tea time is best.

if you’ve visited my blog before then you know that i love coffee, tea, candles, quiet times, meditation/reflection, writing and opportunities to just be. i guess you could say that i am a pretty introverted, laid-back person.

tonight i’m being true to myself and having a cup of tea (that my german friend brought back for us from her trip home to germany. she lives in sweden.) while i write this post. i’m sitting in the living room, but no candles are lit because i don’t want to admit that the summer sun is fading away and darkness is returning to sweden. in the fall and winter, candles save me with their warm glow. but, right now, as the sun is setting,  i’m enjoying the last few moments of natural light of the day reflecting on the meeting i had this evening.

just in case you don’t know, i work in a church; and tonight i had a planning meeting with the other minister about our church service for  this coming sunday. m (the minister) and i had not seen each other in 4 weeks, thanks to the long vacations in sweden. (love you, sweden). it was so great to see each other, and we immediately got down to business. and the flow started as soon as we began talking.

while we were planning, i looked ahead in the swedish lectionary book (a plan of themes for sundays) we were using to see what the theme for the day was on september 16. on that day, i will be preaching, having the talk, you know. there are many ministers who preach and spend their time standing in front of people telling them how bad they are, what they should or should not do, and exactly what they should believe. i am not one of them. my sermons are like blog posts, my preaching is like taking one of my blog posts and delivering in person to a crowd of people. it is my hope that my preaching is inspiring, challenging, and uplifting.

anyway, a few weeks ago, i wrote a blog post on rest (read it here), inspired by a daily meditational book that i use in the mornings (the theme for july & august is rest). i got a comment that said that my post sounded like a sermon and that the comment-er would like to hear me speak more about it. i thought about planning that for the 16th of september, but then i decided to go in another direction (following another theme based on another lectionary ). i felt like i would be forcing a sermon if i preached on rest… like i was choosing what i wanted to talk about, instead of letting the spirit inspire me. preaching on rest would be too easy and i might put in too much of my own bias, instead of studying & pulling out what the universe, what God, might be saying to me through the lectionary text.

well, tonight, as i peeked ahead to the theme for september 16, in the book we were using, i saw that it said “ett är nödvändigt” – one thing is necessary; and then the following bible passages to read with that theme were all about resting, pulling away, taking time for yourself, learning to just be and live in the moment. being. that is the one thing that is necessary.

seriously.

i was totally amazed. how could this be? i had considered preaching on resting & being, but decided that it would be “cheating” since it was something i was choosing. but, tonight, right there in front of me, in the swedish book, were the words, ” i will give you rest” in the book i was working from. a sign? most definitely.

i know this is right. i can feel it. i wondered about it after i received the comment, but i brushed it aside. but, now, the universe has spoken. it is indeed time for me to write a sermon on finding rest, on living in the moment, on trusting God, on simply being.

so, my theme for the 16 of september has changed.

wishing peace & inspiration to you all.