All Saints Day! What a new choreography can look like ...

http://donsweeting.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/all-saints-day-2.png

This image above is not the usual image one sees for All Saints Day. 

Usually icons like this one...

Icon of saints surrounding Christ in heaven

... or a painting or mosaic within a church like this one ...

Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, St. Petersburg

... graces the front of our All Saints Sunday bulletin. But, for me this image ...

... is what a new choreography can look like. In this dance of all the saints around the Heavenly Throne there seems to be room for a poor saint like me to join in. Even though it's just as crowded as the other two examples (heaven is and will be crowded with people from every tribe and tongue and race and nation!), this view seems a bit more approachable, accessible ... more like you-and-me saint kinda people. No halos. They're inviting us to join arms and hands and rejoice with them ...even though they are in heaven.

When we come to the Table today we join that heavenly throng  - the angels and archangels and all the saints in heaven singing, "Holy, holy, holy! LORD God of power and might! Heaven and earth are full of your glory! Hosanna in the highest!" When we do this we practice the Presence of God with us ... His Perfect Provision for us ... today ... in the Bread and Wine, in the Body and Blood of Christ ... and we glorify Him and enjoy Him in a present that is for all eternity. Thanks be to God!

Today, may you know His Perfect Provision in His Always-present Presence. +++

Choreography Wisdom from Lilias Trotter...

He's done it again! God makes me smile and shake my head. OK, I get it!

Yesterday, after posting about the new choreography, I found a bit of wisdom from Miraim Rockness in my inbox. Miriam considers portions of Lilias Trotter's painting journals and shares them with us. Through these amazing women, God has invited me again to join him in a new choreography ... choosing to drink deeply from His well of living water today knowing it is His perfect provision. And, His well will never run dry ... it will always be accessible for every today in the future. Some days the water may sit deep and still, which means I will have to let down a pail for it. Other days it may be a fountain bubbling up to overflowing, splashing over the edge. Either way God's blessing, His Presence is Present and it is His Perfect Provision ... both today and for the future.

Choose to take 3 minutes to read it ... a new choreography ... and may you drink deeply, too.

Parable of the Well Water

What can a new choreography look like?

Sunrise ... Bay Bridge,  San Francisco

I'm watching the day awaken here on the west coast. The sun's softly strengthening rays are painting the horizon with autumn's colors. She reminds me that in the change of seasons our earthly home takes on a new choreography ... a needed new choreography, so that it may continue in its purpose: to bring praise and glory to God. Farrell Mason's post reminded me that we too need seasons of new choreography ... seasons that continually awaken us to our purpose in life: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. (Westminster Confession)

God has been encouraging me to do this for some time now ... to move into a new season, take on a new choreography. One would think that 10 months out of work would be a new choreography enough! And, it has been. Being called out from a wonderful place with even more wonderful people into the wilderness of not knowing what is next ... well, these past 10 months have taken me deeper into trusting that God is who he says he IS and he IS Trustworthy. I don't know that I would have learned this lesson in this deeper way had I remained in that "choreography".

So, about that new choreography...

During October Ann Voskamp's blog has presented 31 Days of Calling on Jesus – coming closer to Him, resting in Him, remembering His Presence with us. Today she wrote:

Your presence is always in the now
I am with You now — where I AM always is…
Now is the destination

Over these 10 months a good deal of my focus has been for my future ... what's next? This was and is needed ... I do need to pray and look for what is next. But, in the new choreography Jesus calls me to choose to dance with Him today and let Him take care of tomorrow. His perfect provision is not just for some future day, it is for today ... the present, the now. NOW is my destination. NOW is my future.

Making that choice is incredibly freeing. Making the NOW my focus is allowing me to trust even more in God's promise of perfect provision ... for today and for that future day, that destination I do not know. The awareness that His provision for me for TODAY is perfect and good and all I need (give us this day our daily bread!) ... it makes me smile. He IS my provision and I don't need to look any further. HE is my provision. That is true for you too ... no matter what your circumstances. Doesn't that make you want to dance?

Ann went on to write:

Today, I will rest in the present moment with I AM
because this is where I find the rest of myself.

I rewrote this for me to say, "TODAY, I will choose to be alert and attentive and aware of His Presence in the Present ... in the NOW ... because this is where I am." The new choreography is choosing ... moment-by-moment choosing the awareness that we are tucked into His arm, His steps leading ours, His hand guiding us ... for TODAY and for our future. May He give us the fortitude to choose and keep choosing this choreography with Him. That glorifies Him and in it we enjoy Him ... today and for ever.

It's Time for a New Choreography

Dancing Feet by Bob Handelman, Madison

This is such a great invitation and reminder from Farrell Mason today... that I share it with you on Facebook and here on my blog. It is time for a new choreography for living life ... for me today in this "meanwhile" and maybe too for you. Or, maybe it's an encouragement to keep living life with joy in our footsteps, leaving His grace wherever we go. Click on this link and may you read with hope and delight...
It's Time for a New Choreography