permission pending from Marc Appleton

1. How do you find yourself personally addressed as you meditate on the chapter?

This morning I read, "My god-idol did this. My favorite god-carving commanded this." I have a tendency to make money the ultimate shaper of my summer. Chapter 55 is so refreshing. "If you have no money, come, buy and eat. Wine, milk and honey without money and without cost." Rich nourishment and celebration - independent of economic circumstances. The prophet announces a new bottom line: God’s faithfulness. 

— Marilyn

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!

I like that the text doesn’t point to the reclamation of land, houses, or power for comfort (or the abundant life) but rather turns towards the deeper inward response. It so clearly involves a spiritual invitation. I was struck by a Keating quote recently that spoke of the place of our absolute poverty being where we are met. I feel like a bit of a broken record, but this period of social restrictions during Covid along with working from home often leaves me feeling disconnected and anxious - it reveals my poverty quite clearly, but there are times when the absence is met by presence.  I have a sense that it enables me to be a little saner or present during the day. These times are rare but I’m leaning into the hope that it’s a slow learning towards living a covenantal life more fully with God and others. 

— Verda

I tried to do a Lectio reading of the passage a couple of mornings this week with different translations. I followed these guidelines.

With the Message translation, the phrase that stood out was "everything is free." I realized my mantra is "everything is fair." I don't understand how everything can be free. What about boundaries? What about consequences? The invitation was "listen, come close, I don't think the way you think." It's not free vs fair, but somewhere in the middle. And that middle requires me to stay in touch with God because She's far more creative and wise than I am. 

— Jen

How do I enter this alternate reality of the cypress and myrtle, when I don’t really feel the thorns of my accommodation to culture? 

 “Come and buy”: I am exchanging something of value, but not with the currency of Empire. Nor is it “come and get” -this is not a handout, nor is it about scarcity of provision. Brueggemann writes, “There is a purchase and a price, though not theirs to pay. They bring their poverty to a transaction already completed. The suffering servant is at the centre of this transaction - his is the price, ours the freedom and the bounty."

It echoes the great Exodus from slavery in Egypt, but instead of being freed from slavery, maybe I am being freed from comfort, familiarity, laziness, the accommodations I make to Empire. What really satisfies when I have everything I need? Perhaps the arrival of God’s invisible future in installments of moments of graced vision where my true spiritual hunger and thirst are met. 

How do we purchase something that we can get for free? We pay with our poverty, our emptiness. We exchange our complacency for the wine of the spirit, our dissatisfaction with the bread of God’s promise and covenant faithfulness. We can only bring our nothingness, because that’s all we have, and yet keep on buying because we are actually rich in nothing. The current exchange rate is determined by God’s character, not by the worthiness off what I bring. 

—Eldon

"Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…"

I know this is colorful metaphorical language constructed to encourage listeners the be nurtured by God’s eternal life-giving Spirit, whether prophetic or pastoral, rather than remaining parched, nibbling on our own feeble ideas and misguided desires. But one practice this year I’ve happened upon, which has taken on spiritual-like undertones, takes these words rather literally. Every other day I cycle into Omand’s Creek, park my bike against the same birch tree in the wooded area north of the walking bridge, and sit usually alone beside the gurgling waters. I hear far-off the traffic of Portage Avenue, sometimes walkers on the street opposite past the trees. But generally I feel in retreat in a kind of secret garden in our own neighbourhood. There’s a pair of mallard ducks that live up the stream closer to Portage MB church. There was a frog that lived on the opposite bank, at least for a while. I sit there and gather my thoughts, often writing a paragraph or two of my upcoming homily on my phone. But generally I'm just taking in the nature sights and sounds. Perhaps it’s ‘Original Blessing’ time, but often I feel more calm when I leave after 30-40 minutes than when I come in. I listen to the gurgling stream, hoping to take in some of God’s unconditional love. It’s not like there’s a lack of need - given my own dissonance, indifference, lethargy and emotional roller-coaster going down subjectively.

In the Netflix documentary that Lydia and I just finished - From Stress to Happiness - the wise Buddhist monk suggests a practice that’s very similar to our centering prayer. With one difference. He says, apart from just letting the mental boats go down the river, we need to imagine touchstones of unconditional love we’ve experienced. And then we are to cultivate dwelling in that sense of very personal acceptance. So that we can wean ourselves from external affirmation that’s rampant in our culture. I hope to try that method out in my future visits to the creek. 

— Lyle

God image and abundance.... I'm thirsty and he will provide water. He is not out to withhold. 

The move this month of my florist shop to the new location is on the top of my mind and people have asked me if I am excited and I'm not really yet. I have moments when I have a decision made about a new sign or I feel like I accomplished something by packing up some boxes but I find it hard to trust and let go that's all gonna work out. Well I guess big picture I feel mostly hopeful but small picture I know there's going to be struggles along the way. And I don't really like when things don't go as planned.

So no doubt,  something is going to cost more than we expected, or on a moving day family members are going to hurt themselves or we will get short with each other. Maybe it's just my Enneagram 7 coming out but I have a hard time letting go of wanting a smooth moving experience. 

So when I read "come to me you who are thirsty" my brain wants to feel like that means things will go smoothly. I know this is not the case. In my prayer and meditation, my intention is that I will hold things loosely. And the abundance that I ask for is abundance of joy, gratitude and peace. 

It's a very slippery slope but it switches from hope for those virtues towards anger that problems come up very quickly for me. I guess that ties in with question two and the practices that I keep to bring me back to faith in this good God that wants to provide for me. — Mel

The Isaiah verse that was picked for me at the beginning of our course is this one: “Come, everyone who is thirsty – here is water! Come, you that have no money – buy grain and eat! Come! Buy wine and milk – it will cost you nothing!”

At the beginning I thought I might read my verse every day, reflect on it and carry it with me throughout the course as a Lectio reminder of God’s provision. But oddly, what I found was this sense of distance, a felt aloofness from the words that are clearly meant to evoke. For long stretches of time, I’d even forget that I had the card until I would bump into it, tucked away in a book acting as a convenient place marker. 

Given all the images of abundance I wondered about my lack of enthusiasm. Why was this clear invitation towards flourishing and freedom met with dissonance on my part? On the surface what’s not to love: water that quenches the parched spirit, grain that can be milled for a hearty loaf of sourdough scored with the good news of welcome and served with the wine of celebration and the milk of kindness. Pares nicely with “Come you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” 

 This is the Gospel in a nutshell. It has all the makings of a Jesus moment and his radical take on the Kingdom of God. Jesus, along with Isaiah, was configuring a different kind of economy. Instead of running on the engine of capital, we are told “You are finally debt free”. Welcome to God’s food bank of love and mercy.

So why the resistance? I know I’m dying of thirst and suffer the cravings for a thick slice of Living Bread but maybe there’s something in me that is still hanging onto an old idea of ‘buying power’. Receiving can be hard, especially free stuff. I often assume that there’s strings attached and that I have to save and earn on my own steam to complete the transaction.

It takes some serious honest soul-searching to admit when you’re broke and I think I’ve been pretty blind to how bankrupt I really am. There’s a shame that comes with being a pauper at least in the old welfare state. Asking for a handout is the last thing I want to do. Being needy bursts that bubble of control.

But there’s something about the paradoxical nature of this opening verse which I didn’t see right away. “Come and buy … you who have no money.” It’s like a riddle, a koan, a playful affectionate tease. Kind of like being a kid and playing “Store” where what’s most fun and satisfying is not the ledger books indicating who owes how much and who has enough credit.

Unlike Monopoly, where property war is waged and high stakes competition is calculated over ownership, when we play “Money games" with God, the bottom line is that there is enough for everyone, enough to sustain our daily health as well as enough to experience lavish joy in the company of others. God’s store is always open to everyone who plays by the new rules of justice and righteousness and no one has to go to jail because they didn’t have enough cash stashed away.  

What does it mean to buy without money? Isaiah seems to be saying that this new currency is found in wisdom, in listening and in trusting that God, Creator of all good things, desires to universally distribute what truly satisfies and sustains with the help of all of us.

When we spend our energy, our love and the gifts we’ve been given in God’s kingdom, we are participating in the Jubilee vision where everyone has enough. God holds the purse strings which means I no longer have to pinch my pennies in the spirit of scarcity or suspicion. I would like to read this verse with new eyes. I would like to include myself as a pauper who is penniless but loved. I would like to take to heart Jesus’s merciful and provocative words: 

“Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God ... come to me; come to me, and you will  have life!” 

— Bev

2.  What are the practices that you engage in that help you to "seek the Lord”?

It's been helpful lately to sit myself down in the idea that God is seeking me, and that the practices I engage in help him to find me. Prayer  is always helpful. Centering Prayer is kind of just showing up. Examen prayer helps me connect to gratitude. Prayers for others gets me connected more deeply to the people I'm praying for as well as to God. Working on the website can do this too, which is odd as I work on computers the whole day. But I think it's the contemplative attending to our hopes as they are expressed in our images and presentations and homilies that connects me to the underground stream. Running and cycling and cross-country skiing can also be ways of focusing my questions for God, that I think helps God find me. And walking with other folks (when we can once again) is a way of discovering God in the midst of conversation.

 I think one practice that also nudges towards the bonus question, "what does it mean 'While God can be found'" is journalling. I tend to journal when I'm prompted to, either when I feel out of whack or I've had a dream or some event or movie or book has captured my imagination. I usually kind of dread it, and yet almost inevitably find myself addressed by what I would tentatively say "the depths". I don't mean I'm so deep. It's that more often than not, when I get in touch with hidden motives or desires or values or sorrow, I find God was waiting for me there.  God is in the deep places where I hide even from myself, inviting me into, I guess a mystery. Sometimes journalling helps me get to a resolution about things. But almost always I sense an accompaniment, like Job being addressed from the whirlwind. God doesn't go anywhere at all; it’s me who gets lost. 

— Linda

Lately for my morning quiet time, I’ve begun an online “retreat” called “Turning to the Mystics", with James Finley.  He begins with Thomas Merton. Finley suggests listening to the same recording each day for a week. And at day’s end, I do an examen to see what “threads” have woven through my day. Though sleep can take over, it’s been helpful to hear God’s whispers through these meditations. Here’s a few thoughts that have stayed with me so far:

Before we came to this earth in our human form, we were with God. We have always been with God, and God has “never, never, never, never, never, never not known who we are". God is the Love that loves us so, in all our wayward ways. Merton says that our false self wants to cover its nothingness with experiences, power, honor, knowledge, etc, like bandages. This is exile, and God can’t know this person b/c there’s no substance underneath the bandages. [“Why do you spend your money on what doesn’t satisfy?"] The only person God knows is who we are, hidden in Christ. The only way out of exile is to rely on the Love that loves us in our waywardness.

As I write this out, it strikes me that this is the story of Isaiah. Called out of exile, with the “free meal” of homecoming and abundance always before us. 

I also have appreciated Finley’s definition of contemplative practices being “anything that takes us to the deeper place”. Whether it’s gardening, fishing, sitting at Omand’s Creek, making bread or cards, tending students, reading, biking, making a snack, God can use it all. All I bring to the table is my intention and belief in the “original blessing” that God knows my essential self. I don’t even do intention and belief very well at all. I’m very fickle and prone to waywardness. All I’ve got is this abundant life promised “without price”.  

— Lydia

How do I listen? I am trying to develop a practice of centering prayer although my mind is still far to noisy to receive much.

I am also trying to develop the practice of doing an examen at the end of the day which I procrastinate and often sleep through. There have been a handful of meaningful insights gleaned. I want to continue this practice.

I use this app for the examen and really like the variety.

I also find listening to podcasts helps get me out of my noisy mind. Last Thursday, illustrating the "free" vs. “fair" in my first answer, I was listening to an OnBeing interview with a black man who works with people on death row.  I had just had a frustrating morning with a student who regularly pushes my boundaries. I feel I have already gone out of my way to help him be successful (it's his third repeat of the course). He didn't show up for help when he said that he would and then he lied about it. In my mind, he was on death row. I told him not to bother coming anymore because I needed a break. The podcast mentioned the story of the woman caught in adultery who Jesus freed from being stoned. It was pointed out that the adultery was never denied. She was guilty... But Jesus showed her grace. His goal was life, restoration which stoning could not bring. 

So I argued with God a bit and then agreed to give this student yet another chance. I am so grateful I did! He has been at school every day since and doing well on assignments which has boosted his morale. The tension between us is finally dissipating. Let's see what happens today! I warned him yesterday that it was going to rain today. We both walk to school. I asked if that meant he was going to skip coming because I didn't want to face the rain if he wasn't going to show up (we are supposed to work from home now during Covid restrictions but I got special permission to keep coming to school to work with this student). He chuckled at my feigned threat which was encouraging! 

— Jen

Bonus question: Why does the prophet add "while he may be found" ? Is God going somewhere ? 

My guess is that the prophet added “while he may be found” in verse 6, is that God is not going anywhere. But perhaps he’s getting at the fact that when we experience those liminal times, and God feels closer than usual, we need to sink deep into those ‘waters’, and take long drinks. Because God will feel distant again, and we’ll have to wait in patience (or impatience!). Don’t waste those times of spiritual nurturance, the prophet is saying. At least that’s a guess! 

— Lyle

Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

I found much of this chapter resonating with me in a new way, even though it's a very familiar passage. It's like the prophet is saying, although there's been much turmoil and judgment in my words, this is the final word. My words "shall not return to me empty".  They shall not end with destruction, but with abundant life. 

I find working in the garden at this time of year to be quite meditative. The greens are more varied, and more intense than later in the season and it encourages hope. There is an excitement in watching things growing, and flowers opening. I love perennials and many of them bloom in the spring, bringing bursts of colour after the drab browns and greys left after the snow has melted.  

But with all this new life comes the relentless weeds, and in one spot of the garden I always have some thistles that persist in showing up year after year. After the last rain and during the past few hot days, I haven't been out weeding and it hasn't taken long for them to shoot up. I realize that in the space of a year, if left untended, my garden would be taken over by weeds. 

Is this a clue to what is meant by "seeking the Lord while he may be found"? It's not that God is going anywhere, but it is easy to let cares, worries, bad habits, etc to take precedence, to "take over the garden" in ways that prevent me from seeing God at work. I must admit that I find meditative practices hard to do, and my practical side wants to leave them for "a better time", not realizing that NOW is the time when God may be found. I have found that trying to be present to my surroundings instead of always being lost in my thoughts is a good practice. Also, Tonglen meditation has been helpful when I am worried or stressed, to see myself in company with the rest of broken humanity, and dependent on the lifesaving mercy of God, a God whose final word is life. 

— Penny

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