March 3 for 3 [2022]: the Lent-y edition
It occurs to me that I may have missed a month or two of this round-up post. I never quite know how to fit everything in during Lent and Advent when I’m posting daily for Daybook Meditations members.
Also, we’ve been navigating a series of profound twists and turns, and I’ve barely been able to register in my own heart and mind let alone process in a more public way. I was trying to think of a phrase to describe this season with you all and the only thing that came to mind is “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” And then I got stuck wondering if that’s just how life is always and forever?
We didn’t give up alcohol for Lent this year. One evening a couple of weeks ago, while my living room was full of the woman and men pastoring our church right now, swapping stories and prayer requests over a bottle of red, I confiscated the chardonnay and drove to a friend’s house. I planted myself behind a pillow in the corner of her couch and tried to figure out how to start talking. I didn’t know where to begin.
“Am I crazy? This has been a lot, right?”
When I say a lot, I mean a whole range of scary needs and God’s silly-good provision. For example, the four months we just spent believing Brian had cancer. We trust his doctor and she was almost certain it was cancer. So certain she kept trying to get a better biopsy. So certain, she recommended a surgeon to remove two-thirds of his thyroid.
On Friday, we received the final report. We didn’t know what most of the words meant but all we really needed to know is the meaning of BENIGN. So we all-caps texted and emailed and called all our family and friends (including all those pastors who regularly sit together in our living room). We did a gentle happy dance because, while we were excited, the incision in Brian’s neck was still tender. After thirty minutes or more of celebration, we collapsed in a heap. Exhausted. Almost more exhausted than before we got the good news. The outcome was as good as we could've hoped, but the process of needing all of that prayer and care spent us. Literally. All our energy, money, food, and time (and lots of other people’s, too) got used up sustaining us in the waiting. And God is making opening more resources for us every time we’re depleted - almost always through his Church.
I don’t know what this all means, but I know for sure that to practice lament and practice resurrection, exposes us to greater breadth, height, and depth in the reckless, raging fury that they call the love of God.
3 for 3: what I’ve been working on and enjoying lately
Worship God
Spiritual Direction & Practices | Liturgy & Church Calendar | Daily Work & Callings
1. Like A Road to Meet Me with Tamara Murphy - Part 1 & Part 2 - What do balloon animals, learning how to write code on the fly and spiritual direction all have in common? The sometimes comical, often challenging, but beautifully unfolding story of my winding pathway to calling. My sister Kaley kindly listens to me talk about it all on her deeply enjoyable podcast, Me: When I’m Free.
2. On the Eighth Day: Praying Through the Liturgical Year - I was invited to contibrute a week of reflections for a daily guide to prayer shared by 12,000 people from around the world who’ve gathered at 8 pm each day since the early days of the pandemic to pray for 8 minutes. The book, master-minded by authors Sally Breedlove, Kari West, Willa Kane, and Madison Perry is a compilation of 8@8’s daily calls to prayer ordered around the liturgical seasons. This yearly guide to prayer is available for purchase now! (You’ll find my reflections in the season of Advent.)
3. Plough reposted one of my favorite reflections - Palms of Rejoicing, Ashes of Sorrow
Love People
Family, Friends, Church & Neighbors | Peace & Justice | Wholeness & Healing
1. Getting Bioregional: On connecting with your local environment. And more. By Rob Walker via The Art of Noticing (Don’t miss the QUIZ!)
2. I can’t stop thinking about this essay, Subverting Two-Pocket Thinking with Public Joy: Why our economic imagination needs a new goal. By Tim Soerens via Comment and how very much Connecticut needs it.
3. A stunning, insightful read. Truth Lives: My Columbine Story By Carey Christian via Jonathan Roger’s Habit Weekly
Enjoy Beauty
Look, Listen, Make & Do | Creators & Cultivators | Reading & Writing
1. Trying to make more soup this year. Here’s one of my new favorites!
2. Dolly Parton Is Magnificent - The beloved Tennessee singer-songwriter gets the joke. Do the rest of us? By Mary Townsend via Plough
3. I featured artwork from the same series in the Lent Daybook and love this insight into Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Tender, Deeper Story by Jamie Lapeyrolerie via Ekstasis Magazine
Currently Reading
Do you notice a pattern here? Updates coming soon!
Coming Up
April brings the tenth annual blog series for Holy Week and a Zoom conversation to meet this year’s guest storytellers and we’d love for you to join us.
The series will be posted on my public blog, but the Zoom link and the daily emails will only go to those who sign up for them here.
You might be aware each year during Holy Week I invite 7 friends to share a personal story of grief or lament on my blog (inspired, in part, by our church's unique Good Friday services).
2022 marks the tenth year I will be curating this blog series for Holy Week, centered around the "Seven Words of Christ from the Cross". Each year seven guests share personal reflections on how they've walked with Christ through challenges in life, within the context of Christ's own suffering on the cross. That’s 70 stories, soon to includethis year’s guest storytellers, that have invited us to bring Christ's dying lament into our present, lived experiences of grief and loss.
The tradition of speaking to the Seven Words on Good Friday goes back centuries, but it is a unique tradition we've experienced in our current and former church to invite members of the congregation to speak on them. That unique experience is what I'm trying to extend, gently and with care, to the readers who've followed my blog for so many years. In order to add to that circle of care, this year I'm inviting storytellers from the series to a conversation I'm facilitating on Zoom where those who follow the blog can listen in and ask their own questions.
Our conversation will include some moments of contemplative prayer and space for the Holy Spirit to minister to each one of us.
On Thursday, April 7 at noon - 1:15 pm ET, simply show up on Zoom to receive:
time for guided silence and Scripture reading to prepare our hearts for Holy Week
an opportunity to hear from this year’s guest storytellers
a place to ask questions about the spiritual practice of lament and the liturgical practices for Holy Week
a quiet, safe space to prayerfully listen for and respond to God’s invitation to you this Holy Week.
Sign up above to receive the Zoom link for April 7 and one story each day of Holy Week to your email inbox.
Here’s to another month of worshiping God, loving people, and enjoying beauty, friends!
Peace,
Tamara
p.s. Don’t forget to sign up for the Holy Week series in the form above and invite a friend to join us!