Tag Archive for: Selah Community

Lent Day 18. It’s OK.

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Lent Day 18. In her latest writing, Sandy Shipman shares how God is with her–with us–even when we are troubled and hurt. Thank you, Sandy, for these words of encouragement.–D.B.

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Lent Day 8. Life is Trigonometry. Ugh.

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Lent Day 8. Today Selah Companion Sandy Shipman shares a memoir about high school math class–trigonometry– and reflects on it throughout her life.

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Lent Day 7. Lent (Noun).

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Lent Day 7. Today Here & Now editor, Debora Ragland Buerk shares and essay on the history of Lent and what Lent means to her.

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Climb Up to the Light

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Today, Selah Companion Beth Griffith gifts us with one of her poems, “Climb Up to the Light” and illustrates it with her photography. Enjoy.

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Fleeting Injurious Gratitude

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CHRISTOPHER A. BALL
Selah Community

fleeting injurious gratitude
when the throbbing surge of cracking bones 
or torn tendons
inhibits your way in the world
from what you can see
or where you can be 
not only does our day slow down
but our awareness of joy
in little ordinary parts of our day
can be held in remembrance 
and with appreciation
until we heal up
and then we move on 
forgetting the gifts
and expecting our wants
with endless disappointment
and constant angst

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Listening into Lent 

A Quiet Day of Preparation for the Season


THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2023, 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM ON ZOOM FREE

Lent means “Spring” and, at the same time, was intended to draw our attention to forty days in the desert. Leaning into these contrasting images, may Lent be a season for (re)awakening for us. Whether it is found in anticipation of the budding life of spring or exposure to the wide open and barren spaces of the desert, let us intentionally approach this season with a quiet space and prayerful hearts in anticipation of new awakenings.

Let us take this day to sit before the Holy One in quietness and rest. Whether in centering prayer or journaling or any combination of spiritual practices, the time spent with God is intended to center our hearts for the season.

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Here & Now Lent Series 2023

February 22 – April 9 

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Join us as we take a contemplative journey through Lent and Easter through a special edition of the Here & Now blog. Receive a daily blog post beginning February 22, Ash Wednesday through Easter, April 9. Members of the Selah Community write the Here & Now blog in an invitation to PAUSE, ENCOUNTER the Spirit through contemplative practices, and GROW TOGETHER toward wholeness and loving others. 

From the writers of the Here & Now blog.

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Five Creams and Five Sugars

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By Zoanna Pearson
Selah Companion

He babbled to himself.  No teeth, dirty clothing, unshaven, cradling two small duffle bags to his chest.  Sitting on a bench inside the grocery store, air-conditioned comfort on a 90-degree day.

My peripheral vision caught him, and we made eye contact for an instant.  “Ma’am, some money?”

I quickly shifted my eyes to the doorway, parking lot, and safety.  In my car, the haunting eyes were watery, weary, confused, and ashamed.

Yet buried deep in his soul, a spark of dignity.

Sitting in my car, I heard the words, “You go to Africa, you are going to China, yet you walk by a soul in your own town?”

I began to line up my excuses.  I’m in a hurry; my husband is waiting, and I don’t have time. Is it safe?  He is probably a druggie.

“There is no excuse…go back.”

And so I returned, walking up to him, I said, “I’m sorry I walked by you. Will you forgive me?”  

Ignoring my feeble apology, he said, “I just need some money for food, Ma’am,” not speaking of forgiveness.

“May I take you to breakfast, sir?” 

“I’d like that, he replied.”

And that is how we ended up at the fast food restaurant across the street; me, an elderly white woman, and he, a well-used black man somewhere shy of 65 years old.

Walking up to the counter to place our order, we were met with an icy stare and a visible backing off as if to put distance between the clean and the unclean.

By this time, I knew the Roamer’s name was Ricky; an interesting coincidence that my son-in-law, who died at 63, was also named Ricky.

“Order what you’d like, Ricky,” and he did; a sausage, egg & cheese biscuit, hash browns, and a large coffee with five creams and five sugars.

After taking our orders, the employee leaned over the counter and, in a stage whisper, said, “Would you mind if I put this in a to-go box? We don’t like ‘his kind’ in the restaurant.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do mind. Ricky is my guest, and we will be dining together. Please add a $5.00 gift card to the order.”

Shocked? Yes.  Until I remembered my reaction was no different when I walked by him in the grocery store, the chasm deep protecting the distance between us.

Waiting for the order, I asked him how he happened to be homeless.  He told me sadly that his wife died two years ago, and his world fell apart.  Truth?  Who knows?  It doesn’t matter.

“Feed my lambs.”

Ricky didn’t eat his breakfast; putting the gift card in a worn wallet, he neatly wrapped his breakfast in a napkin and put it in his duffle.  He said he might be hungrier later.

But that is not the end of the story. 

 Sometimes serving has more to do with the attitude of the heart than with a specific task.  

Zoe Pearson, the Learner

I drove home feeling both profoundly sad and warmly satisfied.  When I opened my front door, my husband called out, “Just in time, I am taking the quiches out of the oven right now.”  I had forgotten that he said he would bake a couple of small quiches while I went to the store, and we’d have breakfast together.

“Oh, Chuck, I’ve already eaten. I forgot.”   

“What?”

And then I told him the story of Ricky, the Wanderer, and the five creams and five sugars.

Never a scowl, never a hint of retribution or anger. “You did the right thing, Zoe,”  my husband said.  “You listened to what God was asking you to do.”

That day I learned that sometimes serving is about making it easy for others to act on God’s voice.

Zoe Pearson, the Learner

About Here & Now

An Invitation to Pause, Encounter & Grow Together.

Here & Now is published by Selah Center weekly. We invite you to subscribe to this blog if you enjoy this post. You’ll receive a notification by email each time a new post occurs.

Here & Now welcomes new writers–contact the Editor, Debora Buerk, at deborabuerk@icloud.com.

New Year’s

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Revelation 21:1-6a

A Word of Intention

By Mary Pandiani
Executive Director
Selah Center

To start the new year, we read this scripture with anticipation and a promise. The “home of God is with His people” where God’s presence resides with us, no matter what the circumstances. We have the unending flow of God’s fountain, like the original baptismal waters that came from a river, always renewing, always originating from the source of life. 

In early church baptisms, a stream ran through the church so the waters were never stagnant. Similarly, as we start this new year we begin again, finding restoration in the living waters that come from the One who makes all things new. 

One way to be intentional about the new year is to explore what a “word” might be for the entire year. 

Rather than proclaiming a New Year’s resolution that may last for six weeks at the most, listen for the invitation by God for the choice of a word. Listening proves to be more life-giving and honest than assigning some goal or need for accomplishment. It’s a way to explore the intention to have for this beginning again. The discovery of the word becomes more about the integration of being and doing than just the doing. 

The process usually starts with dedicating some time to ask these questions: 

  1. What seems to be resonating with my soul right now? 
  2. What are ways I’ve seen God at work as the last year comes to a close and a new year begins? 
  3. What images/pictures come to mind and heart as I take time in quiet to be present to God? 

Sometimes it comes through scripture or a poem, or a conversation. Over time, usually a week or more, a pattern emerges that brings some confirmation. It cannot be forced. I wait for as long as I need to wait. One year the word didn’t appear until late March. If I’m honest, there are years where the word sticks and other years where it was helpful but not necessarily profound. If I keep the word prominent in some form, whether in a journal or an artistic expression, I use it as a lens to see the year—a way to stay awake to the ways God is present. 

While there’s no formula for the process, it begins with the question:

What is the longing God is revealing to me for this year? 

As we say in Selah, if all we can bring is desire, that is enough. Perhaps your “word” begins with expressing the desire to have an intention given by God. Remain open and receptive to what may unfold for you.

With whatever word you have for this new year, may you discover the ways God is with you as you continue to come alive and awake to the journey God has set before you.

Advent Day 26

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Parousia

By Christopher Ball
part of the Selah Community

parousia
to wait
with patience
in hope
by faith
in the return
of the One
who is
and was
and is to come

is to look beyond
our toil
and pain
throbbing with anticipatory,
nervous restlessness
aching emptiness
and frigid darkness
vibrating with primordial Spirit
the essence of our very being
woven together tenderly
with delight

Advent Day 24

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Surprise Party

By Sandy Shipman
Selah Companion

I understand the waiting of Advent, the wanting, the waning hope. Aching for justice, mercy, and love while experiencing division, judgment, and hate. We pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” like the Jews of Mary’s time praying for the Messiah. We pray and wait for the powerful and mighty to save us. Who would have thought that God would deliver the Messiah not from the mountaintop but from inside a human? That was unexpected.

Now, we have this annual practice of the whole church waiting expectantly for Jesus to come from inside Mary during the Advent season. Candles and choirs and scripture readings. But back then, most people didn’t know the Messiah was coming so soon. They had work and oppression and Laws on their mind. They had hope for the Messiah in the same way we do. Perhaps thy kingdom come, someday, later, in the future. But today, we have work to do, battles to fight, and morality to uphold and defend.

Mary was another teenager who got pregnant before marriage. I imagine she was shunned and judged and deemed less than. Few suspected the Spirit had entered her, that Jesus was alive within her. How might the conversations, the interactions have changed if the neighbors had known that God was so near?

I recently created art with a teenage girl, an amazing artist. She was kind, inquisitive, protective, and she made me laugh. She was also a six-year veteran of the juvenile justice system. And pregnant. I imagine she is shunned, judged, and deemed less than. I can hear the neighbors discussing virtue and choices and patterns of behavior. What if we knew the Holy Spirit was living inside her? What if we believed Jesus was alive within her? Would our conversations and interactions change with God so near?

Would we travel great distances and bring the child gifts? Do we?

What if, in all our conversations and interactions, we behaved as if we believed God was alive in each of us? What if we kept the Law and loved one another?

Anyway. I understand the waiting. The wanting. The waning hope.

Let’s surprise everyone with God’s Love delivered once more from inside a human. You. Me. Thy Kingdom Come.

Advent Day 20

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Annunciation

By Wendy Bryant
from the Selah Community

A breath, an opening, constant movement

lungs open, close, pause

another breath, another opening… and another, pause

astounding ministry is offered again and again

when will i consent? to bring to birth

God’s Spirit…suspended…waiting…for my “yes!”

The Annunciation is a painting widely attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1472–1476. Leonardo’s earliest extant major work was completed in Florence while he was an apprentice in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. The painting was made in oil and tempera on a large poplar panel and depicts the Annunciation, a popular biblical subject in 15th-century Florence. Since 1867 it has been housed in the Uffizi in Florence, the city where it was created. Though the work has been criticized for inaccuracies in its composition, it is among the best-known portrayals of the Annunciation in Christian art. Source: Wikipedia

Editor’s Note: Annunciation, also called Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the angel Gabriel’s announcement that she would conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit to be called Jesus (Luke 1:26–38). Debora Buerk, editor

Advent Day 19

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Candle Light

ByBy Lisa Veitenhans,
Selah Companion

The afternoon sun fades shadows to shadows

No electricity to brighten the late day.

Collect the candles.

Strike the matches. 

How feeble they look in the deepening gloom!

Moment by moment the shadows reach their depth and disappear

Branches against the sky no longer seen.

Back toward the house, 

My candles!

Alive in the darkness.

With welcoming warmth, 

Long leaps of light dance against the walls.

What could not be seen in half-light

Came alive in the night.

After the gloomy shadows,

In the pure darkness—

Light! Leaping about laughing.

Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

Advent Day 17

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Wise Men

By Kathleen Heppell
Selah Companion

As men who study the heavens, believing they foretell what will happen on earth, they ask what does the appearance of this Star mean?

Close to journey’s end the Star grows brighter… larger… brilliant in the cloudless night sky. Hot sun rests low on the horizon. We break camp. Efficient. Deliberate. Though the outsider might believe all is chaos. 

Ready, our anticipation growing, we look up to the vastness of the sky filled with stars. We gasp as one. Where is the Star? Despite the multitude of stars, the Star we’ve studied, and followed for these many months is gone!

How can this be? The Star we’ve studied is gone!

How can this be? It has been close to two years since we first saw this new brilliant Star in the western sky, larger than any planet.  As men who study the heavens, believing they foretell what will happen on earth, we asked what does the appearance of this Star mean? 

Searching wisdom literature of many countries, we found in Jewish writings Daniel’s prophecy. This captive from the tribe of Judah, honored by our Babylonian ancestors, prophesied the coming of Messiah.

We, too, believe…

We, too, believe in a Messiah coming to bring the end of time as we know it. Studying these writings, we understand this Star announces the birth of the Jewish Messiah. He will change the world. 

Our hearts quicken with awe and excitement. We must do whatever is necessary to see this Jewish King and Messiah. We will follow the Star to find him to worship and bring gifts to honor him.

We watch for bandits. Dressed as any traveler, nothing indicates our status.

It took much to prepare for this journey: camels to carry food, water, tents, and many men to keep us safe. They lead the animals, set up and take down camp. Traveling in the cooler air of darkness to see the Star, we watch for bandits. Dressed as any traveler, nothing indicates our status or gifts to be given to the Jewish King.

Now, with no Star visible we are confused, discouraged. We have come too far to give up. Entering Jerusalem, we ask the men we pass, Do you know where the King of the Jews has been born? Their faces show shock, fear, and heads turning to see who might have heard our question. No words spoken, heads move from side to side. They almost run from us.

Certainly, the King must have been born here.

We come to the palace. Certainly the King must have been born here.  When we ask the guard, he orders us to enter through the gate. Long is the wait before we meet King Herod. We explain our quest. Treated with great respect, food is set before us. We wait again as he calls for priests and religious leaders. 

The Messiah’s birthplace is Bethlehem.

Finally, in a private room, we learn the Jewish King, Messiah’s birthplace, is Bethlehem. So close! Another night’s journey! King Herod tells us to return and report where the King resides expressing his desire to worship. His face shows no joy. How curious King Herod and the people we met did not know of his birth. Profusely we thank the King for his hospitality and direction.

We depart to the out skirts of Jerusalem to camp, rest, sleep, as we wait with excitement. Tomorrow we will meet this new King! Taking down the camp at sunset, we await the darkness praying for the star’s appearance to locate the exact place in Bethlehem. There… The Star… Such beauty… Dawn’s edges peak over the eastern horizon. Leaving all but a few to set up camp, we walk to a simple home, the star directly overhead.

Holding our breath, we enter a room dimly lit.

Servants take our gifts from sacks, handing them to us. We are at the door. It is open. Holding our breath. Hard to believe we have reached our destination. We enter into a room dimly lit. There is a young woman dressed in peasant clothes, dark hair, questioning eyes, and no fear of us: strangers entering her home.  A child, not yet two, sits quietly on her lap, her son with the same dark hair and eyes. 

Our only thought to bow down. Worship pours from our hearts, out of mouths to the Almighty God. After a pause of reverent silence, we explain how we have come to her door: the Star, the search leading to Daniel’s prophecy, our long journey, and priests at Jerusalem’s palace telling us of Bethlehem. 

Our hearts burst with joy, tears of gratitude flow down our cheeks.

We present our gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh.  This young boy toddles to us smiles, touches us, curious…  We smile, reach out to him, our hearts bursting with joy, tears of gratitude flow down our cheeks.

We depart before the village awakes. Returning quickly to our camp, we wonder if sleep will come. Awakening, we share what we have dreamed. We all had the same dream! We are not to return to Jerusalem or Herod. Departing as quickly as possible, we take another route not equipped to face battle with palace guards, be taken captive, or required to tell Herod where the child lives. Boundless joy in our hearts mingles with foreboding. Herod intends evil.

Boundless joy in our hearts mingles with foreboding. 

Long will be our journey home. Our hearts lightened and filled with unshakeable hope. God, who we have known as Mystery, has spent thousands of years preparing for this day and the days to come. We will wait and watch filled with awe and reverence; he will bring his plan to fruition for the Jewish people and the world!

We will wait and watch filled with awe and reverence.

Photo by Jonathan Meyer on Unsplash