Weekend 3 for 3: Worship God, Love People, Enjoy Beauty, the prepositions in quarantine edition
A curated list of what I've been up to lately plus work from other creators and cultivators who are helping us worship God, love people, and enjoy beauty.
First, a few photos from the past two weeks
I’ve been walking more and can’t stop thanking God for placing us in this neighborhood before quarantine. I don’t ever want to take for granted the beauty of the place we live and the privilege we hold to have access to a larger horizon a couple blocks away from our front door. I try to smile at my neighbors with my eyes across six feet over my mask and under my hood. We’re living in a time of prepositions - across, between, over, under, around and through. Within and without we are navigating space and time in new ways. If we’ll have eyes to see into the hiddenness of things, we find beauty smiling back at us. Let’s keep our eyes open, friends.
Now for some of what I’ve been working on the past few weeks.
Third Sunday in Eastertide: The Meal We Could Not Make (public post)
Fourth Sunday in Eastertide: Good Shepherd (public post)
Each Sunday in Eastertide I’ll share a free Daybook devotional post at the Patreon page for everyone to enjoy. To receive notifications for the free public posts, click "follow" at the bottom of the profile page.
I’m soooo close to reaching my goal of 50 patrons in order to publish my first e-book. I need 9 more patrons to reach my goal. Will you join us?
The Gift of Spiritual Direction in Liminal Moments with Tamara Hill Murphy
What a privilege to spend some time in conversation with Bishop Todd Hunter and podcast host Erik Willits for their the third episode of the special series “Missional Leadership in a Time of Uncertainty” on their Intersection Podcast.
Here’s the show description: In this third episode of the “Missional Leadership in a Time of Uncertainty” series, Bishop Todd Hunter and host Erik Willits talk to spiritual director Tamara Hill Murphy about the gift of spiritual direction in liminal moments. Tamara shares why it’s important for leaders to receive spiritual direction in these uncertain times, some of the false beliefs the pandemic exposes about ourselves and God, and questions to help leaders process what they’re experiencing.
For show notes and past episodes, please visit teloscollective.com/blog
Practice Resurrection Guidebook
I’ve been delighted to collaborate with Brian and our church’s children’s ministry director Amy Willers in creating a guidebook to lead our congregation through Eastertide 2020 and you’re welcome to join us! We've heard from folks that this year especially feels more difficult to enter into practices of celebration and we wanted to help encourage each other to worship, celebrate, wonder, explore, and create in simple acts accessible to all ages.
You can use the guidebook digitally ) or download it for free from the home page of our church’s website: https://apostlesct.org/ Weeks 1 and 2 are available now and we’ll be updating the guidebook each Sunday throughout Eastertide. Please let me know if you’re following along or tag a photo on social media - #practiceresurrection2020 or #ChurchoftheApostlesCT
Some of the online truth, goodness, and beauty, I’ve enjoyed this week.
In addition to the podcast episode I mentioned above, I recommend Soul Care: Peace for Caregivers in Troubled Times from Bishop Todd Hunter
For leaders and caregivers of any profession—pastors, chaplains, therapists, doctors, nurses, parents and more—the challenges of adapting and shifting to the Coronavirus pandemic, and caring for people who are confused and fearful, can be exhausting. If you’re suffering from compassion fatigue and service fatigue, if you’ve been getting through the last few weeks on sheer adrenaline—and it’s starting to wear off—join Bishop Todd for a half hour on Wednesdays through the month of May.
Rogationtide: The Wendell Berry Days of the Church Year by Amanda McGill via North American Anglican
Love this post from Amanda McGill of The Homely Hours and may finally lean into these mysterious days on the church calendar:
“The Rogation Days will arrive as my small vegetable garden begins to look nice. I’ll be digging around in my raised beds, feeling like Wendell Berry may be modestly pleased with me and wondering if he knows about the Rogation Days (because I imagine he would approve).
A few years back, since it was not obvious to me what the Rogation Days were about from the name, I started mentally subtitling them “The Wendell Berry Days.” Now Rogationtide is tangled up in my mind with quotes about the importance of agriculture and of preserving (seemingly) anachronistic traditions tied to the order of the world.”
Have you seen these? Worship leaders from various denominations within a geographical region collaborate to create a “virtual choir” video using the worship song, “The Blessing”, by Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes. Brian and I can’t stop listening and watching. I think there’s something about the various denominations facing outward toward their cities and countries to sing the ancient Aaronic blessing over their neighbors. Beautiful.
Here’s three of our favorite versions:
The Blessing South Africa (sung in both English and Xhosa)
The Pittsburgh Blessing, Virtual Church Choir
'We Have A Driver’s Heart': New York City Bus Operators On Work And Loss During COVID-19 by Tyrone Hampton and Frank de Jesus via StoryCorps
So much about the dignity of work captured in this 2+-minute audio recording. God bless all those with driver’s hearts right now!
We Need to Stop Trying to Replicate the Life We Had: Attempting to translate your old social habits to Zoom or FaceTime is like going vegetarian and proceeding to glumly eat a diet of just tofurkey by Ashley Fetters via The Atlantic
I completely resonate with the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue but reject the premise that seems to be the unspoken conclusion in the zeitgeist - that we should feel embarrassed for engaging the platform as often as needed right now. I appreciate the question this author invited me to consider instead: “So it seems time to abandon efforts to replicate our old social life in online spaces—and instead adapt our interactions to our new normal. What if, instead, we leaned into the smallness, the slowness, the intimacy? What would our social life look like then?”
Questions To Ask While Waiting from United States of Anxiety podcast via WNYC
in my ideal Zoom-world each participant would be required to answer one of poet Benji Hart’s “45 Questions To Ask While Waiting”. Depending on the day it would be “Does odor or height determine whether the trash should be taken out?” or “If you could punch one person in the face, who would it be?”
Earth Day: Celebrating Fifty Years by Dorothy Little Greco via The Perennial Gen
I enjoyed this devotional reflection on the first Earth Day up until now, a year in which the author is looking at the world through the eyes of astonishing sights emerging from an earth getting a bit of rest from pollution. I highly recommend you click through the links, including my personal favorite, lions lounging in South Africa.
Nature Poetry - An Introductory Reading Guide by C. Christopher Smith via Englewood Review of Books
I love these selections from Chis Smith! Included are twelve essential nature poets whose work we continually read and re-read. Where possible, we’ve also included links to previously posted examples of their work on our website.
Our Planet series on Netflix
Added this to my queue!
Bonus: A few random items that I’ve been enjoying and think you might, too.
Hilarious creatures file: The Lappet Moth Caterpillar via The Kid Should See This
Hilarious son file: Andrew Murphy’s quarantine routine via Do512