Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 31

Write self-affirmations daily for a week (I am kind, I am loved...etc.) 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 28

Go to the Eastridge Presbyterian Facebook or YouTube page for a reading of Babbit and Joan, a Bunny and a Phone by Denise Turu.
 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 27

Palliative care physician Kathryn Mannix once told a story about exploring emotions, one layer at a time. She would gently ask, "What's underneath that sadness?" and let the answer reveal itself.

If you're feeling off, maybe just take a moment to check in with yourself. You don't have to have all the answers - sometimes just noticing what's there is enough. Be curious, not critical, and let things unfold at their own pace.

(From Kate Bowler's Lenten devotional.)

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 26

Create a phone jail or parking lot for your phone.

Place your phone in the jail or parking lot during meals, time spent with others, or while watching tv so you can focus.

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 25

Practice scriptorium: Write Psalm 40: 5-10 

Centering Prayer: tonight at 6:00 pm

 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 21

Gratitude Prayer based on Psalm 136:  

Thank you, God - for being good!

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

Thank you, God! You're the God of all gods 

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

Thank you, God! You're the Lord of all Lords.

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

Thank you, God-for being the only one who makes great wonders.

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

Thank you, God-for making the skies with skill

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

Thank you, God-for shaping the earth on the water

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

Thank you, God-for providing food for all living things

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

Thank you, God! You're the God of heaven

God always loves! Your love will never stop!

 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 20

Watch "The life cycle of a t-shirt" click here to view

Consider how you might reuse, recycle, or repurpose your unwanted clothing.

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 19: An excerpt from the Holy Walk

 

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

 

Holy Walk: The Sycamore Tree

 

Luke 19:1-4 Zacchaeus the Tax Collector 

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.  A man was there by the name of  Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.  He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

 

The Sycamore's Whisper

The sycamore stands, a weathered soul,
Its bark, a canvas, stories told.
Through storms it bends, yet stands so tall,
A silent guardian, answering nature's call.

Its roots run deep, a network vast,
Holding secrets from the ages past.
The sunbeams dance upon its leaves,
A symphony the wind weaves.

Each scar a mark of battles won,
A testament to life begun.
It sheds its leaves, a gentle sigh,
Then bursts anew, reaching for the sky.

A haven for creatures, big and small,
It watches over, standing tall.
The sycamore whispers, soft and low,
Of nature's rhythm, ebb and flow.

(This reading was a portion of the Holy Walk practice on Monday, March 17. More to be shared later.) 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 18

Pay extra attention to the hygiene items you use today.

Donate these or similar items to the Food Pantry. 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 17

Watch "Living in a Van"    click here for link

Then, spend a few moments thinking about what it would be like to live in a van or tiny house by choice.

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 14

Listen to the Everything Happens podcast with Kate Bowler and Father Richard Rohr. It can be found on most podcast platforms and here. 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 13

Seek out and listen to someone NLM (Not Like Me). 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 12

 

Kate Bowler writes, I keep a sign on my desk that says, "stay angry," which I find both hilarious and very helpful. Anger lets us know when a boundary has been crossed. Anger responds to injustice and to grief, telling us the world is not as it should be. Perhaps anger isn't negative, it's just information that tells us that something is not right and maybe it is time to act. So, if you're like me and you need a little anger, then how about this for encouragement: stay angry, my friends.

Wanna join? Join us at the church at 6:30 pm to literally bust some things up.

From Kate Bowler, The Hardest Part: Lent 2025 devotional, page 60.

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 11

Read Matthew 5-7, The Sermon on the Mount. 

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 10

 

Pick a person you don't particularly care for and pray for them daily for a week.

Global Day of Unplugging

Join the Global Day of Unplugging:

Author Anne Lamott writes, "Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you."

Take a sabbath from electronic devices from sundown March 7 - March 8. 

Go to:

www.globaldayofunplugging.org for more information and ideas

Fully Alive Spiritual Practice for March 6

Choose one of these things to GIVE UP today:

Sweets and treats

Arguing

TV 

Video games

Complaining

Choose one of these things to FILL UP today:

Memorize: 1 Corinthians 10:31

Read, or have someone read with you: Colossians 3: 12-17

Read, or have someone read with you: Psalm 100

Write or draw a prayer to God: What can you thank God for?

Pray: Praise God!

© 2022 Growing Faith Resources.
Follow Me Curriculum, Spiritual Disciplines:
Multiage Children, Session 1.
Permission to photocopy is granted
to purchasers of this material.

Ash Wednesday

Many people in the Bible, including Jesus, fasted. They model how abstaining from food can delete distractions while deepening our acknowledgement of and dependence on God. Choosing to fast from something other than food can similarly offer us a path to connecting to God's presence and guidance in our lives. 

Ask these questions: 

What am I fasting from or giving up?

How long is the fast?

What is the purpose of the fast?

What will I do instead during the fast?

Today, join the fast by going without food for a period of time - an hour, an afternoon, or all day.

UPDATE ON WORSHIP: Check out the Facebook page for Zoom info. No in-person service.

© 2022 Growing Faith Resources.

Follow Me Curriculum, Spiritual Disciplines:

Young Children, Session 1 and Multiage Children, Session 1.

Permission to photocopy is granted

to purchasers of this material.

The Power of Song

“Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing!”  Psalm 100:1-2

“Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”  Ephesians 5:19

When scanning new artwork in Churchart, a company we use to provide photos and clipart, my eyes fell on the drawing below. I couldn’t help but start singing the tune in my head, something I’m certain many of you do when you hear a title or a phrase from a favorite or well-known song or hymn. Whether it’s considered an “earworm” or just a happy sing-along song, we may hum or sing the tune.

If you’ve grown up in church, you’re probably no different from me in that certain songs flood you with emotion. They take us back in time. They make us sad, or happy. They make us nostalgic. Most music has the capacity to do this, but when we hear a hymn that means something special, God may feature in that appreciation.

When I asked some of the members of my bible study to share what spiritual music/hymns/church music means to them, here are some of the responses I received:

•         Soothing, relaxing, calming anxiety, helps clear my head.
•       I love how a song or melody will stick in my head. Often when I need it most, the Holy Spirit will use it to bring to mind a scripture or encouraging thought from Sunday throughout my week. (I.e. the refrain of Here I am Lord stuck with me this week!) Ps. 98:4 "...burst into jubilant song with music...'
•       Music in church is always special no matter how it is presented. I think it has to do with the understood reason for the performance. It is always an attempt to bring the congregants closer to the Divine. When I as the listener participate in that way, I often feel that closeness. The Spirit can move in the music through raw beauty, or by raising memories of cherished people and times, or by making me happy by a beat or a children's performance. It is much the same if I participate as a performer. To work on a piece with others in order to balance the sounds of the sections and accompaniment and to move into that part that is especially your contribution to the whole, is a lasting kind of joy. To share that with my people in church does bring me closer to the Divine.

Gospel music and hymns remind me of my mother. She and her two sisters often performed together, and Because He Lives is one song that the three of them would sing together. It’s one of those songs that makes me nostalgic and whose lyrics comfort me at the same time.  

God sent His son, they called Him, Jesus;

He came to love, heal and forgive;

He lived and died to buy my pardon,

An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!

 

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,

Because He lives, all fear is gone,

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living,

Just because He lives!

 

How sweet to hold a newborn baby,

And feel the pride and joy he brings;

But greater still the calm assurance:

This child can face uncertain days because He Lives!

 

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,

Because He lives, all fear is gone;

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living,

Just because He lives!

 

And then one day, I'll cross the river,

I'll fight life's final war with pain;

And then, as death gives way to victory,

I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives!

 

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,

Because He lives, all fear is gone;

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living,

Just because He lives! 

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for the gift of song, of music, of lyrics that draw us closer to you and others. Amen.

Donna Gustafson

Poetry in the Bible

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Philippians 4:8 

I recently heard that 95% of the Bible is poetry. A definition of poetry is literature that evokes a concentrated awareness of experience or a specific emotion response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, or rhythm. There are six books of the Bible that are considered poetry: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Lamentations. Besides these books, poetry appears throughout the Bible. In Bible poetry it is common for 2 or more lines to share the same thought with the second line building up or intensifying the first. Philippians quoted above seems to fit this description.  

Some Bible poetry compares and contrasts such as Romans 28: 38-39. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  

 An example of the use of words and their repetition to create an emotional response is John 1:1-5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  

A similar poetry example with the use of words is I Corinthians 13: 4-7. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does no insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

Why is there poetry in the Bible? It certainly makes the text more interesting, more creative, and more connected with the reader. In a time when many people could not read, it is easier to memorize and remember the main thought. The poetry sends strong messages about God and Christ that stimulates our emotional responses with warmth and comfort.   

Prayer: Heavenly Father, as we read both the old and new testaments, help us pay attention to the poetry representing God's creativity in communicating his love for us. Amen 

Nancy Hall