St. Patrick's Breastplate

I bind unto myself today

The strong Name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same

The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever

By power of faith, Christ incarnation;

His baptism in Jordan river,

His death on Cross for my salvation;

His bursting from the spiced tomb,

His riding up the heavenly way,

His coming at the day of doom

I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power

Of the great love of cherubim;

The sweet Well done in judgment hour,

The service of the seraphim,

Confessors faith, Apostles word,

The Patriarchs prayers, the prophets scrolls,

All good deeds done unto the Lord

And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today

The virtues of the star lit heaven,

The glorious suns life giving ray,

The whiteness of the moon at even,

The flashing of the lightning free,

The whirling winds tempestuous shocks,

The stable earth, the deep salt sea

Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today

The power of God to hold and lead,

His eye to watch, His might to stay,

His ear to hearken to my need.

The wisdom of my God to teach,

His hand to guide, His shield to ward;

The word of God to give me speech,

His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,

The vice that gives temptation force,

The natural lusts that war within,

The hostile men that mar my course;

Or few or many, far or nigh,

In every place and in all hours,

Against their fierce hostility

I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,

Against false words of heresy,

Against the knowledge that defiles,

Against the hearts idolatry,

Against the wizards evil craft,

Against the death wound and the burning,

The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,

Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,

Christ behind me, Christ before me,

Christ beside me, Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort and restore me.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in hearts of all that love me,

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,

The strong Name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same,

The Three in One and One in Three.

By Whom all nature hath creation,

Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:

Praise to the Lord of my salvation,

Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Hope for when you're in a pit

There is a story of a donkey who stumbled and fell into a pit. His owner comes along to rescue it, but the task is impossible. To put it out of its misery, the farmer called upon his friends to help him bury it alive. However, every time they heaped another shovel of dirt on this little donkey, he'd just shake it off, and step up on the fallen pile of dirt. Shake it off, step up, shake it off, step up. Finally he walked out of his imprisonment on level ground. As time passed, the very thing that should have buried the donkey became his way to freedom.

"No pit is too deep that He is not deeper still." ~Corrie ten Boom

Psalm 40

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

¹ I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
² He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
³ He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
and put their trust in him.

Spiritual Truths in Kung Fu Panda

Today I went to yoga and watched Kung Fu Panda.

There are great spiritual principles to be gleaned from Kung Fu Panda.

My dad has been talking about it for a long time now. He always says how much he loved the movie. He quotes, "Panda, we do not wash our pits in the pool of sacred tears."

And after yoga today I spoke to a college student. It was her first time. She said she loved the spiritual teachings. Indeed, I have been encouraged by yoga. Today we did dancer, a balancing pose where you stand on one foot and then pull your other leg behind you while you extend the opposite arm forward. You sort of end up looking like a bow and arrow.

I was doing the pose just fine, all balanced with a slight tip forward. But then I decided to try and push myself to try and tip forward more. I got off balance and had to drop my foot and start over again. As I wobbled it was as if God posed the question, "Why do you push yourself to the point of instability?"

What does Kung Fu Panda have to do with yoga? To me it is the realization that the Christian Church is so scared of spirituality that it has relegated all things "spiritual" to New Age philosophy and Eastern religions. In order to preserve doctrine, mainly mainline branches have shunned the movement of the Holy Spirit and have labeled any display of power, miracles, and even spiritual gifts, as counterfeit and disruptive.

I think this is sad. This means that people hungry for rightful spiritual influence are left to go to Eastern philosophy.

I am happy to let the Spirit move and to find encouragement from Him wherever I find it. Yoga has reminded me to remain present in the moment, to honor myself and not to compete. To accept my best and be content with it. Kung Fu Panda reminded me to believe and to be ok with not being in control.

I know we cannot deny the influence of sin in our lives, and the Church must address it, but I would really like for the teaching of the Church to get back to things that more spiritual practices have taken up in our absence- things such as the teaching of personal empowerment through inner spirituality and truth. In the meantime I'm going to appreciate it when I see it- animated or no!

My thoughts on Yoga

I have been thinking that it will be sad to neglect my blog as I am studying for Bar Exam #2. I could have done more today, but it is Saturday, and it is hard to convince my brain that I should be cramming law into it today. Weekends are weekends.

Today I am going to write about yoga. I really like yoga. I don't like what I dub 'crazy yoga'- of which there are many varieties. This is yoga where you beat your stomach with others beating their stomachs while counting to 10 for 5 mins. This is supposed to stir up energy or something. I call it crazy. Or yoga where you lay down for 30 mins in the dark and think about every part of your body and then when you finally sit up you just snort air out of your nostrils. I don't have time for that. I need exercise. I need to relax. I can lay down and think about my body in my own bed while I am about to fall asleep and am not needing exercise.

Anyway, doing yoga as a Christian has gotten me in trouble. I got kicked out of a ministry for it because the person in charge of the ministry was so against it. She thought that there was no separating the exercise from the spiritual practice.

A lot of Christians feel this way. They don't think that it is possible to engage in the exercise without inherently immersing yourself in the spiritual element. I agree that if you are insecure in your faith and you go in blindly without the awareness that there is a spiritual component to it, you may get off course into some spiritual philosophy that is not in agreement with the Bible. But I find it ridiculous to assert (sorry, my mind is still in legalese here) that there are certain things that cannot be separated from their symbolism. If that is what Christians believe then they should not have a Christmas tree any more because the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol.

So basically I try to avoid crazy yoga and look for yoga that is minimally spiritual. A few Oms are ok, but don't start getting into a treatise on yogic philosophy. As aforementioned, I'm here to release tension (because law school has turned me into Type A) and exercise.

I found this great special at a studio nearby. It as $40 for unlimited classes for an entire month. You can't beat that. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to screen the place for craziness beforehand. I decided the deal was worth taking a chance. I got a report from a friend that it was a legit place. So I was relieved.

But then I go in and there is this huge podium of Ganesh at the front of the studio, with a background of Buddha, and another Hindu god. I do not want to stare at Ganesh for the entirety of my yoga class. I am thinking this may disrupt the peace I have. And then I sensed that God wanted me to stay. I need not be threatened by the presence of these figures. Indeed I felt like Jesus was not threatened by them. I felt like I could bring the presence of Jesus into the studio. And I said a nice prayer for everyone there. That was that.

I once tried out a free yoga class put on by this non-denom church. I was excited. I was so stressed out and I was grateful for free yoga. But it was so lame. In the attempt to make the yoga "Christian" the instructor started the relaxation time by reading the first chapter of John. Do you know how long it takes to read an entire chapter out loud? Like 5 mins. So I am trying to relax and instead am getting annoyed and am just wanting her to stop reading Scripture. Seriously, this is something ridiculous that Christians do. God can be present in an activity without adding something to make it overtly Christian. That was the first and last time I went to "Christian" yoga.

After my pagan yoga I got to talk to the teacher and this other guy I had been in 2 classes with. I shared with them a little about my healing classes. I asked about their yoga practice. The one guy from class had a Sanskrit name and everything. I started talking to him because he mentioned Osho, this meditation guru I became familiar with when I was in Burma. I told him I had the opportunity to walk around Osho's meditation center in India.

I left thinking that if as Christians we are so put off by the practice of other people's religion, how in the world do we ever expect to engage people? Are we that easily tainted by being in the presence of an icon we find idolatrous? If that is the case then our faith has very little influence or power behind it.

Now I'm not going to go seek out the Satan worshipers to infiltrate their meeting to prove that my God is more powerful. No reason to needlessly seek out darkness just to prove the light is stronger. But I think it's time to stop disengaging situations where another religion is prominent. If that is how Christians want to focus their efforts, then you need not wonder why we have a limited impact on the culture around us.

So I'm going to keep going to yoga!

Irony

I just returned from a friend's wedding and promptly set out to send out a card for another friend whose wedding I will not be able to attend in two weeks.

The wedding I was in was very beautiful, and to the uninformed eye, went off splendidly. Of course at any wedding there are things that go wrong. Something arrives late and stresses everyone out. Something is not decorated as specified. People do dumb things because they are people. But at this wedding as a bridesmaid, I was most satisfied that nobody passed out and fell over from locking their knees, nobody tripped walking down the aisle, and so on.

I saw how there is a lesson in life that in anything things are bound to not go exactly as planned. And we decide how we handle these things when they don't go as expected.

I was tested in this immediately.

I was writing in my friend's card. I was trying to write a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that goes something like this:

Let nothing disturb you

Let nothing frighten you

All things pass away

God never changes

Patience obtains all things

He who has God wants for nothing.

God alone is enough.

Well I am writing in this really pretty card and it is my last special multi-colored butterfly card. I am giving it to my friend because I am not going to her wedding and I think she deserves the best- the last of my favorite cards.

I am writing "Let nothing disturb you" and like an idiot I switch the 'u' and the 'r.' I then try to write over the letters and try to make the r look like a u, but it doesn't work. So then I am looking at this messy word that is right at the top and smacks of imperfection. On a nice wedding card no less. I am weighing the options of crossing it out because I deem the word unredeemable. I figure this is an even worse option than leaving the bumbled word there as it is. I look to see if I have any more butterfly cards, and I realize it is the last one. It would've sucked to have wasted another precious butterfly card, but at least I could try again for a clean version of the card. No, I decide I want to use the butterfly card. I was tempted to get frustrated and upset. And disappointed. Perfectionism was creeping up and threatened to ruin all the excitement I had about the card and the purpose for which I was sending it.

Then I thought about the irony of the very quote I screwed up. Let nothing disturb you...

So I regrouped and decided to take the quote at its word and readjusted my attitude. "I will make it work!" I declared to myself, as if Tim Gunn himself was standing there over my shoulder. And I ripped off the messed up part and just used the clean part. And it looks fine.

Take that perfectionism! You will not have victory over me today! Now let's just see if I can apply this to the big stuff that doesn't go well...

Crazy? Let's hope not!

So I'm wondering if God could use a pocket dial to give me a message...

I was listening to this guy from a prophecy conference and he was talking about how we have to appear peculiar to the outside world sometimes if God is going to be able to use us in radical ways. Like being the phrase, "fools for Christ" from 1 Corinthians 4:10.

I am thinking to myself, "Oh no, I hope God is not preparing me to be ready to have to do something that makes me look bad to others."

Then I see that I have a voice message on my phone. It is what I finally discern to be a pocket dial of none of than Seal's, "Crazy."

Oh no.

Best Compliment Ever

I'm starting to see a trend... I have now had two marriage proposals from men who barely know me. (I'm starting to understand how my beautiful, pale skinned, American friend must feel in S/SE Asia!) And also- I have had two unrelated people use these exact words to describe me: "unusual" and "peculiar." In the best intended sense possible, of course.

I don't know what to say. I guess it is better than, "intense," because I get that on occasion as well. I don't think that can be taken in a flattering sense ever.

But the same person who offered to marry me after calling me "unusual and peculiar" said that when I prayed for him he experienced something he had never felt before in his life. He felt the warm and the tangible Presence of God. That's pretty cool.

Now I don't claim to be normal. I mean, who defines what is normative anyway? I used to revel in non-conformity. But let's face it- it's hard living abnormally. For me it has been the process of saying yes to God always, which has led me on some pretty amazing adventures. But that has also meant rejecting a life of stability, if that were at all in my control, (which is probably wasn't, but at least I could've fancied the idea that I could have a goal of stability). Instead I have gotten God. I have really gotten to know Him. We spend like, all day every day together. And that has perks. Like I know what He's like, and He shares stuff with me, and I in turn get to share that with others.

That is what makes it all worth it. Like the guy who gave me the best compliment ever.

The short story is this... It should be known that I will drive all over the place to be where I think God is going to show up. I crave being in His Presence, and that's just not something you find in any old church service. I have been missing this of late, but then I found out about this woman who has worship and "hosts the Holy Spirit" at her house. I knew it would be worth the drive.

I showed up and I felt normal amongst the people there. These are people who dance in worship. They laugh. Yes, they laugh in church! They are vibrant people. And when someone is sick, or has an addiction, or can't pay their bills, people take the time to gather around them to pray for them. It is a time of encouragement and strengthening each other and not just filling our heads with a quaint tidbit of Biblical knowledge to provide a principle to live by. That is what I'm talking about when I say God showing up. You actually feel that He is there.

And this is what happened when I prayed for the man. I just put my hand over his and he got this tingling sensation that lasted well after I took my hand away. And before he left I prayed for him again. I prayed for the power, healing, and love of God to be made real to him. And he actually FELT it! How cool is that?!

He called today to tell me that it changed his life.

Now, I studied social work to change lives. I went to law school with the aspiration that the degree would empower me to change lives. I worked to fight human trafficking to change lives. And after not being a social worker, or using the law degree, or sometimes being employed at all, I wonder how I am going to change lives. But I know my life has been changed in the Presence of God. This is not something I can put on my resume.

So to hear that the product of my personal time spent with God in brokenness, often in frustration, desperation, and confusion, but also in rest and peace- to hear that helped touch the life of another, whom I later found out desperately needed love and encouragement- that was the best compliment ever.

And THAT friends, is what I mean when I say there is more than just talking about sin. We get to introduce people to God. Like a physical, tangible, on the spot introduction. THAT changes lives.

So if all we know about the Gospel is that Jesus saves sinners, we might get people who really feel sinful to repent. But then what? 'Ok, good job, you're forgiven and going to heaven, but I guess you can just keep working on that sin stuff because boy, you're a mess!' Or how about, "Do you need to know the love of God right now? Let me show you what that's like."

Who can resist acceptance? Who can reject love that warms every part of you, even when you are your most broken?

The problem is that people don't know that love from themselves, and their view of God is incomplete. So therefore it follows that their Gospel is incomplete. God fixes sinners. The end.

Oh friends, if that's all you know of God, I invite you to come with your (to coin the beloved Brennan Manning term) RAGGAMUFFIN SELF and let yourself be loved by Abba, Daddy God. And then, when you are good and stuffed full of His love and goodness, then go out and share it with others!