What's up with "being"?

The idea of "being" is based heavily on Brother Lawrence's, The Practice of the Presence of God (Download your own copy here). Being in God's presence is my breath. Your life, and my life, will be in stark contrast to one another.  If we aren't careful, we believe the lie that we should finish our check lists, race through scheduling, and run an efficient life so that at the end of the day, we can worship God.  Instead, I choose to purposefully live in the truth that living is breathing worship, a relationship with the God who is now-here. 

Brother Lawrence's fourth conversation brings such to light:

"He told me that all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything which does not lead us to God in order that we may accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him, with freedom and in simplicity. 

"That we need only to recognize God intimately present with us, and to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us; offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done. 

"That in this conversation with God we are also employed in praising, adoring, and loving Him unceasingly, for His infinite goodness and perfection... That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing for God's sake which commonly we do for our own...

"That the most excellent method he had found of going to God was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing man (Galatians 1:10; Ephesians 6:5) and, (as far as we are capable) purely for the love of God."

Living in the Now: Keeping Lent

Lenten fasting is the ultimate practice of creating space for being: deliberately making room to be with the God Who is very now-here. This is a season of being in relationship with God, rather than crossing the fine line of sacrificing a guilty pleasure to learn more about God.

My 98-year old wise mentor said we would all have our hands full for the season of Lent if we truly practiced Sabbath keeping. "Why is everyone so afraid of rest?," she asked. She's totally right.

This challenge was set before our congregation:

This Lenten season, let's consider abstaining from a source of comfort that would be a substitute for God. Let's also consider taking up the discipline of moving toward one another in community.

Both sound pretty uncomfortable. And relevant. This is my Lent to learn to blurt my opinion less often, and hear more quickly. To ask better questions of my neighbors, to make space to hear God's answers.  Practice dying to self, and to hear God's heart.

Living in the Now: Present Patriarchs

All of history is unified in one moment: Christ's resurrection. Depicted in this icon is Christ, bridging a living way, embracing Solomon and David, Adam and Eve, and Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah. In a way, a reading of these testimonies is a proper introduction, as ancient and present meet in a single moment ("....so he takes Abraham and ourselves by the hand and introduces us to each other..."). God's Word is living and breathing, and ancient patriarchal testimony points to the centrality and present-ness of Christ:

The Bible is not a human record from the distant past, full of a mixture of inspiring and not-so-inspiring stories or thoughts; nor is it a sort of magical oracle, dictated by God. It is rather the utterances and records of human beings who have been employed by God to witness to his action in the world, now given to us by God so that we may learn who he is and what he does; and the 'giving' by God is by means of the resurrection of Jesus. The risen Jesus takes hold of the history of God's people from its remotest beginnings, lifts it out of death by bringing it to completeness, and presents it to us as his word, his communication to us here and now. Because we live in the power of the risen Christ, we can hear and understand this history, since it is made contemporary with us; in the risen Christ, David and Solomon, Abraham and Moses, stand in the middle of our assembly, our present community, speaking to us about the God who spoke with them in their lifetimes in such a way that we can see how their encounter with God leads towards and is complete in Jesus. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus speaks of Abraham being glad to see his coming (John 8:56) this is the thought that the icon presents. Just as Jesus introduces Adam and Eve as he takes each of them by the hand, so he takes Abraham and ourselves by the hand and introduces us to each other. And from Abraham we learn something decisive about faith, about looking to an unseen nature and about trusting that the the unseen future has the face of Christ. Thus a proper Christian reading of the Bible is always a reading that looks and listens for that wholeness given by Christ's resurrection; if we try to read any passage without being aware of the light of the resurrection, we shall read inadequately.

Excerpt from:

The Dwelling of the Light, Rowan Williams