Dear Faith Family,
Tomorrow officially begins the season of Epiphany. Once again, as we enter once more a new year together, Epiphanytide provides our faith family an opportunity to shine a fresh light on the grace and truth of God with us and God for us, God in us and His light shining through us to neighbor, co-worker, friend, and family.
Being a pastor/teacher, this is a season I get really excited about! For me, some of the most enlightening scriptures have been the stories Jesus tells about life with God, more commonly known as parables of the kingdom. Starting this Sunday, we'll spend the first month of 2022 immersing ourselves in the Kingdom Epiphanies found in some of Jesus' most profound stories told with intent! Each week, expecting to be enlightened, to see with greater clarity and amazement and conviction and application, the nature of the King, His kingdom, and our place within, on earth, in Dallas, as it is in heaven!
As enthused and expectant as I am for our time together in Jesus' parables (which you can jump into with me in the days between Sundays by clicking here!), the glory of Jesus' person and work is that in dozens of ways, each new day on life's road offers us little epiphanies, glimpses of the revelation of the grace and truth of God with us. Yet these epiphanies often rush by like images from a train window.
For a brief time, I worked for an organization in England, and while there, my only modes of transportation were feet and trains. While I enjoyed walking, I loved taking the train! Observing the world through the window of a train is a paradoxical wonder. On the one hand, you are moving so quickly that life seems to be passing like a blur but at the same time, freed from the responsibility of movement, you have these extended and detailed glimpses of life in the world that you'd otherwise miss.
In many ways, this is how you and I traverse our days. Going here and there at such speed that any vision of the landscape we inhabit feels obscured and short-lived. And yet, like passengers on the train, we have both the leisure and the window from which to be enlightened to the wonder all around.
In her poem "Rocky Moutain Railroad, Epiphany," Luci Shaw aptly captures the experience of our daily travel through life in a way I think is most helpful. See if you agree, as we picture ourselves together looking out on the world from the train with...
The steel rails paralleling the river as we penetrate
ranges of pleated slopes and crests -- all too complicated
for capture in a net of words. In this showing, the train window
is a lens for an alternate reality -- the sky lifts and the light forms
shadows of unstudied intricacy. The multiple colors of snow
in the dimpled fresh fall. Boulders like white breasts. Edges
blunted with snow. My open-window mind is too little for
this landscape. I long for each sweep of view to toss off
a sliver, imbed it in my brain so that it will flash
and flash again its unrepeatable views. Inches. Angles.
Niches. Two eagles. A black crow. Skeletal twigs' notched
chalices for snow. Reaches of peak above peak beyond peak
Next to the track the low sun burns the silver birches into
brass candles. And always the flow of the companion river's cord of silk links the valleys together with the probability
of continuing revelation. I mind-freeze for the future this day's worth of disclosure. Through the glass the epiphanies reel me in, absorbed, enlightened.
As we travel through life with Jesus, the question is not if we will experience "continuing revelation...too complicated to capture in a net of words" but how our "too little...open-window" minds can retain even "a sliver" of the "unrepeatable views." The real question is, "how can we live from" such revelations in the ordinary, "draw from them, return to them," letting these little epiphanies shape and (re)shape our lives?
Our faith history has an answer for that: Recollective Prayer. Simply put, recollective prayer is the habit of calling to mind God's presence to us and our presence in Jesus. Historically these regular timed prayers are just short (30 seconds to 1 minute) voicings of what we see when we look out the window of the train. Or, in Luci Shaw's words, recollected prayers are a "mind-freeze for the future this day's worth of disclosure."
Traditionally, recollected prayers take place three times a day and consist of a few moments of letting your soul rest in the truth and grace that you are--in that very moment--in God's Kingdom. For those of us to whom this habit is new or still developing, we suggest that you start by setting three alarms on your phone (for example, 9 am, noon & 3 pm).
When your alarm goes off:
Take a deep breath...
Pray, "Your kingdom has come; your will is being done, here, right now, as it is in heaven."
Then spend a few moments (seconds even) briefly looking over your day and voicing what the Spirit brings to sight.
That’s it! A few moments a few times a day, to be reeled in by the little epiphanies and enlightened to God with us, God for us, God in us.
Praying that 2022 will be a year of clear sight and faithful following. Love you, faith family! God bless.