Tag Archives: Selfcare

Visual Prayer–Dear God, are you here?

Posted on by

These original photos were taken at Lake Michigan on my iPhone 4 through the instagram app. I tweeted them with words of prayer, and this is how I prayed that day.

I put the slides with words into a PowerPoint slideshow, then turned that into a Quicktime movie and uploaded it to YouTube.

In the slideshow, the words fade in and out with special timings which you don’t see in the movie. It’s a bit choppy here, but gives you a way to watch it without downloading the whole PowerPoint slideshow.

If you *do* want to download it, there are links below to two different sizes. The quality of the slideshows is much better than the YouTube video.

Below, you will find the words to the prayer, which I made up while looking through my camera lens. It’s really much, much better with the photos. They are the center of the prayer.

Visual Prayer by Nanette Sawyer-8MB pptx file

Visual Prayer, by Nanette Sawyer-53 MB pptx file

Dear God, are you here?

I am listening.

The way does not seem straight.

I am worn down by the waves.

I am trying to see the patterns.

Everything changes all the time.

I can’t go back the same way.

Can’t go back.

Some of it looks familiar.

The waters are rising up to my neck.

Come to the aid of your people, Holy One.

Foundations of old have passed away.

The footing is uncertain.

Bit by bit I have been worn away.

From where does my help come?

Never have you forsaken me.

Answer me when I call.

You are my strength, from morning ’til night.

Lead me, O God.

Make a way out of no way.

Listen to your people.

You are our strength and our redeemer.

With you at my side, how can I be afraid?

In and through all things you guide me.

Creation is so big, and we are so small.

But we are inside it.

All of us are.

All of us.

All of us.

You have heard the prayers of your people, O God.

May your steadfast love endure forever.

May your steadfast love endure forever.

May your steadfast love endure forever.

Amen and Amen and Amen.

Irish Soda Bread

Posted on by

I made an amazing Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread for dinner tonight. Wow.

I’m trying to learn to cook and especially to bake gluten-free, so I can avoid spending an arm and a leg every time I want something bready. The banana bread last week was not so good as I blended the bananas up too much in the bread. It didn’t really seem like banana bread at all. As one person said, “So…it’s just more like ‘bread.’” Yeah, that was it.

For the banana bread, I used a recipe off a box, but this time I used my new cook book, Gluten Free on A Shoestring. One big “Yay!” for this cookbook.

Here’s the recipe I used:

3 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 cup sugar {but I used a scant 1/2 cup instead}
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
6 TBSP unsalted butter diced and chilled
2 cups raisins {I used golden raisins}
2 TBSP caraway seeds (optional) {I didn’t use these. Not my favorite!}
1 1/2 cups milk (low-fat is fine, nonfat is not) {I used unsweetened soy milk}
2 tsp white wine vinegar
1 extra-large egg

Mix the dry ingredients well.

Cut in the butter, so it’s like cornmeal texture. (I used my food processor for this, which was  a dream!)

Mix the milk, vinegar, and egg together, then add to dry ingredients. Mix only until the mixture starts coming together. Don’t over mix it.

Bake in a skillet or ceramic pie plate with two-inch high walls, at 325 for 40 minutes, then 325 for 30 more minutes.

Let it cool for 30 minutes in the pan, then turn it out to cool completely. It does cut more cleanly when it’s cool, but it sure tastes good when it’s hot!

(You can find more of my cooking posts over at Nanette’s Kitchen!)

Abundance in a throwaway culture

Posted on by

Sometimes it seems like we have too much abundance in the U.S. I just came home from the store where I saw a box of chocolate covered cherries for $1.50. I bought a sweater for $11.00. It does not feel right, it feels wrong to be able to purchase a brand new article of clothing for such a small percentage of my income. But I did it.

I’m pretty sure it was knitted on a machine, but someone had to run that machine, and with my purchase price being so low, I’m sure the retailer’s purchase price was much lower. Which means the wages earned by the people who actually produced it must be very low. I write this partly to remind myself that it is true. It’s easy to look the other way, to put it out of my mind, to forget it.

I bought the sweater partly in response to a good friend who gently commented on some t-shirts I’ve been wearing which I have owned for 15 years. Yeah, they’re a bit ratty around the collar. I’m not extravagant when it comes to clothing, but I think I can do a better job of caring for myself. It’s a balance, isn’t it? And how do we judge whether we’ve achieved the balance point or not? I know there are better ways to replace my falling-apart t-shirts and my otherwise out-dated clothing.

For Halloween I bought a new pair of jeans at the Thrift Store for $2.50 to be part of my costume. I decided they were pretty good for daily wear also! I feel so much better about the purchase I made at the Thrift Store, than the purchase of the $11.00 brand-spanking-new sweater.

One of my fondest childhood memories of Christmas is from the year my mom did all her Christmas Shopping at the Thrift Store because that was all she could afford. I loved it, because it was such an abundant Christmas! I got so many nice pieces of clothing. And probably some toys, too, but mostly I remember a really great button-down shirt.

Abundance doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. But it does take an investment of time–to make wise purchases, to take care of the things we’ve already got, to recycle, reuse, share. It takes time, and time takes a commitment. So I need to strengthen my commitment.

I want to have an abundance that is solid and basic and responsible. I don’t want an abundance that is based on goods that are inexpensive and easy to throw away because they didn’t really “cost me” anything much. But I know that I am part of a system that creates “abundance” by depriving others of their basic needs.

The things I want, and the things I have, are costing other people much more than they are costing me.

In her book, Graceful Living: Your Faith, Values, and Money in Changing Times, Laura Dunham writes that

Those who view the world as a place of scarcity tend to hoard, not share, what they have, while those who see the earth’s abundance believe there’s enough for everyone and respond generously to the needs of others. (p.7)

Sometimes when I hear people talking about “defending our way of life” here in the United States, I get a sense of this hoarding mentality which doesn’t believe there is enough for everyone.

I actually want to change my way of life, not defend it, so that I can use less, need less, want less. For that, I need friends who are doing the same, and I need a stronger sense of sufficiency. In my next post in this series, I’ll reflect on frugality and simplicity as a means of strengthening a sense of sufficiency. And by sufficiency, I mean it is enough. 

How can I help myself feel that it is enough? How do you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is part of a series reflecting on Laura Dunham’s book, Graceful Living: Your Faith, Values, and Money in Changing Times. Her seven “Graceful Living” concepts are abundance, frugality, simplicity, generosity, sustainability, justice, and Sabbath. If you’re interested in getting a copy of this book, you can email the author directly at lgad@mindspring.com.

Thankful

Posted on by

I am so impressed with this woman. She is making a pie a day for a year – one to give away every day to someone for whom she is thankful. What a wonderful practice. My friend, Adam Walker Cleveland is a pastor at her church and was the lucky recipient of pie #186.

I’m writing this post from the EconoLodge on my way to Tennessee where I will have three days with my family. I’ll be meeting my new nephew, Jennings, for the first time…for which I am so thankful!

I will also cook with my mom, walk in the woods, rock Kailee to sleep, work with my dad in his woodshop, sit in front of the fireplace, talk with my sisters, and visit with several wonderful nieces and nephews.

It is these simple things for which I am most grateful. Relationships, connections, cooking, eating, being in nature. And just being alive. Waking up in the mornings, still breathing.

While I won’t be making a pie every day, I am going to take a few minutes to just sit and think about all the things that I do have, and take a moment to be thankful for all of that. And to share that gratitude with others, I’m just going to show up and be.with. People can feel it when you love them.

What will you do to share your gratitude with the world?

Becoming Bully Proof

Posted on by

Yesterday a good friend of mine was in a car accident (no one was injured), and the driver of the other vehicle leaped out of his car and called her a horrible string of names that can’t be repeated here.

Being in a car accident is a scary thing, for everyone involved. For a moment, you know that you are not in control. Human vulnerability is heightened. You could be injured. You could die. Things around you break. It’s scary.

But how do we respond? How do we respond to our human vulnerability? By attacking others? By flying into a rage? By becoming a bully? Will our bullying protect us from vulnerability?

And how then, do we respond to people who turn against us like bullies? This man became a bully. He attempted to prove his Powerful Nature by dominating my friend, by insulting and demeaning her. It was an act of violence, an act of hostility. It hurt her. It would hurt any of us.

Mahatma Gandhi said that when you feel humiliated by a bully, it’s a natural thing to want to slap them to “vindicate your self-respect.”* But instead of doing that, he suggested that we try to address the feeling of humiliation inside ourselves. He said that we could become “proof” against a bully’s insults. It’s a beautiful British use of the word “proof”–like a rain coat is rain proof, or a brick is fire proof.

I love the idea that we can become bully proof. But I know that it’s a life-long task! Gandhi talked about internalizing a non-violent spirit in order to become “proof” to violence.

I believe that bully-proofing begins with self-awareness of the shame and humiliation that is already inside us, learning to love and forgive ourselves again and again. For me, it has to do with accepting my imperfection and failings, and knowing that I am human and beautiful and beloved, even when I make terrible mistakes.

Usually, my mistakes are not as terrible as I fear, my imperfection is not as horrible as I dread. But that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is extending generous hospitality to myself, even (especially) in the face of hostility directed against me.

Self-awareness and self-acceptance allow me to experience the goodness that is at the core of my being, underneath and before every bad judgement, every mistake, every oversight.

I make mistakes, but mistakes are not who I am. This awareness is the basis for feeling that I am completely capable of growing and changing–that I am valuable and deserve to be treated with respect at ALL times. All of us deserve to be recognized as having inherent worth and dignity.

Let a bully’s insults remain “in the bully’s mouth and not touch you at all,” Gandhi said.*


*You can find these quotes and more discussion of these ideas and related spiritual practices on page 139 in my book, in the chapter on “Hospitality to Enemies: Extending Generosity through Non-Retaliation.” The Gandhi quotes came originally from The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas, page 174. My book is Hospitality-The Sacred Art, published by Skylight Paths Publishing.

Poverty of Heart Means Openness

Posted on by

The reviewer at Publisher’s Weekly described my understanding of hospitality as “capacious.” I had to look that word up! (You can read the full review on the Amazon.com site.)

Capacious means containing or capable of containing a great deal, roomy. Yeah. So, not only my book, but hospitality, too. A roomy heart and life. Capacious!

Priest and author Henri Nouwen (pronounced Now-win) wrote so beautifully about spaciousness of heart during his lifetime. One beautiful image I got from him was the understanding of “poverty of heart” as “openness” of heart. He wrote of this in his book, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. I highly recommend this book.

Nouwen wrote,

A good host not only has to be poor in mind but also poor in heart. When our heart is filled with prejudices, worries, jealousies, there is little room for a stranger…[W]e have to remind ourselves constantly that an inflated heart is just as dangerous as an inflated mind. An inflated heart can make us very intolerant. (pg 106-7)

But how can we let go of these “prejudices, worries, jealousies” and let our hearts relax into openness? First we have to realize that we are carrying these feelings around with us and that requires self- awareness. There are lots of ways we can improve our self-awareness: through meditation practices, through talk therapy, through conversation with friends, through journaling, or any number of spiritual practices. (I write about these and others in detail in my book, along with step by step instructions to try different practices.)

Hospitality involves awareness of the self–what’s really going on inside me–as well as awareness of the other. We have to see others clearly, and not through a haze of preconceived ideas about them.

With poverty of heart we can receive the experiences of others as a gift to us. Their histories can creatively connect with ours, their lives give new meaning to ours, and their God speaks to ours in mutual revelation. (p 107)

So if we can develop the kind of poverty of heart that means uncluttered, then we will have a much greater capacity to welcome others truly. We will have a capacious capacity for hospitality.

It’s All about Relationship

Posted on by

Every once in awhile, someone finds me on facebook to tell me what it was like to read my book. I love that and I’m so grateful that something I’ve created helps people.

Despite having “hospitality” as the title, the book is really about how to become a more loving, whole person.

One reader wrote that she found herself thinking more about relationships of all kinds after reading the book:

Just finished your book/loaned to me several months ago/ sat on the table with the stack of “to read”. Was not at all what I expected!

As the creator of several church “hospitality-outreach” programs… I expected a “How to make your church more inviting” manual.

Now that I have finished, I’m thinking more about me and my relationships, both large and small. Thank you so much for writing this book. I’m sure I will return to it often.

Writing the book helped me a lot, too. I felt like I got a lot more language for ideas that had only been vague ideas before struggling to write the book.

I love to write, but it’s hard to set aside the time! Writing this book was like being in Finals at school for a year, pretty much non-stop. Nevertheless, I do intend to write more books!

One obvious next book would be a Study Guide for Christians to go with my Hospitality-The Sacred Art. Because the book itself is written for a very broad audience, (people of various faiths or no faith), I would like to help Christians, or followers of Jesus if you prefer that language, to ground their practice of hospitality in Biblical scripture and Christian tradition.

Life

Posted on by

I just found out that a dear friend has stage 3 cancer. I don’t even know what that means, except that she had surgery yesterday, and I was told by another friend to pray, pray, pray.(For privacy I am not putting her name, but she doesn’t live in Chicago.)

I used to live with her in a farmhouse in Hatfield, Massachusetts, and it just so happens that another friend, Ani, just emailed me a picture of sunset from her porch tonight in Hatfield, where Ani still lives.

The earth is such a beautiful place, filled with life. And life is impermanent.That is so scary, in part because of all we love and don’t want to lose.

I had a cancer scare myself a couple years ago. It didn’t turn out to be cancer, but it sure generated some serious thought about the nature of my life. Would I change it if I knew I had a very limited time to live? Usually I think I have another 40 or 50 years to live, and a person can get a lot done in 40 to 50 years. That feels so abundant! But what if I don’t have that long?

I want to say this out loud, (or write it down, as it were), that the big fear that rises up in me is that I would lose her, my friend. Of course that is the biggest and first fear. But that may not happen at all. It is entirely possible that she heal from this surgery and from this cancer. I know that many of my readers have also experienced cancer in your own bodies, or in the bodies of your loved ones. So this prayer is also for all of you and all those you love.

I imagine my friend strong and whole and healed, and pray for that, imagining life, and sodzo (healing, salvation, rescue, wholeness), and shalom (peace, well-being, completeness, safety.) This is my prayer.

I am going to do yoga now, and dedicate it to my friend’s sodzo and shalom. I know that we are each part of something so much larger than our-selves. And that large something is the wholeness of God. We cannot escape from it. We are safe in it. Embraced in the sunset pictured here. Embraced in the arms of God.

Meditation to Relieve Anxiety

Posted on by

Recently I wrote up a meditation for someone who has been experiencing a lot of anxiety about her future. I thought it might be helpful for others, so I’m sharing it here!

Here is the idea for a meditation practice you could try:

1. Close your eyes and begin to focus on your breathing. Push all the air out of your lungs and see how that makes space for fresh oxygen to rush into your lungs. Notice that you don’t have to try to breathe, and that if you let yourself breathe out fully, your lungs will naturally fill up more fully too.

Life is like that too. Sometimes if we let go of our ideas about what is best, the next thing will rush in that is best for us.

2. Imagine saying to God, “God, I know you love me.” Can you imagine what God’s love would be like if you visualized it? Would it be like a blanket wrapping around you? Would it be like colored light shining on you? (Like a beautiful sunrise happening inside the room where you are sitting?) Would it be like sinking into a warm bath and having the water envelope you? Like drinking a glass of water when you are very thirsty? Would it be like someone looking deep into your eyes and saying, “I see you. You’re good”– “I love you.” ? Would it be like being held by someone that you trust who tells you “I’m right here. I will never abandon you.” ?

Sometimes we have to spend time entering the experience of love and connection, letting it enter us and touch us deeply.

3. Imagine saying to God, “I love you.” Imagine all the places where God is, and imagine noticing God, loving God, in all those places. In the trees, the wind, the heat. In loved ones, or strangers you see walking by. In beauty, in intensity, in imagination. In Silence, in traffic noise. In the darkness of night, in the stars, the warmth of the sun. In healing touch, in exertion, in rest. I’m sure you can think of many places where God might be present. Can you love God in all these places? This is a practice, which changes over time, when we practice it.

Sometimes sending out love helps love to rise up in us, and we are strengthened and healed in the process.

4. Whenever your mind wanders or you notice yourself playing with anxiety like a cat plays with a ball of yarn, drop the yarn and turn your attention to the wide blue sky of your mind and heart. Drop the ball of yarn. Drop the anxious thoughts, and turn your attention to the persistent nature of your breath. Your breath is steady and when you focus on it, it becomes deeper. Let your very breath comfort you in its steadiness. Let your breath connect with whatever images you have of how God’s love touches you. Let that love enter you through your breath, which enters first through your lungs, and then enters your blood and circulates throughout your entire body.

Our thoughts and our emotions rise and fall, emerge, then pass away. Drop anxiety like a ball of yarn and let yourself be nourished by God’s love, who is closer to you than your breath.

5. Close this time of practice with a prayer of gratitude. List off everything you can think of for which you are grateful: Thank you for people who care for me. Thank you for breakfast. Thank you for blue sky. Thank you for a mind that thinks. Thank you for a heart that beats. Thank you for helping me be patient. Thank you for laughter. Thank you for giving me things to want. Thank you for the process of expanding my understanding. Thank you for questions, which lead me somewhere. Thank you for people with more wisdom than I have. Thank you for people with more trust than I have. Thank you for giving me life one step at a time. Thank you . Thank you. Thank you.

Gratitude for what we have expands us and helps us have a sense of abundance and possibility.

Being the Tides

Posted on by

In June I took a one-week retreat to a little cottage called The Sea Urchin. It’s nestled on the coast of remote Maine where I first encountered the tides in any significant way. I’ve made my peace with the tides by now, but the first summer that I spent a week at the Sea Urchin, I noticed that I watched the tides flow in and out with some anxiety. I wanted to see the tide at high tide and at low tide. It was hard for me to accept the process of the tides, to realize that most of the time they were in transition.

This seemed a wonderful lesson for me! What a metaphor for life. I made it a conscious self-reflective practice to open myself to the large arc of continual movement of the tides. They were no less wonderful when at mid-tide than when they were at high or low tide.

In life I need to accept this flow as well. Life is not about getting to high tide, or getting to low tide. It is about being the ocean, which moves, and changes.

How great it was to step outside the striving pattern of my daily life, to simply be with the changing tides for one full week. I felt that I breathed more oxygen in the first 24 hours of my retreat than I breathed in the last year.

You can see a set of pictures from my retreat here, in my flickr account.