So, I love Johnny Depp. Such a beautiful man. I never should have watched Secret Window while I was home alone. I guess that I knew that…but thought, “oh, it will be okay…” Nope. Freaked me out. But I locked all the doors, kept the IM up and running and had the cell phone next to me.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen this particular plot twist used before. Therefore, I had figured it out way before the end. Which is too bad. But still Johnny Depp…so no problem in watching it.
Wow. How bad is this? I was in a pretty punchy mood, so parts of it were really funny. But really, Elf, not so funny. People told me that it would be good – and I love Jon Favreau. He’s great. Oh, well. All part of the Netflix deal.
Well, my Lent was spent reading – but it was scattered between many books. The Round-table Pulpit by John S. McClure. Great book. Being an extrovert, I really need to talk about stuff to process through things. Sermons are no exceptions. I have to read and think and process and talk and process and write. Therefore, I want to have discussions about possible sermon topics and the things that come up. McClure talks about a very specific process for writing sermons. I’m not sure if I’ll ever use his way to do it, but it was a helpful tool to read about and think about.
Happy Easter to everyone!
Friday and Saturday I traveled to Michigan to deliver my dad’s new computer. About a month ago, Laurie and I went shopping and spent bunches of money. A new 17” Samsung monitor and mac mini for dad and a new DVD/VCR for me. We also fed a bunch of different people that weekend which meant lots of food for game nights and a trip to Target.
I’ve been holding the info because my dad reads my blog and I couldn’t figure out how to cover for $1500 in 2 days without admitting to a new computer…
So, for his Easter/birthday/whatever present, I set up his new computer and introduced him to life with his first ever brand-new machine! (Others have been used.) Now, we just need to get him DSL or a cable modem and life will be way high-tech!
I traveled to New Orleans last weekend. Well, a little further than that. But it was a great trip. Very nice to go somewhere warm and eat REALLY GOOD food and see great people. I flew into New Orleans and saw Georgia (thanks to her for a place to sleep!). I ate crawfish and other great seafood. And of course beignets!
I went to see some IMAX movies. It has been too long. I saw “Volcanoes of the Deep Sea” which is actually the second time that I saw it. It made more sense the second time around, but really not so much. I was really unhappy with how poorly it was edited. It had great information but all in the wrong order. It was too bad. Interesting information but not in an understandable order. I also saw “Under the Sea in 3D” which is a good flick. Very nice to just sit and watch cool animals swim around.
I got to see Bill and Susan which was awesome and then over to see Annie. Great to catch up with all of them. It was just marvelous to get out of town and rest and see something else. Thanks to everyone who gave me housing.
Well, I leave tomorrow for New Orleans. I will not be taking my computer with me. So, you all have fun and I'll see you next week.
On Saturday, I attended the Jazz Ensemble concert at Pick-Staiger. That was great! Wonderful music, great concert. Very glad that I went. It made me miss playing trumpet. Not that I was ever very good – but it was fun while I did it. It then made me wonder where my flute is (correct answer: probably Michigan).
Sunday afternoon, I went to the Evanston Public Library to see Chicago Voice Exchange. I’m not quite sure that the selection list was necessarily appropriate for the “family entertainment” that it was billed as. But I love CVX and have since I saw them in a mall about 10 years ago.
| 5th Sunday in Lent, Year A Canterbury Northwestern March 13, 2005 |
What happens when you pray? We have examples of prayer all over the place – in the Prayer Book, our worship here every week, throughout the Bible – the psalmist today cries, “Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord here my voice!” Jesus teaches the disciples to pray “Our Father, who is in heaven…” We seem to have prayer all around us in our worship and in describing what Christians do, but we don’t always talk about the outcome or results.
Praying is a tricky business. It can be powerful stuff; amazing things happen when we pray. Things change – we become closer to God and feel an inner peace. We feel God’s love working through us to impact the people around us in good ways. When we’ve prayed for someone else, we may have seen their lives changed.
Prayer is our communication with God. God calls out to us in sometimes quiet and subtle ways. Taking time to pray is how we can hear that quiet call and practice responding to God in our lives. Prayer is thanking God for our lives and our gifts, asking forgiveness for things that we have done wrong, intercessing for ourselves and others.
One of the things that we pray for is healing – sometimes a physical injury or sickness, sometimes for an emotional release, sometimes for a spiritual affliction. After the Prayers of the People, you will have an opportunity to come forward for prayers and anointing. It is important to name those things for which we would like healing – to make our desires known – as God already knows them. In coming forward, you will name your desires for God. It is an opportunity to draw closer to God in a different way than regular prayer. It is the time to ask for what you want in healed your mind, body, or soul.
Because prayer is powerful, through anointing you mean feel relief from your suffering. But like other forms of prayer, God’s response may not be in the form that we request or imagine. But God has promised to always respond with light and love. We don’t always get what we ask for when and how we ask for it. I know that it’s not always easy to hear God’s response to our particular thoughts and prayers.
I’m guessing that you have asked for something that God didn’t grant in your time or expected way. Sometimes, it seems like nothing happens when we pray.
I’m pretty darn blind. Without my glasses, I can’t see clearly more than a couple of inches. Not more than several years ago, I remember praying and praying for a miracle. I prayed that I would wake up one morning and see without the glasses. I knew the stories – Jesus healing the lame, restoring sight to the blind, raising the dead. I knew that it could be done…so why not for me? In Matthew, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive” (Matt 21:22). So, why do I still wear glasses?
Why doesn’t God answer our prayers as we have asked? Praying is an act whereby we should be working toward understanding God’s will for the world. Our view is much more narrow than God’s. When we put our agendas and schedules on God and it doesn’t work out like we had planned, then we might get angry or depressed. If we step away from God, we walk in darkness, encompassed in our own pain and anger. We feel frustrated and unheard because we think that God didn’t respond.
There are things that we will not know in our earthly life. We may never know why some of our prayers aren’t “answered”. We may think that it was a perfectly legitimate request. It is a difficult question that I cannot answer, but I just know that I believe that God wants good things for me and will provide them. I simply need to look around and be grateful for the many blessings in my life – even when they do not look like I thought that they would. It is our job as community to walk with each other in pain and suffering, helping people see God working in the world and showering us with blessings.
In reflection, we can sometimes see why our prayers weren’t answered. We see that we have been led down a path that leads us closer and closer to God, but we couldn’t see that from the distance. We can see that it was God’s will that something else happen and that our prayers could not be answered in the way that we thought that they should. Prayer is about coming to know God’s will better in our lives so that we may start to understand how we should be in the world. Every time we gather we pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” It is in response to our prayers that we hear God’s will in our lives.
The consistent message of the Bible is that God is always with us. Our faith trusts that God hears our pleas and responds to us in love. God’s consistency is promised and God walks with us through joys and sorrows, pain and illness, and times of good health and prosperity. So, even in those times that we feel in the dark, God is very near – just waiting for us to recognize God’s presence. And when we call to God to come to us, our darkness is filled with light and love.
As we come forward today, we recognize that Jesus is the light and that we want to draw closer to that light. We can strive to walk with Jesus as well as we can. Pain and suffering – along with health and joy are all part of the human experience. By coming forward, we can surrender ourselves to God so that we may fully embody our humanity. We can ask for the Holy Spirit to empower us to do our work in the world and to know God’s love.
By being open to God working in and through us, we can recognize and name that work. In sickness and in health, we are called to proclaim God’s glory in the world. How is God working through you? It might be by healing you or walking with you in suffering or connecting with you in a very special way through an illness. God does not cause our pain or suffering, but there are points where God can reach us in a special way. If you are laying sick in bed, you might find yourself praying more than you would bustling about a normal busy day. God can come closer to you and be with you in a way that you had not known before.
I offer prayers of healing, but do not promise that the exact thing that you ask for will be given. I offer prayers of healing so that you may come before God with an open heart and soul and mind to God working through you. That by coming up and honestly presenting yourself to God, you will see the light of Christ. I pray that you will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim God’s love to the world.
I had the opportunity to see Michigan State men play in the Big Ten Tournament yesterday. So, we lost. But, thanks to Milner and Paul who made the opportunity possible. While I was there, it made me realize that I don’t think that I ever went to a game while I was at State.
Luckily, the women came through for us…
Another odd movie to add to the list. Tape is all about Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard in a hotel room. Gotta love the high school reunion. Interesting as far as interactions. But I’m sure Phil would pick on the movie for being another Linklater talking movie (or movie that just involves talking). Yes, talking. But cute men talking. So, fun and worth the watch – but talking and artsy.
So – I’ve gotten to the sermon that I’ve been dreading. I need some help.
2 questions:
1. If a person gets laying on of hands for healing and doesn’t get well, what does that say? If we pray for healing of illness, and it doesn’t happen, does that mean that God doesn’t listen? Or that we didn’t pray hard enough? (what are we asking for in "healing" - and of course we're told to "pray unceasingly" but what if someone does and it still doesn't "fix the problem" in his/her eyes?)
2. so, then we if think about being 'whole in body, mind, and spirit'... if we pray for wholeness – can one be whole and still human? Not perfect – just whole. what is wholeness? can we be "ill" and still "whole"?
I have some thoughts to work with, but would appreciate some help and reflection on this.
I have wanted to see Anniversary Party mainly because of Alan Cumming. But the entire cast is amazing. It was definitely as weird as I thought that it would be. It just looked to be a really bizarre artsy project…and it was. But definitely worth the look at a bunch of neurotic people hanging out together.
So – you might be asking yourself – “why is Heather up at 5:30 am?” I know that I am… not really sure the answer of that. I’ve actually been awake since 4. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday and skipped out early from the party to come home and get some rest. But, for some reason, didn’t sleep that well. Then, when the heater came on, something slammed and I thought that I’d get up and see if anything was wrong. Nope. But that was also the end of bed for me for a while. (Here’s still hoping that I’ll sleep a little more later this morning…)
Since I’m up, I’ll tell you the story of the Museum of Contemporary Art. I went on Friday night for the “First Friday” event. I hadn’t been there before and decided that it was a great opportunity to go down and see the museum and get some free food. I got there pretty early (6:15) and was able to see part of the museum and then join up with a tour. By 8:30, I was ready to go and realized that the group of people in the museum had grown a lot. Now, I expected people to be there, but no one sent me the memo to let me know that this was THE place to be on first Friday nights. I didn’t wear the right swanky clothes and I definitely wasn’t drinking enough.
Now, the Planetarium also does a “First Friday” night event. However, it seems to be such a different crowd… hmmm… (No, I’m not really shocked – but I was incredibly amused to watch the people on Friday. Definitely worth the price of admission to see the exhibits, get the tour, and observe a culture so different than my own.)
The Gene Siskel Film Center is playing a bunch of the Oscar Nominated Shorts. Shane and I went last night. It was fabulous. I won’t go through all of them. You can get the complete list at the website listed above.
I know that “Ryan” won, but haven’t even bothered to see if the other ones that I saw won or not. “7:35 in the morning” should definitely be winning something – because it was hilarious! All of them were really darn good. Though “Wasp” was just whacked – and awful. And “Rex” was just a little too much testosterone for war times.
Tuesday, Shane and I went and ate sushi for lunch and then saw Being Julia. The sushi was great. The movie was amazing. At the end, I just thought, “That was good.” On further reflection it was just “Wow. That was good.” It was a great story line, great characters, everything held together well. I’m not sure that I can explain all of the great aspects. Just flowed really well throughout the whole thing.
Great discussions can follow regarding identity and claiming power. Julia is an older woman who must decide what it is that she wants in life and claim her power in order to proclaim it.