Five Years of Morning Watch

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of morning watch, the morning devotional time that I do for my Florida church and anyone else who wants to tune in.  I started doing it during the early days of the pandemic, when my church was looking for ways to stay connected.  I still went to church on Sunday mornings, where, for a few Sundays, a core group of us gathered to do parts of the service live and stream it to our members at home.

We also brainstormed other things we could do, like a Compline service. I volunteered to do something in the morning. One of the brainstorming group suggested that in addition to some sort of reading, that we have time for something creative.

At first I thought about choosing the readings, and then I thought, why do this? I have Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours; she's done this work for me. I did the readings for the day, took a five-seven minute pause to do meditation, writing, sketching, yoga, whatever gets us grounded for the day. And then we came back for closing prayer, also from The Divine Hours, and I gave some closing thoughts, a benediction of sorts.  I did the first one on March 31, 2020, and I'm still doing it every morning.

The video is short enough that I think I can add it to this blog post.  Here's the very first episode of Morning Watch to air live, on this day in 2020:

It hasn't changed much. I do show the sketch I'm working on; my dad made a comment that he wanted to see what I was working on, so I started holding the sketch close to the camera.

I've continued to do morning watch, and it's interesting to scroll back through a selection of posts that Facebook gave me when I did a search. Here I am with much longer hair. Here I am in a variety of rooms (the house near the beach, the downtown condo, our Lutheridge house, my seminary apartment, vacation/travel destinations). Here I am with Christmas lights in the back, and here I am almost always with construction happening in the background. I won't link to all those posts, as I'm almost sure it's only interesting to me.

This blog post tells a more complete story of the early days. It also contains this link to the first day when I used Phyllis Tickle's work--on March 30, I had technical difficulties, so I didn't post that broadcast. It's gotten 187 views. Later broadcasts get much fewer views. But I hear from people who find it meaningful, so I'll keep doing it.

To be honest, even if I didn't get encouragement, I'd probably still do it. It helps me to stay faithful to this method of formation.

God of Love or God of Vengeance?

Each morning, I do a morning devotional on my Florida church's Facebook page; I call it Morning Watch.  I begin by reading the day's Bible passages from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, we take 5-7 minutes for creativity and/or contemplation, I pray the closing prayer out loud and offer some closing thoughts.  It takes about 10-15 minutes altogether.

I've been doing this activity since the end of March, 2020.  I set it up to begin at 5:30 a.m., and it's live.  At the time I set it up, I envisioned going back to spin class each morning and wanted to figure out how to offer devotional time and still get to spin class.  I didn't realize I would never go to that particular spin class again; although the gym survived the pandemic, the spin class time slot did not.

I have found this morning watch practice very nourishing.  There are 5 people who tune in regularly each week, and others who come and go.  But even if no one tuned in, I would still be willing to do it for me; indeed, I did do a variation of this practice for years, although it wasn't broadcast.  When I first started doing it, back in 2005, there wasn't an easy way to broadcast without better equipment than I had.

This morning, I suggested a resolution for 2024.  What if we behaved like God was our biggest supporter?  What if we moved away from the idea that God is disappointed with us?  Would our behavior change?  Would we feel emboldened?

People who know me know that this approach isn't new to me, meaning both that I am not the first to think about the idea, and I've been working on changing my view of God for years now.  I do think that many of us internalize God as the voice of an angry parent who is always so deeply disappointed in us.  As I read the Bible, I see where people have come to believe that idea, but I think it comes more from some of the letters in the New Testament (or Old Testament passages) than from what Jesus tells us.

Of course, I'm also aware of some of the passages where Jesus seems to tell us of the Creator's disappointment in us all.  I am also aware that I might be wrong about God's deep and abundant love for creation.

But I see more evidence for a Creator that is a deep wellspring of love for creation than I do evidence of a vengeful God.  That's the only Good News I can preach.

Morning Prayer with Psalms and Beads

Yesterday at the Create in Me retreat, I was in charge of the morning devotion time.  We had planned on this, and someone in a planning meeting suggested that we have a devotion time that showed us how to use prayer beads. So on Thursday night, I made the announcement that we would be using prayer beads on Saturday morning, so people should be sure to stop by the prayer bead station; they would need at least 5 beads on Saturday morning.

I decided that we would do something very different than the usual approach to morning devotion at this retreat, which uses song and story.  I felt a bit apprehensive, because it was different, but then I reminded myself that it's only a 15 minute devotion time.

I chose a passage of a Psalm for five different prayer possibilities.  I explained who/what we would be praying for, asked people to choose a bead, read the Psalm, and was silent for 45-90 seconds to give people time to meditate, pray, and/or contemplate.  Here's what we did.

We began by anticipating the day with Psalm 108:  2-4.

We prayed for the larger world with Psalm 19:  1-2.

We prayed for those in leadership of all kinds (state, local, world, Church, work, and the people in the room, most of whom are in leadership positions in our lives) with Psalm 33:  14-17.

We prayed for those who are ill or in trouble of any kind with Psalm 69:  13-17.

We then moved to gratitude with Psalm 31:  7-8.

And then we ended with a Psalm verse to send us on our way into our day exploring the intersections between faith and creativity with Psalm 84:  5.

Several people told me how much they liked and appreciated this approach, and one woman took a screenshot of my notes so that she could have the Psalm passages.

The Spiritual Side of Quilt Camp

I wasn't sure what to expect from quilt camp in terms of the spiritual aspect.  I knew that we'd have devotions each morning, devotions led by our leader who has graduate level training.  Would she tie it into quilting?  Would there be a larger theological theme?

Our leader, Mitzi Spencer Schafer decided to focus on prayer for our theme.  On Thursday morning, we thought about the Lord's Prayer.  Mitzi talked about how many of us see ourselves as the actors in our prayers, but we don't always think about God and the actions that God takes.  We took some time to meditate on what the Lord's Prayer teaches us about the priorities of God.  For more, read Mitzi's blog post here.

On Friday morning, we talked about prayer breathing, and then we went through the process together.  If you'd like to try it, Mitzi's blog post is the next best thing to being here with us.

On Saturday morning, we had a brief session where Mitzi introduced the concept of Mad Libs.  In my child, we used them to create a HILARIOUS piece of writing.  You'd fill in blanks with an adjective or a color or a way of doing a verb or something you'd find at the beach.  Then you'd get the information around the blanks, and if you were lucky, unintended humor ensued.

Mitzi had created a Mad Lib around Psalm 150--if you want to try for yourself, her blog post has a downloadable form.  Mitzi asked us to spend the day thinking about how we'd fill in the blanks and said we'd read them in the evening, if we felt OK with sharing.  Here's what I created:

We had great responses.  I loved how we filled in the blanks with activities we were doing during the retreat, along with larger aspects.  One person wrote "with tired eyes and just one more row."  Laughter showed up on more than one list.  

I loved this process for the reasons that I love poetry--at its best, it was a great way to get us thinking about what we'd been doing and what God has been doing in a new way.

In fact, that was one of the recurring themes of the devotion time, and I can't think of many better ways to spend our reflective time together.

Morning Watch Update

For almost 2 weeks, at 5:30 a.m., I've been livestreaming a morning watch on my church's Facebook page; it's recorded so that people who don't get up as early as I do can watch it later.  When I first started thinking about doing this process, I thought that I would choose the Bible verses.  But then I wondered why--after all, we have a daily lectionary.

So I've been using Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours.  I don't read all the selections, just a few of the verses from the Psalms, the Gospel reading, and the concluding prayer.  I also give time for sketching.

Here's how it usually works:

2-3 readings from Psalms

1 reading from the Gospel

1 reading from Psalms (usually a longer passage)

5-8 minutes of quiet, which I use to sketch--others might journal or meditate or do centering prayer or stretch or do yoga, . . .

concluding prayer

some sort of benediction and closing

I am really enjoying this time, and a few others tune in every day, either live or by watching the recording.  I enjoy that it makes me do the readings myself and to take time for sketching.  In the benediction, I send out words of hope, words I need to hear myself.

As I hear myself, I wonder how I sound to others.  I feel like I sound like a 70's PBS show, if Bob Ross had ever decided to do morning devotionals.

Will I continue to do this if life returns to some semblance of normal, and I'm going to spin class?  I have no idea--so much depends on so many unknowns.

But I'm happy to be doing it now--it's a small joy in this pandemic time of fear and grief.

Evening Advent Wreath: Various Approaches

We are most of the way through Advent, and I'm happy to report that my laid back approach to the evening devotional time seems to be working.  Early on, I decided to accept that I wouldn't be able to light the candles on the Advent wreath each and every night.  My goal was to return to the Advent wreath a few nights each week. 

And it's worked.  Usually we've lit the candles, read a Bible passage, and prayed.  This week we've had some variations.

On Tuesday night, we collapsed on the sofa to watch T.V.  I thought this might be a non-devotional night, but then A Charlie Brown Christmas started, which was a surprise, a happy one.  When Linus recited Luke 2:  8-14, I realized we couldn't have had a much better devotional time, although we didn't get the candles lit on the wreath.

I was surprised to realize that I could recite that passage, as could my husband.  That shouldn't surprise me; after all, we're in our late 40's, so that's a lot of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services where we've heard the passage.  Plus, I remember having to memorize it, in all its King James glory, at various times in my childhood. 

In short, it was a real treat--such a treat that we turned the T.V. off right after the show and went off to an early bedtime.  I haven't had such a satisfying sleep in a long time.

Last night, I wanted to make sure we lit the candles.  Time is running out for our Advent practice, after all.  So, I lit the candles and chose a passage from John, where the authorities ask John who he is, and he insists, "I am not the Messiah."  He predicts the coming of Christ, whose sandals he is not worthy to lace.

My spouse had been practicing Christmas music on the violin.  As I read each sentence, I paused, and my spouse played a scrap of violin music that he improvised.  The improvisation matched the tone of the sentence.  It made me pause to consider the words.  And it felt like a very artsy kind of approach.

We've so much enjoyed having the Advent wreath compel us to evening devotions that we plan to experiment with keeping it.  Granted, we'll need to take the evergreens off.  We have pledged to keep the wreath liturgical:  no Valentines wreath, no shamrocks.  And of course, I'll document and make periodic reports here.