earth – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

I’ve been posting every Tuesday over at revgals – and realized that I’m not really posting much here on my OWN blog =) so. I’m going to post my reflections here, and then link from there back over. woot!

I’m doing a series right now on Wesley’s General Rules, or as Reuben Job likes to call them “Three Simple Rules”

Do No Harm
Do Good
Stay in Love With God

Last week, (readings here) do no harm and Paul’s struggle to keep from doing those things that he so doesn’t want to do. I’m mostly going to focus on the last part of the romans passage however… “who will deliver me fom this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord”

I’m going to tie that in with the Matthew scripture. We struggle and we wrestle and on our own spend so much time focusing on all the bad things that we have done and continue to do in our life. And Wesley’s “do no harm” rule seems like this all over again. But we need to be reminded that Christ himself promised he would teach us. “take my yoke upon you and learm from Me, for I am gentle and lwly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.” so stop beating yourself up over not doing the good. walk with me, become my apprentice, cease from doing harm, and lay aside that burden of guilt.

we don’t cease to do harm because it is a law – we do it because we love Christ and want to become more like him… and we will find when we do so that his yoke is easy and his burden is light

This is week two of the series: Do Good and this week’s parable of the sower actually fits really well! (readings here)

I’m going to talk about what we have to do in our lives to become “good soil” – and that is WORK! the soil needs tilled, weeded, watered, cared for, and it doesn’t happen all on its own. While we can sit around and just wait for the holy spirit to plant seeds, if we just sit on the path and don’t take any risks, if we are surrounded by rocks (i’m going to interpret this part as those who are in families/communities where faith isn’t welcome… such as the kids who come to vbs, get all excited, and then go back to homes where their families don’t take them to church), if we let the cares of the world – weeds – crowd out God… then the seed of love will have a harder time being planted.

Wesley wanted his flock to “do good” and by that he meant an active good – caring for people’s bodies and souls and as a part of that, helping one another in the community of faith. Wesley liked to fill his time with such good deeds – not so much to earn God’s love, but because he loved God…

I am trying to tend my new garden… and it takes a lot of work – far more time that I thought it would… just think about how much work it takes to tend our souls!

I tend to not be very observant. I’m just not detail oriented and so I miss the little things (like when brandon shaves and it takes me a few hours to realize it, or potholes in the road). I guess you could say that I’m so obsessed with the forest that I miss the trees (and the underbrush and the bugs and the animals)

Lately, people around me have been sharing how much they experience God out in nature, and while that is sort of true for me, I don’t have monumental experiences in the wood or by a lake or whatever. I experience God much more through other people.

I was floored yesterday when I went for a hike with my friend, Nate. At first, it felt like any nature hike I normally embark upon – my eyes staring at the ground, watching for rocks or roots, glancing up whenever I hear a strange sound.

The path that we were on was incredibly soft and well marked, and gradually I got my confidence up and began to just look all around me. I saw nate touching the trees as he passed and thought to myself- wow – why don’t I do that? why don’t I get so close I can feel the life all around me. I began appreciating the fact that my chacos allowed me to feel the soft dirt and bark between my toes. I began touching leaves.

It soon began to rain. But under that cover of all those trees, it was just amazing. we were slightly wet to be sure – the air probably couldn’t have held any more humidity – but we really weren’t being rained on. And the drumming of thousands of raindrops above us was beautiful.

And then we began to see the deer. Now, I live in a wooded area in Iowa – and so I know all about deer. But I have never seen deer as tame as this or as close as this. We walked for an hour and a half and saw almost 10 adult deer, and at least 6 fawns. And they would be right by the path! we were probably less than 10 feet from some of the fawns who were eating the tender green foliage right by the side of the path.

At one point, we saw a doe and two fawns on the hillside right beside the path and they were gradually coming down the hill, so we stopped. Those two fawns just kept coming slowly, moving their way down towards us (and also probably heading for the lake on the other side of the path). The doe disappeared from sight, and while the fawns kept looking around, they also kept coming. They made an arc to keep their distance but eventually were standing right in front of us on the path. We were crouched on the path, when one of the fawns begins to slowly, cautiously walk towards us. And it only got so close before it began to get a little jittery and turned back. But then the other one had to do the same, and go a bit farther to show its sibling up. I cannot believe how close, how brave, how daring that little fawn was. And all at once it was startled by something and took off sprinting in the other direction.

Walking in the park, with someone who has a deep spiritual affinity with nature, really opened my eyes to everything that was around me. The world was alive all around me and it was okay to walk slowly, stop if necessary, to take it all in. I think that I still, for whatever reason, have more sense of connection with the dirt than with the trees looming above me. I feel like I can get down into the dirt and plant something and watch it grow, rather than touch or look up and see a being that has been there for a hundred years. Maybe that says something about my calling or my experience of nature to this point as a farmer’s daughter. But I didn’t know that the way I know it know. The ground. The roots. They beg for my attention. But i also got to appreciate on this walk the things that they nourish, sustain and support. that that was a beautiful thing.

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