus. Of course not. The rich man doesn't want to give up his possessions. Of course not. I'm sure Isaiah didn't really want to give up his honor and dignity.  All this helps answer the question I started with. Why is it so hard to hear God? Because God may be asking us to give up something that we really don't want to give up.

A Message of Sacrifice?

Let's think about this. What could God be trying to tell you or me that we don't want to hear? Could God be asking you to give up something dear to you that you just can't imagine giving up? I don't know. For each of us this is personal, just between us and God. But I can offer some suggestions, some possibilities, that may help open our ears.

Maybe God is asking us to give up an attachment to money or security. Could be.  

It might be anger that you need to sacrifice, even if you have a really good reason to be angry. God might ask you to give up your anger because it's standing between you and God and all of creation. It's got you locked up. 

Resentment at the unfairness that you see all around you, perhaps that's what you are being asked to sacrifice. Just let it go. Because then you can see as God does.

Perhaps there is a deep sadness that has been part of you for many years, that seems actually to be a big part of who you are, so how can you give it up? Who would you be then? And yet that voice awakening you in the morning may be asking you to do just that. Try life without it. It's your choice. 

Or God may be asking you to give up the fear that keeps you isolated, keeps you down. Not because there's nothing to fear. Actually there is. Remember Jesus and Peter? Jesus isn't telling Peter that it's all going to be okay. Actually Jesus is saying that bad stuff is coming, but still, my friends, you can't give in to fear. You have to keep moving. Keep the faith. You'll lose much, but in the end will gain much more.

Perhaps you have a wound inside that has never fully healed – many of us do – and you work very hard to make sure that no one else and nothing else can touch it. Even God. Maybe you have to remove that protection. Trust God's touch.

Or perhaps God is asking for something really mundane, like giving up our busyness. Our constant connectedness. Our to-do lists as a basic structure of our lives. Let all that go and come with me, Jesus says. Not so easy to do. Maybe later, we say, when we're not so busy. 

And just when do you think that will be?

The Dialogue of Prayer

I've been thinking a lot about prayer recently, having needed a lot of it myself recently. Prayer is our dialogue with God, our way of opening ourselves to God's presence. Normally we begin prayer with the offering of words, of thanks and confession, hopes and needs. And then we should listen for God's voice. There's not much point to prayer if we don't listen. Otherwise it's a monologue and not a dialogue. Hearing God is a critical part of prayer.

But that hearing doesn't happen in the usual way, with our physical ears. We listen with our hearts. With open hearts. Trusting hearts. To hear God's message, we have to trust God's goodness, his care for us.

We have to trust in the goodness that is bigger than each of us, of which we are a part. It's a larger good that we know, but somehow we keep forgetting about.

Recently I read about a study on what makes people happy. It's a new field in psychology, happiness studies. Makes sense. Surely it's as important to know what makes us happy as what makes us unhappy. This particular study had to do with money, and how we spend it. Whether it was better to spend it on yourself or on others. And the answer was very clear. Better to spend on others. It gave deeper more lasting pleasure to give to others than to buy what you want for yourself. We all know this from our own experience. To be able to give to your children or parents, to help support the church, or a charity, or a school, to support positive change in the world with our own gifts, that's a blessing in itself, a blessing that pleases a different and deeper part of us than buying that thing that we think we have our heart set on.

We can listen to the advertising, which tells us how much we need that new car, that facelift or vacation, or new electronics. How much we really deserve it.  Or, we can listen to that other voice, that still quiet voice that says, I need your help. Come with me. Put down all that other stuff, let it go, and come with me. It's an uncertain and scary journey to which we are invited. But it's why we're here today. It is. We're here because we believe in the goodness of God. Surely we agree on that. And yet, there's another step we need to take. We need to trust that goodness in God's message for us. We have to trust God by listening with open hearts. So let's do it.

Conclusion

Let us right now, right here, open our hearts to God's gifts, to the sun and the trees and the birds and family and friends and the kindness of strangers, and hear God's voice, unafraid.

God reaches out to us because God needs us. God needed Isaiah to speak to his people. Jesus needed the  disciples to carry on his ministry. God needs us too, has work for us too. And this work, for all its sacrifices, is wonderful work. The best there is. 

It's ours if we listen. If we decide to hear. That's our choice.

Amen. 

One of the creative and inspiring books I am currently reading, Join The Club by Tina Rosenberg, is sub-titled How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.  I am on page 70 of a book of 354 pages, but already I am learning odd things that I had not expected to think about, and that is exciting.  I am also on the side, reading critical reviews of the book in the New York Times and other sources.  Being a serious ordinary thinker, but relatively well educated person, I can see the beauty of her collected examples of positive peer pressure along with the enthusiasm and also how that it might ignore the difficulties of extracting successes and considering them as "the answers".  But then, how are we to be inspired?  If we believe that all life is about to end, and nothing will really work, will we do anything?  What is the path between "doing something" and saying "ok, it is all about getting whatever I can before I leave the planet"?  Yes, I know those are extreme polarities but don't we often veer between these two in our personal lives whether it is with our money or time? I do at times.  I would love to share this book and have a discussion. What can be learned from it ?  Let me know if you have read it, or are interested in reading it and your comments? 

Rebecca Janes

Last week in a spiritual workshop we invited the participants to express their condolences to the people of the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin by signing and decorating (construction paper with a heart cut out) a card that we attached to string to make a heart felt flag.  After the workshop we placed the flag of cards in the sanctuary and asked the church members to also make a card, and then  took the flag to Loaves and Fishes, a weekly dinner for the homeless and hungry of Eagle Rock to to make cards.  

I was eager for us as a church and spiritual community to reach out to these people at the Sikh Temple to express our condolences and to express our concern for them. As a craft and art person it was easy to cut hearts out of construction paper and with the help of my friend Margreth to come up with the idea of the flag.  What I didn’t know was how challenging it would be to go up to people and ask them to sign the card.  When you are shy but passionate the worse part is actually inviting participation.  I did it with the idea... who wouldn’t want to sign a card that had already been almost completed just by the heart cutout?  All you had to do was to add some words.  Even if you knew no one who was Sikh, you would want to support innocent people whose friends and family had been shot at their church. They would deserve at least a card and hopefully many more thoughts, prayers and potential action.When I noticed that some people were hesitant I was quick to judge in my mind what was happening.  But, as I tried to see it from other directions thinking my judging anyone is suspect,  I realized that I often brush right by people in front of the grocery store who are trying to draw my attention to global pain that they want me to sign my name to support.  Could both our desires to be left alone be the same?  Maybe I am meant to benignly offer opportunities for people to consider and let it go at that?  Maybe I am meant to learn that

there are times and places that we all feel available to deal with the concerns of others and then there are times when this just doesn’t work for us?  

On the very positive side..at the Loaves and Fishes dinner I was more shy and uncomfortable to go up to a table of people who were eating and talking to ask them to sign a card.  I don’t even know if they had heard about it on TV.  But, I noticed most the most part people I asked in each group responded with heart felt and quick desires to share their concerns, and wrote beautiful words of prayers on the cards.  As a side benefit or maybe the point of the experience, I noticed that the people at Loaves and Fishes that did sign the cards were very friendly and it seemed as though we now had a link between us. I wasn’t seeing just a food program but tiny relationships developing.  

Well, now to send off the heart felt flag.  We don’t know how this small and homey set of cards may be received, but hopefully it will give someone who sees it the idea that we were thinking about them and offering prayers for them.  

Rebecca Janes

Christmas is a wonderful holiday.  Just about everyone loves Christmas.  Families get together, children are flooded with gifts.  Trees are decorated, houses are full of evergreens, candles, and the smell of baking cookies.  The whole atmosphere is charged with potential.  Maybe this year the Christ Child will actually bring Peace on Earth….

Then in a few weeks, the new toys are abandoned or broken.  The tree is sent to the dump, the decorations are put away, the food is all eaten, and families go back to business as usual – maybe with a few new resentments or increased stress to pay those Christmas bills.  And we forget about the Christ Child for another year.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Advent is an invitation to take it all a little deeper.  Advent is a time to think about what it really means that God chose to be incarnated as a little human baby.  Advent is a time to make room in your life and in your heart for this wondrous breaking-in of God into human life.

Advent is a time to be pregnant with that amazing new God-life.  This God-explosion into our world will change everything – if we let it.

Advent is a time to cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus!”