Dawn Reading for Monday

The forms and individual characters of living and growing things, of inanimate beings, of animals and flowers and all nature, constitute their holiness in the sight of God.

Their inscape is their sanctity.
It is the imprint of His wisdom and His reality in them.

The special clumsy beauty of this particular colt on this day in this field under these clouds is a holiness consecrated to God by His own creative wisdom and it declares the glory of God.


The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints.

The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God.




This leaf has its own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape,

and the bass and the trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength.


The lakes hidden among the hills are saints,

and the sea too is a saint
who praises God without interruption in her majestive dance.

The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God's saints.
There is no other like him.
He is alone in his own character;
nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way.
That is his sanctity.

But what about you?

What about me?

- Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, 72-73.

Daily Prayer Sites

In my quest to become more attentive to life's ordinary moments, I seek contemplative practices to help me. Praying the hours daily with Merton's latest book is one such practice. Merton is doing his part, but I am struggling to maintain my discipline at it. Yesterday, as I browsed the books at Borders with my 30% off coupon in hand, I came upon a daily prayer book called Sacred Space. It was written for 2007, and seeing as the year is already half over, I decided to use my coupon on a different book. But I did notice an associated website for Sacred Space and did some investigating this morning. My first impression is that this may be a useful tool for practicing daily prayer, especially if you're in front of a computer a lot. Another site I visit from time to time is The Divine Hours, based on the books by Phyllis Tickle. That one can be customized to your local time zone so that you can return to it during the day and it will show you the prayer for your current "hour." Both of these are helpful tools, but the discipline to use them still has to come from within...

Authentic Community

It has been a while since I have been involved in a small community group. I have led and been in several groups over the years, but have been living outside of a small community for over a year now. Well, through a series of recent conversations and readings, it has become clear that I need to reengage in this aspect of life. Speaking to several people yesterday only confirmed what I have been feeling, summed up well in these words from Shawchuck and Heuser:

Authentic community is a place where we can be our real selves with God in the presence of another. Only superstar saints can make the Christian journey alone. The rest of us weaklings, whose promises to God always far exceed our practices, whose spirits are emaciated from lack of bread for the journey, and whose trail is marked with the scars of our many failings and fallings, we know that we cannot make this journey alone. Nonetheless, we keep trying, because we know of no other way. But there is another way, and it is the way of covenant communities, small groups of spiritual pilgrims journeying together, each sharing the others’ burdens, and each holding the other up in the most intimate and private affairs of life and journey. An essential ingredient for being formed in the image of Christ is the movement between being alone and being together, sustaining solitude and community.

Shawchuck and Heuser, Leading the Congregation, 132-134.

Mastering the daily routine of living

One of the books I am reading for my summer class is Leading the Congregation by Norman Shawchuck and Roger Heuser. I'm about a third of the way through it, and so far they are dealing mainly with foundational leadership topics with an emphasis on the uniqueness of leadership in ministry. The first few chapters deal primarily with self-leadership, and I came upon this a few minutes ago that resonates with me:

Time carries with it no guarantee that it will serve us - it is only made available to us. We are responsible to learn how to get the most out of the passing hours, days, months, and years. Perhaps the rewarding, and even successful, life is not so much a matter of carrying out the large projects as it is mastering the daily routine of living.

Shawchuck and Heuser, Leading the Congregation, 92.

More wisdom from Merton and beauty from Oregon

Contemplation is the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves are words of His. But we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him. Contemplation is this echo.

Merton, A Book of Hours, 48.

A Busy Week for Ordinary Moments

Last week was a busy week for ordinary moments. After returning from our vacation, I went to LA for work. It was a good week, nothing too stressing and productive by the end of it. One overcast morning, I took a short walk before work in a nearby neighborhood and marvelled at the blooming flowers in everyone's front yards. We don't have much of that (blooming flowers or overcast mornings) here in Tucson.

Kim and the kids drove out Thursday, we spent that night in my hotel, and then drove to San Diego Friday morning. We spent the day at Sea World, which was quite fun and exhausting (at least for me) at the same time. Often when I have a chance to see so many different species of God's creatures, I am awed at the immensity and mystery of creation. This experience was no different, especially standing in front of one of the freshwater aquarium tanks and looking at the fish looking at me. It was eerie and wonderful at the same time. Watching the trainers work with the killer whales and dolphins also reminded me of how connected we all are - not only with each other within the human race, but also with all of creation. How often I forget this in my day-to-day life as I'm busy doing this and that and missing paradise all around me...

A Book of Hours by Thomas Merton

One of the books I purchased at Powell's in Portland on our trip was the new Book of Hours with writings from Thomas Merton. All of the writings are Merton's, but they have been arranged beautifully by Kathleen Deignan into daily readings. Each day of the week has prayers and readings for dawn, day, dusk, and dark. Being an undisciplined and irregular practioner of praying the hours in the past and an admirer of Merton, I was anxious to get this book. If you are a fan of Merton, you won't be disappointed. If you're new to Merton, this collection will give you a good introduction to his contemplative style of prayer and writing. Here is a portion from Sunday that grabbed my attention:

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.

It is wide open. The sword is taken away, but we do not know it: we are off "one to his farm and another to his merchandise."

Lights on. Clocks ticking. Thermostats working. Stoves cooking. Electric shavers filling radios with static.

"Wisdom," cries the dawn deacon, but we do not attend.

Paradise is all around us...and we do not understand. What did I miss today that I did not understand?

Days 15-16: Our last day in Whistler

Sadly, we have come to the end of our Whistler vacation. We spent our last day seeing Brandywine Falls and "walking" the trail (Carolyn doesn't like the word "hiking") to Cheakamus Lake in Garibaldi Provincial Park. One final nice dinner at Earl's in the Village and then an evening of packing and saying goodbye to Whistler.

Leaving Saturday morning for Sea-Tac was sad and stressful. We left Whistler at 6:45am and barely made our 4:10pm flight back to Arizona! Crossing the border back into the U.S.A. took 2.5 hours!! Somehow that just doesn't seem efficient to me. And then, when we landed in Phoenix, our car had a dead battery! Thanks to a nice fellow who said he had an awful week on the road, we were on our way home to Tucson. It was a long day, and I can't wait to sleep on my pillow in my bed...

Day 14: Ziplining through the trees!

Robert showing off the moves!

We had an awesome adventure today! Thanks to Ziptrek, we flew over Fitzsimmons Creek between Blackcomb Mountain and Whistler Mountain on ziplines! It was fantastic! Once we got harnessed up, we took a short bus ride up Blackcomb and rode 5 different lines. The longest one (and the best, of course) was over 2000 ft. long! Wow! This was a definite do-again adventure for us. Thanks to a Ziptrek photographer, we got some great shots!

Kim on the long line


Myles on the long line


Carolyn on the long line

Day 13: Boats, Birds, Bikes, and Bears

Wednesday was by far the best weather day we've had! The sky was sunny and completely clear and the temperature was high (~80). We started out with a guided canoe trip meandering down the River of Golden Dreams from Alta Lake to Green Lake. I was a little unsure of this adventure, being that I'm not the best watersport person. But when our guide, Amanda, said she would be in the canoe with Kim and I, I felt much more confident that we would not end up in the ice-cold water. (Besides, Amanda was pretty cute.) Robert and Carolyn were each in their own kayaks, and everyone made it without incident. Actually, it was quite nice and I'm glad we did it. We saw beaver dams, ospreys in flight, and wild roses growing on the banks of the river. At the take out (that's the new phrase I learned for where you pull your boats out of the river), four mountain bikes were waiting for us. We spent the remainder of the afternoon pedaling around Whistler. We ate lunch at the base of Whistler mountain at Black's and saw a mama bear and her cub on the mountain. Lots of people were around, and they didn't seem to care at all. We've seen signs all week about how Whistler is bear country, and even the trash cans in the village area are bear-proof. Other than the sunburns, it was another great day!

Alta Lake - starting point for our trip down the river


Robert mastering his kayak


Carolyn mastering her kayak

Day 12: Vancouver

With rainy skies over Whistler on Tuesday, we decided to drive into Vancouver and visit western Canada's largest city. On the way along the Sea to Sky Highway, we paused at Shannon Falls and marveled at the powerful waterfall. Closer to Vancouver, we rode the gondola to the top of Grouse Mountain where we enjoyed lunch with a panaromic view from above downtown Vancouver. Our next stop was the Vancouver Aqaurium in Stanley Park, a beautiful tree-filled park which reminded us of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. After much driving around through downtown looking for just the right spot for dinner, we stumbled upon Granville Island (because I took a wrong turn and went over a bridge) and found Tony's Fish and Oyster Cafe. This was one of the best (and cheapest) meals of the entire trip. The drive back to Whistler was absolutely beautiful again, with skies clearing and fresh snow on the peaks. Have I said yet that this place is incredibly beautiful...

Kim and I at Shannon Falls


Robert and Carolyn looking down on Vancouver

Day 11: Hiking in Whistler

Yesterday we hiked around Whistler Village on the many, many trails easily available. We ventured out to Lost Lake and had a nice picnic on the lake's edge and even found a rope swing on one of the big trees for the kids and Kim to play on. (No, I wasn't afraid the rope would break if I swung. I knew the rope would break if I swung!)

There is just too much to see, and we're already talking about when we can come back. Today the weather is overcast and rainy, so we may head into Vancouver and spend the day there. I'll just have to wait until everyone else is awake and see what they want to do! Ahhh...the Blenz Classic Chai is very good with John Mayer singing in the background.

Our picnic spot on Lost Lake


Carolyn swinging over the lake


Robert on the trail

Days 9 & 10: Whistler is unbelieveable!

On Saturday, we drove to Keith's mom's home on Camano Island in Washington and enjoyed a wonderful lunch looking out at the water. She has a beautiful view! After long goodbyes, we bid our old friends farewell and ventured north to British Columbia. On their suggestion, we took a slight detour along beautiful Chuckanut Drive. After a rather brief and uneventful border crossing into Canada, we began the drive to Whistler.

The highway between Vancouver and Whistler is called the Sea to Sky Highway and has been voted the most romantic road in the world. I have to tell you, and this is no exaggeration, I believe that is the most beautiful drive I've ever seen! You hug the coast for most of it with absolutely incredible snowcapped mountains surrounding the crystal clear water. Pictures just don't do justice. It is truly spectacular!

Not thinking the scenery could get better, we arrived in Whistler. Consistently voted the best ski resort in North America, it is no wonder why this is the site of the alpine events for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Yes, it is July, and the skiing is minimal (note that I didn't say non-existent, because we saw a guy walking on the road this morning in ski boots with poles, and I don't think he was just thinking wishfully). Again, it is hard to describe the beauty of this village and surrounding mountains. We have a breathtaking view from our timeshare unit (see pictures below) and feel a little awkward walking around with our mouths gaping open looking up at the mountains. Wow. Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God. Well, Whistler must be pretty close to heaven, then.

We spent Canada Day (July 1) in Whistler Village eating, shopping, people-watching and taking in the finals of the Red Bull Elevation BMX competition at the base of Whistler Mountain. This morning (July 2), as I sit in a Blenz Coffee House, I can't wait to explore more of these beautiful mountains!

Highway to Lake Quinault, WA


Robert and Carolyn at the Bellevue Botanical Garden


View from our unit in Whistler


View from our unit in Whistler