It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. e. e. cummings

Meditation: Being a teenager is a very challenging time in life. A lot of courage is needed to not give in to peer pressure or just “do what everybody does”. I see my girls experiment with clothing and hair styles that are not “brand” or “popular” to express their individual tastes and their uniqueness. I observe them trying out who they really are. When I hear them speak up and share their own opinion, even though they are in the minority, they need a lot of courage. As adults we might still remember how challenging it was back then. I wonder if this theme of “becoming who we really are” is still very relevant even later in life. I wonder if on our faith journey, we are invited to discover over and over again who we really are. Maybe the journey of “becoming” never ends. Our faith in a God who promises to accompany us and who calls us into fully becoming ourselves can be a source of strength and encouragement for teens and adults alike.

Prayer: Gracious God, You want us to become fully ourselves and grow into the unique gifts you have provided us with. You know our anxieties based on the pressures from society and from within. You know the temptation to adapt, to compete or to become what others expect us to be instead of asking who You have created us to be. You promise to walk with us on this ongoing journey of discovering who we are meant to be. And we are grateful. Amen

Be strong! Be courageous! Do not be afraid of them! For the Lord your God will be with you. He will neither fail you nor forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. Jalaluddin Rumi

Meditation: Yoga has always been a way of relating to one’s body, emotions and spirit that has fascinated me. Today’s quote is by J. Rumi, a world wide known Yoga teacher. If there is one certification I would still like to strive for in the next years, it would be that of a yoga teacher. In the past I never paid attention to my breath, but engaging in Yoga, I came to realize that my breath teaches me a lot. Often I do not realize how I hold my breath whenever I am feeling angry, stressed or anxious, or that I breathe superficially as I am rushing through my day. When I turn inward by breathing deeply, I am becoming calm. I am getting back in touch with myself- my body, my emotions and my spirit. Rumi might be right. How can I decide to change the world when I am not in touch and aware of myself? As I want to make a difference in the world, it is wise to first relate more gently and intimately with myself. That is what both Yoga and prayer help me practice. And although I might not become a Yoga teacher in the end, I am happily dedicated to remain a Yoga student for life.

Prayer: God, giver of breath, provider of healing for our body, mind and spirit. Thank you for the practice of Yoga. Thank you for breathing deeply, for stretching our body and with it reaching deeper into our soul and spirit. You invite us to slow down. You call us to become aware of ourselves. Let us not fall into the temptation of trying to change others or the world instead of first attending to and changing ourselves. Amen

I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, and my spirit ponders. Psalm 77:6

 

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. Carl Rogers

Meditation: When we realize that we relate to others and ourselves in ways that are destructive instead of life-giving, we discover what sin is about. “Sin” based on the Jewish and Christian traditions means “missing the mark”. As an arrow misses the target, so our behavior misses the life promoting and life giving intentions of God. When we realize our “sin”, it is deeply comforting to know that God is patient with us. God knows why we have developed certain behaviors and ways of being. God waits. God is not about punishment, but about wanting us to change those behaviors that are destructive. Sometimes we need to find outside support to be able to change. Sometimes we need to find a deeper inner motivation to change. Sometimes we do not love ourselves enough to change. God knows that. God’s Spirit waits patiently until we are ready to listen to the unimaginable. Namely that God’s love and acceptance of us is real. God accepts us while we still “sin”, which means while we still “miss the mark” many, many times. Taking in God’s love can be a life changing, grace filled and liberating experience. It empowers us to first be able to accept ourselves – just as we are- and then also become able to make life-giving changes.

Prayer: Loving God, You know us. You know how we have become the person we are today. You know our shortcomings and also our shortfalls. You know when we miss the mark and You know why. Your intention for us is to become able to change and find healing and fullness of life. And we are grateful. Amen

God is not slow about keeping His promise as some people think. He is waiting for you. God does not want any person to be punished forever. He wants all people to be sorry for their sins and turn from them. 2. Peter 3:9

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell

Meditation: I remember in my twenties, I was worried that my life would end up in one certain way. I started obsessing about this, as if life would only offer me one single path to take. I met with a wise person at that time who said to me: “Why don’t you just leave it open? It might go the way you fear most, but life might also become what you wish most.” The thought that my life was not pre-determined, but that it was open, was very freeing to me at the time. I was happy to let go. Last week though I was initially not as happy to let go. The past years I have been dreaming about my daughters’ future. I very much want them to spend one year after High School in Germany to get to know my home culture. They are learning German for the next four years, so it seemed logical to me that they would want to spend time in that country to actually use the language. However, one of my daughters shared with me a few days ago that she wants to move to California right away after High School and go to college there. It suddenly dawned on me that the life I envisioned and planned for her might not be the one that she will choose and that will be awaiting us. I realized that I will need to let go in a new way and accept the life that will be waiting for my daughters.

Prayer: Gracious God, when we narrow our view of the future, You are the one who opens our eyes. You are the One who awaits us from the future. Help me trust that my daughters’ future is just as open as mine was. Let me open my mind and heart to more possibilities than one. Let me respect and listen to my daughters’ hopes and fears. Let me become the wise person who is comfortable keeping the future open. Amen

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you. Roger Ebert

Meditation: I am part of a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program that trains seminary students to become emotional and spiritual care providers. While these students attend seminary, they engage daily in the academic rigor of writing theoretical papers by using first of all their intellect. Therefore, most students enter this new experiential learning journey by trying to keep using mainly their “smarts”. However, what is a virtue in the first context, suddenly becomes a hindrance. Students are surprised when I ask them to initially let go of all theological terms  and academic language.  I invite them to be open to emotionally engage others and to allow very concrete vulnerable human experiences to impact their soul. Then I ask the students to use language that is emotional, spiritual and compassionate in nature to describe these encounters, rather than use language that intellectualizes, judges or analyzes. Hearing these new requirements, the students become intellectually utterly confused. And this is actually a good thing. From here, they  can move forward to get to know and trust their emotions and to discover their inner world, their “soul”. And the most amazing realization will be that learning about their own emotions will teach and guide them in everything they need to learn about providing care for others.

Prayer: God, I pray for all spiritual leaders who either work with congregations or as chaplains offering care to persons experiencing difficult times. You are the healing Spiritual Energy that wants to help us integrate all of who we are: intellect, emotions, body and soul. I pray that all spiritual leaders get the chance to learn about their inner world and not only about their intellectual abilities. I pray that more and more soulful and emotionally healthy spiritual leaders are working in Your name. Amen

Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. 3. John 1:2

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. Paul Tillich

Meditation: Sometimes Christianity is being misunderstood or misrepresented as a moral system of expectations for us to strive for “holiness” or “perfection”. The notion of “sinfulness” is being used to make people work hard as if they were able to avoid their human weaknesses.  Preachers at times create the illusion that we can and have to make ourselves “acceptable” in God’s eyes, if we just try hard enough. What a misleading message! Jesus embodied the love of God that embraces, accepts and forgives. The message that we “are accepted in spite of being unacceptable” is at the core of Jesus’s message, including our sins, transgressions, short comings and even our misled self-righteousness. If we truly believe in the love of God that Jesus embodied, our “courage to be” will become our liberated way of living boldly. Martin Luther called this way of living “to sin boldly”.

Prayer: God, help us face our imperfections and our shadows. Let us not fall for the human illusion of perfection. Help us to embrace our imperfections and have compassion for our own and others’ limitations and mistakes. You give us joy and courage to live boldly. By You accepting us fully and us joining You in Your compassionate ways, we overcome our feelings of shame and of guilt. And we are grateful. Amen

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrew 4:16

 

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. Anais Nin

Meditation: Last week when I visited Germany, I met my Kindergarten friend who I have known for 47 years. We spent two days together. It felt like a significant part of my story coming back to me. It was very healing to be with my friend. Both of us have become therapists. Both of us are married to therapists. Both of us have teenage children. My friend has a close relationship with my mother and sees her even more often than I am able to. I still remember my friend’s father vividly who just died. Currently my friend is going through health challenges. There was a bond between us beyond words. Our emotional connection, our friendship that lied somewhat dormant was resurrected. When I left, it felt like my friend’s current reality became a new world inside of me. I feel different. Her challenges have become part of my emotional world. I am honored and grateful to have a friend who lives in my heart.

Prayer: God of love and friendship, time and space are no hindrance for You. Your love transcends all obstacles. Thank You for the time my friend and I had. It was short in human terms, but it was all we needed to be reconnected again. I pray for my friend’s health. Restore her in all ways possible. Give her strength for each single day and night. Surround her with love and with friends who can be physically more present than I am able to. Thank You for the power of friendship that outlasts time and that overcomes obstacles. Amen

Friends mean well, even when they hurt you. But when an enemy puts his arm around your shoulder—watch out! (Proverbs 27:6)

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Maya Angelou

Meditation: When my children were young, they thought their parents could change everything and make everything better. It is human to wish this. Often we project the same “almighty” capability onto God. We wish God would just come and make everything better, as if there were no vulnerabilities and limitations in nature and in us humans. As we mature, we need to grieve and accept that neither our parents nor God are “almighty”. However, as we grow up, and as we develop a more mature relationship with God, we learn that we ourselves can change and improve certain things. We also discover that sometimes, changing things is not possible nor the goal. However, sometimes the “mighty task” is accepting the things we cannot change and embracing difficult life challenges that we initially rejected. Parents and God are not “deus ex machina”=“wish machines” that fulfill our every desire, but supporters of maturation and empowering agents of change. And sometimes this change can be external. Yet often it is all about internal change.

Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.  Amen Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a (wo)man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.1. Corinthians 13:12-13

The intention and outcome of vulnerability is trust, intimacy and connection. The outcome of oversharing is distrust, disconnection – and usually a little judgment. Brene Brown

Meditation: Our Western culture is going through a phase of oversharing personal information. In the past, personal things were often not shared at all based on the motto: “What happens in the family, stays in the family.” Today’s youth shares everything – from what they eat or drink to what they wear each day. However, this personal sharing often does not result in greater connection. The current young generation sometimes ends up disillusioned and more disconnected than before. Cruel comments or “no likes” make teenagers worry and wonder about what others did with the personal information they shared. It is important that our youth experiences and learns about true vulnerability, about trust and real connection. Intimacy happens not through texting or through social media. True vulnerability requires the full presence of human beings with each other. I hope that young and old(er) will re-discover and learn more about true vulnerability. And this intimate and healing space is located right in the middle between hiding and oversharing.

Prayer: Spirit of the living God, You are empowering us to engage in vulnerability as the experience of trusting and connecting. Many of us are seeking a way out of isolation, out of hiding. And yet, we often make the mistake of going to the extreme opposite. We share too much. We share randomly. We overshare. Teach us all, young and old(er), how to be truly present with each other. Let us seek and find safe spaces, in which we can allow to share with each other our weaknesses and our vulnerability. Let us experience the power of true intimacy. Amen

I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. 1. Corinthians 2:3-4

To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly. Brené Brown

Meditation: Two relationship values that I am trying to model and teach my daughters are first “being honest” and secondly “being authentic”. This is sometimes not easy as we are living in the Southern culture of the US that often teaches children (especially girls) to develop a certain persona to be more acceptable, likable or more successful. Also little “white lies” are culturally acceptable, as those make life more convenient and relationships “smoother”. “Becoming real” however means loving ourselves too much to hide behind a persona or behind “white lies”. “Becoming real” can be very daring in a culture that prefers the adaptability and advantage of insincerity and “acting” over authenticity and realness. I do not mind being a “counter cultural” mother in this area. I delight when my daughters speak their minds, stand up for what they believe in and refuse to “act” a certain way, only because it is expected. Becoming real, being honest and unashamed of one’s true self is the “greatest single act of daring”.

Prayer: God of courage, You empower us to be true to ourselves. You call us out of certain cultural norms when they become oppressive or harmful to our development and freedom. And we are grateful. Amen

But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. 1. Timothy 1:5