Seasons of Trust

I spoke at church on Sunday about 'Seasons of Trust' and what it might mean to "trust in God at all times". My thesis was that as life shakes us, trust has to take on different forms and faces at different stages of our lives and for different challenges, and that this means letting go of old or incomplete ways of trusting in God, and growing into new ways. Below is a poem/reflection on the seasons of trust that I wrote some time ago, and which I read out on Sunday morning. I hope you enjoy it. And here is a link to the podcast of my talk: Seasons of Trust podcast

“Trust in the Lord at all times, O people… at all times.

Trust in the Lord at all times.”

Trust in God when such trust is first born in you as a gift from above.

Trust in God when trust is joy.

Trust in God when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is worthy of all trust.

Trust in God when trust is stretched and grown and deepened.

Trust in God when trust comes as easily as breathing.

Trust in God when you have no choice but to trust.

Trust in God when your trust in others has been betrayed.

Trust in God when you do not trust yourself.

Trust in God when the world does not seem to contain or deserve any trust.

Trust in God when trust is too big a risk.

Trust in God when trust feels like dying.

Trust in God when you haven’t trusted for a long time.

Trust in God when you’ve forgotten what trust is like.

Trust in God when trust does not come naturally to you.

Trust in God when even God does not seem trustworthy.

Trust in God when trust feels impossible.

Trust in God when you can’t and when you desperately wish you could.

Trust in God when you see no need for trust.

Trust in God when you feel no need for God.

Trust in God when trust seems like a childish regression.

Trust in God when trust seems simplistic, or preposterous, or dangerous.

Trust in God when everything in you seems to say that this is not what you need.

Trust in God when you distrust, even despise, your urge to trust.

Trust in God when trust changes – when it does not feel like the trust you have known

Trust in God when God changes and is no longer the God you have known.

Trust in God when this means trusting in yourself.

Trust in God when this means trusting in another.

Trust in God when this means simply trusting the air you breathe.

Trust in God when trust is to get up each morning and live the day.

Trust in God when it feels you are putting your trust in a wish dream.

Trust in God when you do not know who God is.

Trust in God when you do not know if God is.

Trust in God when all trust is gone.

Trust in God when God is gone.

Trust in God in the darkness of uncertainty.

Trust in God in the desert of doubt.

Trust in God through the night of loss and fragmentation.

Trust in God till the dawn appears, till the clouds part, till the first drop of rain falls.

Trust in God who is the dawn, the day, the rain, the water that sustains.

Trust in God… for trust is fragile, but God is the air you breathe.

“…Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” (Psalm 62:8)

November 2008; St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada.

Breaking out of Boxes

Long time no blog!
It's funny how there are seasons for blogging, and seasons to refrain from blogging... Yes, a time for everything, and everything in its time. I assume that, for me, this low-blog season reflects the fact that most of my creative energy during term time goes into my life and work at St. Stephen's University - my teaching, my relationships, my marking, my faculty responsibilities, my research for future courses... Sometimes I wonder if this means that I am in fact really LIVING now, and only THINKING about living when I blog a lot. Or whether I am living an unreflected life now! :-) But then I decide it's just different ways of living. Different seasons. I do think this time with lots of action and not so much writing is good for me, but it's almost as if the values and choices I'm living out in this time spring in part from the reflection of the summer season.

Some recent creative energy also went into another talk at church just this Sunday. For the first time in many years, Jeremy and I 'tag-teamed', which was fun. You'll find the podcast of our joint talk - with lots of personal story-telling thrown in - HERE, entitled 'Breaking out of Boxes'. I enjoyed talking and sharing about this, because ideas around identity, how we construct it, how it affects how we act and relate, and how God might be involved in it all are very important to me. Also ideas of deconstruction of previous faith-informed worldviews, and the raw, vulnerable place this leaves you in - but one full of possibility! In some ways I guess this message is what Jeremy and I have been living for the last few years... If you take a listen, I hope you enjoy it, and I just wish you had actually been THERE to smile at or hug or chat to!!

Ants and Butterflies

As promised and in case anyone's interested, here is a link to the podcast of a talk I just did at our church - the St Croix Vineyard - on Sunday, entitled 'An Ant's Tale'. It's based on a retelling and expansion of my post on here called 'Go to the Ant' some weeks back. The talk turned out to be longer than I thought it would be :-) so perhaps even better to listen to online (where it can be paused or stopped!) than live!

Talking of talking at church, a few weeks ago my husband Jeremy showed an incredible 20 minute film called The Butterfly Circus, and then he and anyone else who felt like it shared what they saw in the film, what it meant to them... Both the film and the reflections are worth a watch/listen.