Givens Creative

Life at the intersection of faith, nature, history and art

Today's Word

Today’s Word: Present

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Bound in your sacrifice. SJG photo

I can still remember my early school days, sitting in straight, neat rows at Herzog Elementary in north St. Louis and learning to raise my hand and say, “present” when my name was called. I think this is how we begin to learn who we are in the presence of others. “I am here,” we say, “I can speak for myself.”

There are not many Bible stories more frightening and disconcerting than the story of Abraham and Isaac. To recap: God calls (what does that actually mean?) Abraham and asks him to take his only son off into the wilderness and there sacrifice him on an altar to show God how much he loves him. It’s an abhorrent idea to us, of course, that God would ask such a thing, and it’s all the more horrific as we read the story and see in our mind’s eye the journey. Isaac himself bears the wood for the fire, and we hold our collective breath as Abraham unsheathes his knife and prepares to kill his son. He pulls up short, we know, as God tells him to put his knife away, but what does this all mean? Whether this is a historic retelling of an actual event, a story about our obedience and faithfulness to God or a literary foretelling of the sacrifice and death of Jesus, there’s truth and spiritual guidance to be found within the well-known story, however disturbing.

I am struck by the near-silence of Abraham. He says very little and who can blame him, but what he does say is important. For three times within the story (Genesis 22:1-19) he replies with the same words:

“Here I am,” he says to God, just before God gives him the instructions for the sacrifice. “Here I am,” he says to Isaac, when his son calls out to him on the journey. “Here I am,” he says again to God, just as he raises his knife. “Here I am” can be dangerous words, for they imply our presence, our willingness to listen and respond. “Here I am” are words of prayer and obedience:

Here I am, waiting to respond to your call. Tell me where you want me to go.
Here I am, give me wisdom and courage to make the right choices and turns.
Here I am, take my life, my will, my liberty, my memory, my understanding.
Here I am, give me the opportunities, people and experiences you want me to have.
Here I am, show me what it is I need to sacrifice.
Here I am, keep me open to hearing your voice.
Here I am, but please don’t give me more than I can handle with your grace.
Here I am, I want to do your will.
Here I am, send me.

Ask yourself in silence: When am I willing to say, “Here I am,” and when am I more likely to sit on my hands and pretend I’m not present? When have I ever ignored the call of God?

Today’s Word: Balance

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Perfectly balanced Sedona sunset. SJG photo

In a life full of discernment and daily choices — very often involving life or death whether we realize it or not — how do we position ourselves to best make those decisions so they are both in line with God’s will and beneficial for our lives and the lives of those around us?  The answer, St. Ignatius of Loyola tells us in his spiritual exercises, is balance.

That kind of balance requires a steady and sturdy fulcrum. For Christian believers, this solid, centering rock is our Triune — loving, healing and forgiving — God.  This balance and reliance on God demands that we not set our own values and demand that God fall in line with them but, rather, that we hold our lives in balance before all the things we have to choose from — many of them seemingly equally good — allowing God to gently nudge us in one direction or the other. Everything we do, every choice we make and every experience we receive, is a chance to reflect to the world a little of what we have received from God as he leads and directs our lives. How we approach our days, how we respond to difficulties and tough choices, speaks God’s name and professes God’s perfect love. Perfect balance.

Ask yourself in silence: On what is my life centered and balanced? When does my life feel off kilter?

Today’s Word: Fog

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The fog begins to clear on Rice Lake. SJG photo

I woke up yesterday morning on Rice Lake near Whitewater, Wisconsin. Just down the hill from the house I knew there was a beautiful lake with a handful of tiny islands dotting the distant shore. I knew the trees on that far side offered a mosaic of greens, yellows, reds and oranges. I knew fish were jumping and that ducks and geese were still coming and going, slowly making their way south. But I knew all those things from memory and faith in the unseen, for a white veil of fog had fallen in the early morning on the world outside the window and I couldn’t see a thing.

My view from the window yesterday is an apt metaphor for our lives of faith, for “we walk by faith and not by sight” as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians (5:7). How often — perhaps especially when we’re facing difficulties, stress or sickness — do we feel as if we’re cautiously and haltingly trudging through life blinded by a fog of unknowing? There’s no way to go it alone, no way to safely wander and explore, knowing that we might take a tumble down a nearby hill or off a waiting cliff. Our lives of faith don’t call for foolish bravado; they call for childlike trust, holding the hand of the one who calls us by name and leads us into the fog, who knows every nook and cranny of our lives like the back of his hand.

Ask yourself in silence: When was the last time you felt you were walking in a fog? Could you find God’s hand in the midst of the mist?

Today I ask for special prayers for reader Dotty Z’s husband, Joe, who is suffering in multiple ways right now, including cancer and heart disease. God knows who and where he is, so tonight offer up a prayer for peace and healing. Dotty writes: “If someone out there would just say one little prayer, God will walk us through the tough days ahead. We are praying there will be something to help his weak heart. The tests — echo and stress —were not good but I pray there is enough left to have stints or meds to strengthen the muscle.  Stay well and let’s all pray for each other every day…”

Today’s Word: Poetic

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Looking Jesus in the Eye. SJG photo.

“The Church must be a poetic community,” theologian Walter Brueggemann once wrote, meaning — in my mind anyway — that if we are going to reach the people around us with the Gospel, we’re going to have to move beyond the standard rhetoric and capture their imaginations through our creativity, poetry, music, and art. We must be able to offer more them more than dogma and argument. We must be able to show and tell them who Jesus is in new and creative ways, following the lead of Jesus himself, who taught most effectively not with shouts of indignation but rather with simple parables and gentle acts of hospitality and healing. Jesus taught by feeding people and by looking them in the eye when he spoke. In the Beatitudes, he reached them by giving them a beautifully poetic list of ways they could live more blessed lives. Like a good rabbi, Jesus taught using the power of story.

Jesus can be hard to see and find in our busy, self-centered world. So it’s the job of the Church — that’s us — to prayerfully, gently and clearly bring him into the light of day in the midst of darkness. By telling his story in new ways and by relating the stories of our own lives and the movement of God in them, we stand as poetic, creative witnesses to the life of Christ, professing a loving, forgiving God who is Immanuel, who is “God with us,” who is the Incarnate, living, creative and creating Word.

Ask yourself in silence: How can I tell the story of Jesus in a fresh, creative, artistic way? How can I make Jesus and his good news understandable and attractive to someone who desperately needs to hear the story?

Today’s Word: Purpose

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Purposefully made. Creve Coeur Park, St. Louis. SJG photo

It is perhaps the question that thoughtful, discerning, reflective people most often ask themselves and God: Why am I here? For what purpose was I created? Like the world and all within it  — which God created not once but, rather, continually creates — we were fashioned by the hand and mind of God and continue to be reshaped and repurposed by the events and people that enter our lives. We are molded again and again into the men and women that we are right now…right now…right now. The molding and shaping never ceases; we are never the same person we were the day before. But to what purpose, we ask? Why the change, the evolution? To what end?

God wants us fully human and fully alive, never lukewarm. And so God plants a passion and a call deep within us, an original seed of purpose and foundation that lies dormant until we discover it, cultivate it, bring it fruition. This is our life’s work. Only through a life of introspection — of faith and prayer — do we sense this purpose and respond with lives in service of others and in worship of the One who made us.

Ask yourself in silence: What is my foundation and purpose? From what passion and call does my life flow?

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