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Prayer of the People, 30 June 2019

July 1, 2019 0 Comments

Heavenly Father,

We rejoice to gather before you and pray. Together with your Son and in the power of your Holy Spirit we cry, “Abba. Father.” 

You have turned our mourning into new song.
You have turned our despair into hope.
You have turned our death into victory.
You have given us a happy dance.
You have set us free.

Hallelujah.

Let freedom ring out in our hearts today. Remind us of the Cross of Jesus for He has become our righteousness. Establish your Kingdom in our lives.

Set us free from twisted pride.
Set us free from the performance trap.
Set us free from willful sins.
Set us free from blinding selfishness.

Only you can set us free from the shame that accuses us. Set us Free O Lord.

We have no one else who has the Words of Life but You! So deliver us from evil. Fortify us with your love so that we are disturbed by that which abuses your dear children.

Come Lord Jesus, Come.

We rejoice today in theses miracles of freedom:
We have lifted up the name of Jesus Christ as Lord.
We have gathered in your name.
We have held your Word and given it away.
We have proclaimed the Gospel freely.
We have spoken out against injustice.

We have received the prophetic word.
We have prayed for your deliverance.
We have announced your forgiveness.
We have freely given your gifts for the common the good.
We have sought the truth and found it.

Oh Lord, such miracles! Help us to treasure them rightly and to go forth in the joy of our salvation and in the power of the Spirit as wise stewards of such freedom. So, we pray again for ourselves and our brothers and sisters among the nations, as Jesus teaches us:

(Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, 
forever. 
Amen.

Prayer

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Doing Anything Worth Doing for the Long Haul

June 26, 2019 0 Comments

I finished reading Michael Foley’s new book, Farming for the Long Haul today. Besides the delight and joy of putting my hands in the soil and serving up the fruit of this labour, I also take the Apostle Paul’s command to Timothy to heart: consider the hard-working farmer. In my own vocation attentiveness to the hard-working farmer has generated some wisdom. Hopefully its wisdom that will keep me in my vocation for the long haul too!

Michael currently farms in California at Green Uprising Farm with his wife and eldest daughter. Besides serving on several farming related boards, he is the cofounder of the School of Adaptive Agriculture and manages his local farmers market.

I offer this lengthy quote from Michael Foley in which wisdom for the long haul nurtures a kind of stewardship that resists the impulse to just move on or to just take what you can from a place:

Exodus resonates in our culture, even today, because much of the settlement of the United States was experienced as an exodus from tyranny, precarious living conditions, or overcrowding. Oscar Handlin’s classic study of European immigrants to the United States draws in broad strokes the situation of peasants in an overcrowded Europe; and the portrait applies to the circumstances of many immigrants. The impulse to simply move on in the face of limited opportunities at home fueled the westward migration of both these and earlier settlers and informed our own culture of mobility.

Exodus may be an alternative to captivity, but it is also an exile. And exiles settle uneasily on the land and often find their former experiences less than helpful with new soil, a new climate, new conditions of production, and new markets. They leave behind their long experience of stewardship, if they enjoyed it at all, and they are too apt to move on again rather than cultivate the soil and the society where they find themselves. They can lend diversity and richness to they places they come to, but it takes years, even generations, to grow the sorts of roots that are required to tend the land well.

As Wendell Berry says, genuine stewardship lies “in the possibility of settled families and local communities, in which the knowledge of proper means and methods, proper moderations and restraints, can be handed down, and so accumulate in place and stay alive; the experience of one generation is not adequate to inform and control its actions.” (“The Making of a Marginal Farm” reprinted in The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry, 2017. p. 45) Thanks to the relentless uprooting that a national economy and education system focused on upward mobility has thrust upon us, and to our own immigrant roots, most Americans are exiles, and those of us who choose to recover the sounder principles of caring for land and community are only slowly learning to be rooted. We should avoid exodus where we can. We will need a culture that rewards and encourages rootedness instead of mobility if we are to assume a role as proper stewards of the land and truly farm for the long haul. But that means that we will need also to cultivate voice as our first and most persistent response to the larger forces that attempt to shape our destiny.

Michael Foley. Farming for the Long Haul, Resilience and the Lost Art of Agricultural Inventiveness. 2019. p. 194-195.

Farming for the Long Haul from Amazon

Career, Relationships, Work

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Prayer of the People, 23 June 2019

June 24, 2019 0 Comments

Prayer of the People

23 June 2019

Heavenly Father,

We enter into your communion, the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
 today by the blood of Jesus poured out at the cross. You have opened the way for us to come before your throne of grace in our time of need.

You are the One who brought the heavens and the earth out of the chaos.
You are the One who saved Hagar from her lonely tears.

You are the One who rescued Israel from Egypt’s oppression. 

You are the One who delivered David from Saul’s jealousy.

You are the One who lifted Jeremiah from the muddy pit.

You are the One who fortified Hosea in the face of unfaithfulness.

You are the One who has made our lives so precious. May your Word prevail in our lives.

We grieve today with the family of retired UBC professor, Peter Winterburn who died Friday in Chile during a robbery. May you comfort and help his family.  

We lift up to you the people of Sudan. Please let your peace prevail. May the violence stop and may the conflicted parties work out a way for good governance in the pursuit of common good.

We acknowledge the mindless ease with which we have benefitted from the domination of others. Across Canada this past week Indigenous peoples celebrated their continued presence among us and have invited us to appreciate aspects of your common grace among them. Help us Lord to listen.

We set before you the city of Athens, Greece and pray that you would bless our friends who are labouring to meet the needs of refugees even when such mercy is unpopular. Strengthen them. Fill them with your Spirit. Give them wisdom. Meet their financial needs and even today fill them with the joy of your salvation.

All truth is your truth O Lord. So we pray Lord Jesus that this place would be a community in pursuit of the truth in all our relationships. Even today Lord, Meet us in the conflicts this interchange creates. You have said Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness and who suffer because of your Name. Fortify us with your love Lord and Let us all be set free by the Truth. 

Join me now in the Lord’s Prayer — 

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, 
forever. 
Amen.

Prayer

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Mindfulness and the who.

June 17, 2019 0 Comments

Chalkboard at UBC, Mindfulness

Ronald Purser is pulling back the curtain on mindfulness; his book will be released in July. I am surrounding by mindfulness talk. This past year, reading Paulo Freire brought me to say to myself, “Mindfulness is not conscientization.” Maybe I should start saying that out loud so we can challenge this thought… so here we go.

In my work with students I find that mindfulness has become the mantra of the academy especially as it relates to student stress. That’s convenient isn’t it? Mindfulness changes the geography of a problem. It allows the university to off-load responsibility from the faculties so they don’t have to change the demands they are putting on students, staff, and even administrations. Instead the student bears the weight of being stressed out. The student bears the weight of not being able to learn fast enough. The student is solely and personally responsible. The student just needs to be trained in how to cope.

It’s a perfect storm. Top ranked universities are supposed to launch top notch students to the world (to the employers waiting on them.) At the same time, there is more to learn; the sheer amount of information and the depth of that information has made for enormous silo’s of specialization in university degrees. And yes, students may be showing up at universities with a lower threshold for some kinds of stress.

I’m all in for a holy pause. However, mindfulness is not helping address the conditions that a student may become aware of when they stop moving. I fear that mindfulness without an ethic for evaluating the world forces coming down on us may indeed be making us sicker. The source of some problems are located outside of us. However, mindfulness as a new technology for health has no authority for identifying oppressive forces.

Is mindfulness conditioning us to be passive?

While there may be some good brought through “mindfulness” maybe it doesn’t go far enough. If mindfulness does bring some pause and some space for restoration, maybe it just centres us in our selves. And here’s the catch: If its always our neighbour’s fault that they are not able to cope, then love for neighbour only means that I have to help them cope. That’s a small view of love isn’t it? I find that so unsatisfying. True love means that I may sometimes need to do something to lift the burden or to address a system that is arrayed against. True love will find a way for mercy to do its work.

Mindfulness as it has been constructed in public discourse creates a vision of society and what it needs. Ronald writes, “Underneath its therapeutic discourse, mindfulness subtly reframes problems as the outcomes of choices. Personal troubles are never attributed to political or socioeconomic conditions, but are always psychological in nature and diagnosed as pathologies. Society therefore needs therapy, not radical change.”

I read this article and feel primed to read Purser’s book when it comes out.

Be mindful of God.

In Vancouver I feel like I’m surrounded by the mindfulness mantra. It’s been a topic of conversation in our household. So here’s what I have been saying, “Be mindful; but be mindful of God.” I’ve been saying this to myself and to my kids while they are growing up in the school system. Be mindful of the God who has been revealed in Jesus Christ. The One who cares. The One who enters into life. The One who has moved into the neighbourhood. The One who is active, challenging, and prophetic toward the powers and principalities arrayed against the glory of God finding its home in people. Be mindful of God so you can live loved. Be mindful of the One who loves you.

The Apostle Paul lives out of this kind of mindfulness and encourages us: Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. (Phillipians 4:5)

See what this kind of mindfulness does?

We are to become a gentle force against that which would destroy people. So, be mindful of God. Being mindful of God unveiled through Jesus Christ fortifies us to love and to pray.

What’s your take on mindfulness?

Change, Education, Work

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Prayer of the People, 16 June 2019

June 17, 2019 0 Comments

Based on Psalm 103:1-6

Heavenly Father we praise you with all our inmost being, we praise Your holy name.

We ask Your Spirit to help us not forget all the benefits You bring to our lives—

  • You forgive all our sins.
  • You heal our diseases.
  • You redeem our lives from the pit.
  • You crown us with love and compassion.
  • You satisfy our desires with good things.
  • You renew our youth like the eagle’s.
  • You are the Lord who works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

We celebrate You and we ask you to help us recalibrate our lives to You.  We wait expectantly to see Your healing – of our hearts, of our bodies, of our relationships, and of the land.

We ask that You redeem us. Please redeem us from sin, mistakes, apathy, depression, and weakness. You can make something beautiful out of us. Give us an awareness of your tangibe love expressed at the Cross of Jesus Christ. Let it flourish at UBC and  spread out into the whole world bringing salvation to many.

Hallelujah! You are the Lord who works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. Today we sing alleluia with the people of Hong Kong who are resisting a power that would limit the gathering of people in your name, the free expression of your good news, and the just treatment of anyone who disagrees with it by bringing the truth to light. Fortify your people with your love for their enemies and with grace to forgive those who transgress against them.

Lord, We lift up those in our congregation who are seeking work. As they persevere through this trial please direct their paths. Increase their faith and give them courage to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness. Open doors for them and even as they wait — show them how to redeem their time and relationships for your glory.

Lord you know us and we trust you. So we pray together for ourselves and your church that has been gathering across the earth this day —

(Please join me in the Lord’s prayer)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, 
forever. 
Amen.

Prepared by Ellen and Craig O’Brien.

Prayer

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