Soul Care 2020

I think 2020 will be a great year for another round of Soul Care. Well, technically we should be doing that all the time but lets put a special emphasis on it this year! A couple of years ago as part of my Faith Art Journaling, I embarked on a year of Soul Care and even though I'm not sure I finished every little thing I planned to do, it was definitely uplifting and inspiring. God calls us to live a life of joy. Yes of course service too and many other things but he does want us to feel joy, to treasure the beauty of the world he created and to inspire ourselves and others.

Last time I used a framework based on the weekly calendar in my planner but this time I am using my Wellness Planner and I will just use the monthly calendar format. All the soul care will be tucked in there with my exercise schedule, weigh-ins (gonna black those out if I take pics, lol), and any other tidbits. BUT.....isnt that how our lives should be? Integrated? Our spiritual life shouldn't be separated from everything else we have going on.  I'll still use monthly and weekly themes though. If you'd like to follow mine that's great but feel free to pick whatever resonates with you. 

January 2020: Anxiety and a Life of Joy

 Jan 6-10:  Week One is Verses and Quotes (This is a change from my old format where I only used Bible Verses)  I wanted to broaden the category not because the Bible doesn't have plenty to say but because I believe God puts in front of us those things we need to hear. 

Jan. 13-17 Week Two is Prayer Write your own, use one you find that seems to fit, sing your prayer or meditate. Pick one prayer for the week or several. Just do it daily. 

Jan 20-24 Week Three is Silence and Solitude. You don't have to do a lot this week. Just find 10-15 minutes of silence and solitude. I think you will find this more challenging than you might imagine. I try to clear my mind and listen to God (silencing my own internal voice is quite a challenge). 

Jan. 27-31 Week Four is Express Your Faith Week. This is open to all manner of expression. Have a conversation of faith with someone, write poetry, draw or paint, use your creative juices to open new pathways to God and your spiritual self.  I find this to be an interesting week, often opening myself up to new ideas or connections that I have never considered before. 

Please join Soul Musings on Facebook to get updates and ideas as we begin Soul Care 2020. 

Soul Musings on Facebook 

Hugs to each of you. Do not give in to anxiety and fear, together we will work through January and find seeds of inspiration and faith on our journey. 

Zen: Practicing the Art of Being

I'm not a zen expert ...not even a little bit but lately, I have been looking for inspirational sayings and started a zen quote of the week. I like the little puzzle of thinking about the saying and deciphering what it is telling me about life.

Everything is as it should be...bad or good. You are just where you need to be right now.

Nothing is perfect nor should it be.

Trust yourself, trust life. 

Hugs to each of you. 

Close to the Star

As the days of December speed by, we draw closer to the star, the symbol guiding us to Christ's birth. On this journey, I am reminded of all the things that distract us, that cause detours and delays in our journey. Things that threaten to overwhelm us or block our path. Not things you might think, like holiday shopping or parties or baking cookies. No not those things. Even though they may pull us at times away from the center of Christmas they can also be joyous occasions of sharing and fellowship.

I'm thinking more of the hard truths of life, the things we have no control over and threaten to capsize that boat that we are afraid to get out of anyway. Things like death, depression, hunger, cruelty, anxiety, and injustice.  Each seeking to rob us on our journey to Christmas. To rob us of the quiet peace, the glorious gift, given to us by the Christ Child.

Do not despair. The journey to Christmas doesn't just happen in December. It doesn't end on January 6th with Epiphany. You don't have to fear you have missed it, that somehow it's passing you by. 

The journey to Christmas is ongoing. We seek the Christ Child, in many ways all our lives. Do not be discouraged. The star is always there for anyone who seeks him, not just during the brisk cold days of December but every day. 

Hugs to each of you as we draw closer to the star. The star shines bright and we will always be guided by it. 

Tentative First Steps

What do you do when you are preparing for a journey? Pack your bags? Buy snacks? Get out the map? All are good places to start. You're leaving home, traveling through unknown locations, and moving closer to your destination. 

But what of the journey to Christmas? When do you take the first tentative steps into advent and how do you travel? Do you follow a map? A set of rituals and customs that you use that both support and comfort you?  There's nothing wrong with that...but this year....this year I'm throwing away the map. It's not a case of being a rebel, more a case of seeing where this journey leads me. That's not to say there won't be some road signs to follow, some items to pack and some resources to use. Each day I will start afresh, without a plan, no maps, no goals, just the open road. I'm a little nervous. Where will this journey lead me this year?

Here's where my tentative first steps of this idea started.  I normally attend the 9:00 church service but I decided I was going to attend the 10:30 service for a change of pace. I also decided that during advent I would take sermon notes to reflect on throughout the week. All this really entails is jotting down any sentences, words, phrases or ideas that resonate with me during the service. 

"Which star are you following?"

This was part of a video talking about the star in the sky that appeared at Jesus birth. It jumped out at me. So often we feel we are going about life as it was meant to be but what if we are following the wrong star?  In that case, our journey to Christmas will not end with us greeting the Christ Child. I jotted that down for further reflection. There were other elements that obviously popped up during the sermon but this was the tentative first step to this crazy, downright wacky idea that my journey to Christmas this year will not be a scripted predetermined path but rather will evolve as the days go by and will last well past Christmas Day itself. I'm going to follow that star and I'm trusting it will take me just where I need to go.

College United Methodist Church is my church home and it will always be my church family but it also popped into my head during the service that perhaps advent is a good time to visit some other churches. Not looking for a new home, just following that star. 

I also picked up this resource provided by our church. Just because I'm going on this map-less journey doesn't mean resources aren't valuable. Sometimes the star isn't in the sky, sometimes it's in a song, or a book or in the whispers of a prayer. 

I invite you to go with me on this wild journey to Christmas, to delve into the possibilities that God provides us with, and to travel through advent with a sense of joy and adventure. 

Hugs to each of you. Find your first steps, tentative or sure! 

September Promises

I've been playing around with different faith journals and ways to stay on track during my faith journey. When I was using my planner set up sometimes I got discouraged or felt guilty because there were days or weeks when I didn't really "keep up". This was self-defeating and served no real purpose. Yet now I have the urge to go back to my planner version of faith art journaling, realizing that even when I don't complete each page it still moves me further along than a more loosely organized journal. I'm itching to start but I just can't bring myself to start a planner in September. I love starting my new planners in January so until then I'll use a makeshift version to get me through the year! 

I also miss the weekly framework I started this adventure with several years ago.

Week One: Prayer Week

Week Two: Bible Week

Week Three: Silence and Solitude

Week Four Express It

Fifth Week: Choice (as applicable)

Lastly, I miss my word or theme of the month. I know...if I miss all of it so much why did I wander away? You know...the novelty of new and the guilt for not producing something on every page. Well, hindsight is 20/20 so not going to dwell on it. 

Here are my monthly themes for the rest of the year. 

September: Promises

October: Lost

November: Found

December: Journey

Hugs to each of you. I am so looking forward to musing with you again here on Soul Musings. As always my hope is that you will find some small thing to encourage you, support you and inspire you here on the blog. 

Doubt and Doers

As much as I consider the "Get Out of The Boat" my motto, I also can relate to Thomas in a big way. Its not a bid deal nor a small deal, it just is what it is.

^"24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus^[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶ A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

²⁸ Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

²⁹ Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed"    John 20: 24-29

For Thomas, seeing was believing and that's a lot like me, I often say, "I'm from the Show-Me State. I'll believe it when I see it."  Now, of course, this is mostly rolled out when I'm not really believing what I'm hearing. And let's be honest, caution in today's world is not a bad thing. But what about on the spiritual level, what about faith and trust in a divine plan. Even that could be doubted...I mean as mere mortals we have no way of knowing or understanding what this divine grand plan is here on earth. 

Lets take a closer look at doubt. Where is it born?  Doubt is never born in the sunshine, in the glorious joy filled moments of living. When we are feeling on top of the world we feel blessed and happy and like all is right with the world. Doubt is born in the darkness, in the despair we feel when our world seems to be collapsing, in grief, in the tired feeling we get when we put one foot in front of the other but never seem to really get anywhere.

Where does doubt dwell?  Sometimes doubt is a fleeting moment. Passing quickly as our intellectual and emotional selves recover from whatever blow we have taken. Yet at other times, doubt moves in, it sets up house in our head, but more dangerously in our hearts. It seeps from our pores, it clings to our skin like sweat on a hot summer day. We breath it in. Few people go through life avoiding things that allow doubt to take up residency. Deaths, divorce, poverty, war, all manner of human experience can cause a "For rent" sign to flash like a neon light in the darkness. 

What feeds doubt?  Doubt can move in and dwell in our daily life but it can't "live with us" long unless we feed it. Doubt feeds on despair, on a loss of faith, lack of hope and a belief that we are alone. There are so many life stories that make it easy for us to understand how this could happen. Bad things happen, things that cut into our soul. 

So where does that leave one?  Drowning in doubt? It brings me to the point in my musing about "doers"  Doers keep putting one foot in front of the other. Not only that,  doers continue to live life "as if". As if at any moment around the next corner, over the next hill, they will discover and answer to their questions, a solution to their problem. Some may feel this is foolish, but is it more beneficial to "give up"? To let doubt set up house in your soul?  

Not only do they don the cloak of "as if" they also take action for themselves and others, be it small or large. They look for the rose among the thorns. They take a small step to work toward feeling better. They unselfishly give to others even while lacking themselves. Giving isn't all material, it can be a smile, a hug, a word of encouragement. By brightening others worlds, they are brightening their own. They continue to allow the light of God to shine into their lives even when the sky they view is dark and ominous. It is a faith that only exists because of their spiritual relationship to God. 

Hugs to each of you. May you evict doubt in your lives and be a doer, finding ways to live joyously in this chaotic world. 

Calling the Sinners

Everyone that's read my "Investigating Jesus" mini series know that John is my favorite gospel. The Jesus portrayed in the words of John is someone I can relate to. His approach to life is just as relevant today as it was when he walked on earth. Today I'm starting another round of "Investigating Jesus"  I've been trying for a while to get back to blogging but life gets in the way but then the point that cascaded through my mind was that saying that was really not exactly true. We all prioritize things in life and not setting aside time to do something that is spirit and soul soothing to me is neglecting an essential part of who I am.

This isn't from John but it's what I want to focus on for this particular post. It is particularly fitting in today's world.

Like all things in this world, at times there is great debate and argument when people refer to Jesus as a rebel. I've done it many times without even realizes that to some it has a negative connotation in some way. Go figure. 

So as I so often do I mused on it over time and I still think of Jesus as a rebel and I love him all the more for it. Jesus refused to be stuck in a stereotypical role, a role of what a spiritual leader was viewed as in his day. 

He refused to follow worldly "rules" that He knew were in conflict with God's. He "hung out" with sinners, he drank water at the well with the Samaritan woman, he healed lepers, he challenged the "established norms" of his day. Why?

"I have not come to call the righteous but the sinners..."   Sometimes to call those sinners we have to be present in their world. Being present in their world doesn't necessarily mean dragging them into our church on a Sunday morning. Honestly, that might come much later. Being present in their world doesn't mean going into a dangerous neighborhood either. What I mean by being present in their world is to suspend judgement of their life and honestly make a serious attempt to see things from their world view. It's hard to step up to people we don't know, to have a conversation with someone that is "different" than we are, to open ourselves to a "life" that is not as we imagine it "should" be. How much it enriches our soul to do so though. 

We need more light in the world and light shines the brightest in the darkness. Fear Not

Hugs, I feel like this was a rambling post but then some of my best reflections start out as vague disjointed thoughts. Be the Light.