Her enigmatic titles can mislead. This week’s chapter focuses on the impact of prayer on friendship. One of the most valuable things we can do in prayer, is simply hold those we love before God, with or without words, knowing that in God they are in the best of hands.

Prayer, it seems, disposes us to friendship, in that it more and more lays us open to experience from any source, makes us sensitive to every aspect of existence, every leaf, every ray of light, every hurt, every sorrow, every pain.

And because of prayer, it somehow becomes possible to take up each friendship into ourselves and make it part of our own way of loving, so that the next experience of a loving heart becomes an expansion not only of ourselves, but of all the loves we already bear within us, enriching all those affections already embedded in our hearts.

Friendships happen when together, people go through adversity with a purpose. Whether it is an important work, an experience of shared suffering, or another challenge engaged with prayer.

Friendship is part of the way of fidelity. It is not the pleasure seeking of the person who merely wants friends as gratifications, the friendship-seeking that C.S. Lewis thought one of the saddest human traits of all. Friendships-in-God are not found by seeking friendship, but by seeking God. Those who draw closer to God find such friendships simply burst upon them. These bombshells of intense affection explode without warning in our lives. But they are good surprises.

This friendship is friendship with God and with others because of God. It is a friendship not of the flesh, but of adoption, a spiritual bond that echoes Shakespeare’s words:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul, with hoops of steel . . .

(This got posted to the wrong substack, last Friday! Just in case you missed it.)

For the Love of Links is a compendium, a mish-mash, a hodge-podge, a con-glom of internet goodness. Read, at your own risk, and be edified, educated, or entertained.

The best novel of the 21st Century is Gilead. (IMHO) Pastor and priest Chris Green interviews Gilead’s author, Marilyn Robinson. It is a conversation about goodness, love, and the work of God that includes an interesting contrast between Robinson’s book and the Gilead of The Handmaiden’s Tale. ~ A Balm In Gilead

I recently heard someone say that they had “identified as a Christian.” That seemed an odd way to describe oneself, but it raises an interesting question: Why do we go by the name “Christian” and when did that happen? Michael Bird has a quick take ~ From Jesus’ Followers to Christians? (And back again)

George W. Bush once said, “I don’t do nuance.” I think he was pulling our leg. But here’s a call for its swift return. ~ Nuance Is Out — It Needs to Come Back

What else can be said? Maybe a lot. Always more. ~ From the Cross to Our Enemies: Why Christians Forgive

Did we all love this movie? This article asks if the movie’s message was a message at all. This is a great reflection that would be even better if its author had proofread it!!! ~ Dead Poet’s Society Lied To You

This excerpt from Ask The Old Paths is one of those posts that meddles with our souls. That is, it deftly calls out our envy and self-hatred. Caveat lector! ~ “I used to pretend I wasn’t an envious person”

Neuroscience intersects with spiritual formation. Geoff Holsclaw and Dru Johnson discuss. Great stuff!

Are you a “glamper.” Now you can glamp at one of the possible locations of the biblical Mt. Sinai. I wonder if the ad slogans read, “Meet Moses on the Mountain,” “Did that shrubbery says something?,” or “Strike A Rock: $1 per stick.” ~ Jabal Musa Luxury Hotel

I was recently gifted this book. Here was the sales pitch: “It’s the author’s first book,” and “it’s self-published.” Neither of these sold me. I read it because a friend gave it to me, and it hit my heart between the eyes. ~ Theo of Golden

We are moving into a new series, perfect for All Saints Day. Last week, we explored the story of St. Benedict, and there are more saints to come. This book is a great companion to the series. It’s a devotional, reflecting on the lives of all kinds of saints. From saints we know, like St. Francis and Martin Luther King, Jr., to ones we don’t like, Blandina, Mary Slessor, and Brother Rodger. I encourage you to grab a copy. ~ Our Church Speaks

Andy Squyres beautiful tune, “You Bring The Morning.” Enjoy. Check him out.

It is always dangerous to thank people publicly, or on social media. It is almost guaranteed that someone who deserved thanks will be left out. So, let me begin by just thanking you, all of you, the Wheatland Mission.

In spite of the rain we had a great day-long retreat. It began with a series of teachings and discussions from Tish Harrison-Warren on The Liturgy of the Ordinary. Thanks to our retreat team, Amy Mueller, Buffy Loftin, and Kelly Chewning for making that so extra-ordinary.

The Fajita Feast, pinatas, and afternoon gathering was a joy. Thank you Richard and Simon Stevens, Rodger Woods, and Greg Chewning for providing grills and for the good cooking on Saturday. Thank you Joel White for leading worship from four different instruments. (Next time maybe you can lead from all of them at once?)

But a special thank you belongs to Kelly Chewning. Her natural hospitality, love of creating retreat experiences, and affection for Wheatland was on full display this weekend. Well done!

In her oddly titled chapter, “Transparency,” Emilie Griffin brings into focus one of the results of prayer: our transformation. But this transformation is not spectacular or always obvious.

Transparency is one of the effects of prayer from the point of view of the one who prays. It is that growing clarity which happens, almost in spite of us, the more we give ourselves to prayer. It is a kind of immediacy, an insight—a sense of being able to enter into “things,” into experience, more deeply . . . a sense that day-to-day existence, events, persons, actions, the things that are already ours seeem to be more ourse than before, more open, more available to us. - pg. 29

This kind of growth requires our attention. We won’t see it if we’re not looking. It’s a slow, steady growth in Christ-like love for others.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing about transparency, a corollary of it, is our becoming very open to love. More and more we are vulnerable to darts—a dart from ambush, some totally unexpected love striking through to the center of our being—and the dart that pierces so suddenly and surprisingly is not sent by another person to us, but in behalf of another person, by Christ himself. - pg. 35

Wheatland rolled into a new series this past weekend entitled “Y’all Saints.” Whether the saint is famous, infamous, or known only to God, they are worthy of both celebration and emulation. May God bless us as we follow Christ in his people!

We began with St. Benedict, who left the church many gifts in his wake.

I highly recommend the book by Ben Lansing and D.J. Marotta called Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional Of Saints From Every Era And Place. You’ll see names you know, like St. Benedict, MLK Jr., and C.S. Lewis, as well as names that are probably unknown to you, like Hilda of Whitby, Herman of Alaska, Nino of Georgia, and Moses the Ethiopian. You’ll read brief excerpts about ancient saints and those whose light shone more recently. It’s a great companion for this series.

You can view and purchase some of the great images from the book at Our Church Speaks.

Wheatland’s Tuesday night group has recently been reading Emilie Griffin’s book Clinging: The Experience of Prayer. It’s not a how-to book but a reflection on what prayer essentially is, and pulling us through the barriers that stand in the way of our praying at all.

Here are a few excerpts. If you find them intriguing, join us! Tuesdays at 6:30 PM.

From the Forward,

There is no explanation for another book on prayer except perhaps the one found at the end of John’s Gospel, saying that if one were to include everything Jesus ever did, the world could not contain the books that woud be written.

Prayer, I suspect, is part of what Jesus Christ had done in me, and for that I most gratefully make this effort to share that treasure.

As for “clinging,” I have consciously chosen an image of attachment to God, in hopes of conveying our dependency on him. - xi

From chapter 1. Beginning

There is a moment between intending to pray and actually praying that is as dark and as silent as any moment in our lives. It is the split second between thinking about prayer and really praying. - pg. 1

Pray is, after all, a very dangerous business. For all the benefits it offers of growing closer to God, it carries with it one great element of risk: the possibility of change. In prayer we open ourselves to the chance that God will do something with us that we had not intended. - pg. 2

You should have it firm in your mind that prayer is neither to impress other people nor to impress God. It’s not to be taken on with a mentality of success. The goal, in prayer, is to give oneself away. The Lord loves us—perhaps most of all—when we fail and try again. - pg. 10

From chapter 2. Yielding.

Griffin seems to use this title in different ways. Yielding to God’s direction, of course, but also yielding up our small and idolatrous images of what God is really like, images that are hindrances to prayer.

The fact is that we are called to pray. It is not so much our doing as God: a deep prompting within us that wells up without our meaning or intending it. It is the Lord’s voice speaking, calling us to him, yet sometimes at first so quietly that without stopping to listen, we don’t hear it. But the call is real. The Lord is there. - pg. 11

He is the one who can tell us the reason for our existence, our place in the scheme of things, our real identity. It is an identity we can’t discover for ourselves, that others can’t discover in us—the mystery of who we really are. How we have chased around the world for an answer to that riddle, looked in the eyes of others for some hint, some clue, hunted in the multiple worlds of pleasure and experience and self-fulfillment for some glimpse, some revelation, some wisdom, some authority to tell us our right name and our true destination.

But there was, and is, only One who can tell us this: the Lord himself. - pg. 11

It’s never too late to join us. Tuesday nights, 6:30 PM, at Sunnyside.

Psalm 137 is notorious. On the one hand, its lyrics are beautiful, from Godspell to Boney M, and Willie Nelson. But these beautiful verses end with a violent stinger, “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” Understandably, we hear few sermons from this Psalm.

Yet, this cry of vengeance is a prayer that Jesus prayed. (And I doubt he had his fingers crossed.) It’s odd that a prayer prayed by the oppressed over 2500 years ago can help us think about our place in this world. Even more so, our place in the “Christian We.” Praying with Jesus and Jesus praying within us changes our spiritual and our social location.

Greg has us rolling in laughter and growing in wisdom as he walks us through Proverbs 4:1-9. You’ll be all the better after hearing his message from Saturday.

Kelly Chewning continues Our Greatest Hits sermon series over 2 Samuel 21:1-14.

“Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it on a rock for herself, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens; she did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies by day, or the wild animals by night.”

Rizpah’s story reminds us that we have a God who refuses to turn his face from the ugliness of our world. A God who chooses to sit with these bones; with the decaying nature of our world.

We serve a God who chose to give himself to be tortured and humiliated, hung up and impaled for our sake. So that we could have a clear knowledge of who God is, and the purpose and love he has for us and our world.

And even when Jesus came back from the dead he refused to leave this mess alone, offering a way back to dignity.

Remember Rizpah.

Rick does a wonderful job teaching on resilience and hope, reminding us that, even in the midst of a hard week, God is present and ready to revive us through Christ. He teaches from Isaiah 40:25-31,

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.