Archives for February 2012

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

“What is that guy for?” my friend asked me. We had invited a couple to go to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the question was about the first chair violinist who was tuning the orchestra with his own violin before the conductor came on stage to lead the performance.

“Oh, he’s the first-chair violinist—probably the real master of the orchestra—well at least in some ways. He’s giving the pitch—he probably has perfect pitch—and everyone is tuning their instruments—particularly the strings—to him.” Not being musically trained, I was aware that there was probably a lot of conjecture in my reply.

We had a wonderful evening. Orchestral sound is full and replete with subtleties and with a rich feast of musical balances and counterbalances. In time, following my husband’s love, I have become more attuned to the different instruments; my ears actually hear more sound and distinctive notes and phrases.

The next morning I received an e-mail from the friend who had attended the orchestra with us—for the first time, I believe. The short message read: “Last night, as the symphony was starting and the noise of the instruments silenced, and the first chair violinist tuned the orchestra, I found myself thinking of these lyrics.

Still

I’m still tuning myself to the great key, I’m still, I’m still
I’m still mining for light in the dark well, I’m still, I’m still
I’m still a frequency swaying, a leaf in the wind, I’m still, I’m still…

I’m still tuned to an instrument of greater and unknown design
I’m still looking for direction, some kind of sign
I’m still tuning myself to the great key, I’m still, I’m still

                                                                                            —Great Lake Swimmers

Tonight as I write this, it is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I open my red-covered Book of Common Prayer and read the prayer the Celebrant pronounces before the imposition of ashes:

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our  mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.

In other words, these 40 days leading up to Easter are the time when the church “tunes itself to the great key” and through the above actions “is still, is still.”

This is a time of sobriety, of careful looking inward, of having enough silence regularly over the stretch of days to consider our own souls.

“Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which coverts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those, who because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church.” —Book of Common Prayer

Whoa!—in the early church this was the season of the baptism of new believers and the restoration of old sinners.

This is a little different spirit than the one focused upon in USA Today. The article on the front page is headlined, “For some, ashes in a flash for Lent.” It appears more than 70 Episcopal parishes in 18 states brought Ash Wednesday to the streets. Dubbed “Ashes to Go,” it’s kind of a contemporary spin on if the people won’t come to church, we’ll take church to the people. “Last year,” the reporter writes, “the Rt. Rev. Jeff Lee, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, stood in full vestments in the rain at the corner of Rush and Huron.” The very first person to stop was a cab driver. He pulled his cab to a halt and called out, “Lent! I completely forgot!” I can see some purpose in this.

However, how do we become attuned with a dab of ash, in busy traffic and the rain? How do we hear the plaintive melody of that instrument of greater and unknown design? How in this scenario just described do we become still in silence, or still in waiting, still tuning ourselves to the great key? How do we?

How do we, on the bustling crowded street find the way to pray?

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins an acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Be still. Wait still. Sh-h-h-h-h-h-h. Listen; the first chair violin is tuning the string section. Hush. In 40 days we will hear the orchestra play.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

“They should have paid us to sit in these seats,” I joked to the women who were adjusting their chairs in the box next to ours during the first intermission of a Saturday afternoon performance of the Joffrey Ballet.

A friend of a friend had discount tickets she couldn’t use, so David and I found ourselves at the beautifully restored Sullivan and Adler Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. Box seats, I thought as the ushers steered us to the second-floor balcony, pretty good. I was soon to learn that there are box seats, and then there are box seats.

The people in the first row of seats in our box had an unobstructed view. David’s and my seats, however, in the second row of the first balcony box, offered us almost completely obstructed sightlines. The boxes were designed front and forward so if we sat straight in our seats, we looked across the concert hall to the second floor balcony seats across us, not toward the stage.

So? you might be thinking. Just twist your bodies or reposition your chairs. Not so easy. The boxes were crowded, giving us limited room for negotiating space, and even if we twisted toward the stage, my whole right sightline was blocked by all the people sitting in the four other boxes closer to the stage than ours.

The purpose, of course, of going to the ballet is to see the dancers. Mr. Louis Sullivan, I thought, Mr. Dankmar Adler, you goofed.

The Auditorium Building in Chicago is one of the best-known designs of these two architects. Completed in 1889, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and designated a Chicago Landmark in 1976. At the time of its construction, it was the largest and tallest building in the United States. Ferdinand Peck, a Chicago businessman, wanted to develop a cultural center that would rival the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He wanted to make high culture accessible to the working classes.

The building was equipped with the first central air conditioning system and was the first to be entirely lit by incandescent light bulbs. In 2001, a major restoration of the Auditorium Theatre was begun to return the theater to its original colors and finishes. It now is the home of Roosevelt University.

However, even in the best of plans, there is often a glitch. The glitch in the Adler/Sullivan architecture is that anyone in the second tier of chairs in the first balcony box seats, number six, right-hand side, is unlikely to be able to see the stage due to the heads of all the people in the other boxes positioned to the right of said person in said box seat. This is particularly so when the baldheaded gentleman in the first row of box seven rests his head on his right hand.

All during the first half of the opening performance of modern interpretations of classical dance, “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated,” I fumed. I do have a pet peeve when seats perched behind posts at sporting events are sold to unsuspecting fans (or when discounted tickets are not marked with the disclaimer: “Welcome to the Joffrey. You will be unlikely to see the stage from these seats.”) But somewhere midway in that rendition, I became captured by the sheer beauty of the choreographed muscularity, the exquisite physicality of the dancers and gave myself one of those all-too-frequent and necessary lectures, Oh, Mains. Grow up! You peevish, privileged middle-class woman! You are at the Joffrey Ballet! Stop pouting and just stand up. You can sit during the intermission.

This, of course, made quite a difference. If I stood, I could see. I had an unobstructed sightline of the stage. And I quite enjoyed the rest of “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” (how ironically appropriate that title to my circumstances). We had a charming chat during the interlude before the next piece “After the Rain,” and then another intermission.

I read my program and realized that we were attending the U.S. premiere of what the notes told me was a piece of “sumptuous beauty and shimmering possibility” (who writes stage notes for ballets and concerts and plays? How much do they earn for doing this writing? Is it the artistic director, Ashley C. Wheater or Scott Speck, the Music Director?) Or maybe—just maybe, it is the choreographer him/herself who writes glowing stage-reviews… “Dancers perform intense and thoughtful choreography, exposing the agonies of indecision, doubt and hope that lie under the surface of the skin.” Oh, I see this quoted bit is attributed to the critic of The Telegraph (and where exactly is that published?).

Somewhere, while standing again for the last ballet in order to be able to see, this thought intruded. Life is full of glitches. Sometimes the most beautiful experiences are threatened by the fact that you are situated in such a way that you can only view a third of what is going on, can only see half the dancers on the stage. The exquisite beauty of this event, whatever it is—sunset streaking the sky as you ignore it while hurrying onto an evening appointment; a grandchild happily and ecstatically destroying your ordered basement with the detritus of concentrated play—can be lost because you are sitting in your seat, hurrying to dinner, craning your neck, so to speak, and allowing yourself to be filled with peeve at the Architects of this high cultural event for the common masses.

Or—or you can choose to stand through the whole performance, leaning against your chair that you have moved in front of you to act as a prop. And if you choose to stand at life’s ballets—no matter the seeming inconveniences—I promise you will see the whole thing. You will be able to puzzle about the “transforming direction of the dance” constructed by the Three Choreographers (in theological terms this is called perichoresis koinonia). Joy will rise in you. I am here, you will think. We are at the Joffrey Ballet. You may be in the middle, somewhat elevated, but that will be quite enough.

Savor each moment, large or small, give praise for the beauty of the work. Lift your heart to the Master Artistic Director. Give thanks. Let us just be glad that a friend of a friend has given us tickets to the show.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

I found three journals hidden away behind a stack of books in the bookcases in my home study … one brief line intrigued me. I had written, “Enjoying reading and copying out quotes from Capon’s Supper of the Lamb—such lovely thoughts on being attentive.”

I do not know exactly where I copied out these lovely thoughts on being attentive, but this hidden-away journal reminded me that I had delighted in reading Robert Farrar Capon’s amazing book. An ordained Episcopalian minister, and at the time of the writing Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Instructor in Greek at The George Mercer Jr. Memorial School of Theology, Robert Capon captures in all his writing the exquisite beauty of the commonplace experience of living sacramentally. The book is subtitled “A Culinary Reflection.” Taking the ingredients for “Lamb for Eight Persons Four Times,” the author builds what simply looks like one meal reconfigured four ways into a profound meditation on finding God in life.

I pulled the book again from my cooking library, which is in the old post office desk in our finished basement and read my comments recorded on the frontispiece:

This is a mighty book with an original and daring metaphor.
Capon is an incredible writer & has made the common holy & the holy common.
Wondrous work! Would that all Christian writing was so incarnated with the meaning of the world & with the world of meaning.

So I give to you just a few of the lovely thoughts on being attentive I highlighted in one of my numerous readings of this volume:

“The whole world looks as it if has been left in the custody of a pack of trolls. Indeed, the whole distinction between art and trash, between food and garbage, depends on the presence of absence of the loving eye. Turn a statue over to a boor, and his boredom will break it to bits—witness the ruined monuments of antiquity. On the other hand, turn a shack over to a lover; for all its poverty, its lights and shadows warm a little, and its numbed surfaces prickle with feeling.

“Or, conclusively, peel an orange. Do it lovingly—in perfect quarters like little boats, or in staggered exfoliations like a flat map of the round world, or in one long spiral, as my grandfather used to do. Nothing is more likely to become garbage than an orange rind; but for as long as anyone looks at it in delight, it stands a million triumphant miles from the trash heap.”

Or how about this quote?

“Between the onion and the parsley, therefore, I shall give the summation of my case for paying attention. Man’s real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God’s image for nothing. … If an hour can be spent on one onion, think how much regarding it took on the part of that old Russian who looked at onions and church spires long enough to come up with St. Basil’s Cathedral.”

This book is an outrageous, extravagant and breathtaking look at the real Supper of the Lamb when believers of history will sit down to an unending banquet with the Son of
God. Appropriately, the vehicle for this meditation is a work the publishers have classified under “cookbook.”

And I had forgotten how wonderfully it is written or how worthy of another read except that I rediscovered the notebooks I had hidden on a shelf in my writer’s study.

It makes you want to take up journaling again, in earnest, to finish the incomplete pages, to record life for that time, perhaps, when the timeline is waning so that I can remember what have been the real lessons—that “only miracle is plain; it is the ordinary that groans with the unutterable weight of glory.” —Robert Farrar Capon

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

I found three journals hidden away behind a stack of books in the bookcases in my home study. These were journals, none of them completed, that recorded the intents of a “writer’s life.” A writer’s life is a complicated condition that can best be explained as a writer living with the acts of writing—researching and thinking and reading and organizing concepts for the purpose of capturing it in some kind of lasting form—becoming the preeminent and dominating activity of his or her days.

I have attempted (and failed) to have a writer’s life all my life. I probably gave up on these journals when I decided that it, for me, was never going to happen.

One section actually records a schedule of what an ideal day from a writer’s life would be (I was taking a memoir writing class at the time—so my thoughts were being channeled in a “writerly” sort of way):

The best day for me is to rise early: [Hah! What has ever kept me from rising early?]

1. Do morning pages
2. Start coffee and do stretching exercises
3. Give an hour to prayer and devotional reading
4. Household straightening
5. To the desk to write—three, four, five hours
6. Exercise break after writing
7. Afternoons for study, freelance projects, organizational tasks
8. Evenings for reading.

I sigh just thinking about it! When have I ever achieved this schedule for anything longer than two consecutive days? (Real, dedicated and successfully published writers generally roll out of bed and right to their computers, not stopping for a bathroom break, or to brush their teeth, or to change their clothes, or to say hello to their families. Well, it seems this way from their biographies.)

Another entry catches more of what my days were like (still are, sad to say). This entry comes under the heading,“A mind too active is no mind at all.” —Theo. Roethke

This is a morning when my mind is jumbled by too many to-do’s. It’s like the kitchen catch-all drawer—rubber bands & old used batteries, coupons for pizza discounts, note paper with telephone messages & grocery lists, small flashlight bulbs & thermometers to grab for taking temperatures—so many things, so crowded that it’s impossible to find anything.

So yesterday, I did a little thinking about this journal and concluded that though I have never achieved a writer’s life, I have written—maybe not the best work I could have written had I not had so many interferences and responsibilities—but I have published 23 or so books (depending on how you count them), radio broadcasts and video scripts, plus all the uncounted content we’ve developed strictly for ministry products, products designed to help people grow. I needed to conclude that I would never be able to compartmentalize my writing life from my ministry life or from my just living life.

I simply needed to accept the richness of my being and reduce any activity that robbed me of the possibility to enter deeply, thoughtfully, and meaningfully into my days.

I made another list, this one catalogued all the writing projects for which I have done the initial brainstorming, reading and research and that have yet to be birthed:

The books:

1. A novel tentatively titled Summer Lightning and set in Chicago during 1968.
2. The “Speaker’s Circuit” series—about the years I spent on the road and the outrageous circumstances which every itinerant teacher faces. This to be co-written and possibly created for digital publishing.
3. A children’s Christmas book sparked by the incident where one grandson, four years old, decided he was being mistreated and was going to run away to our house—some 20 minutes away.
4. One more book in the Tales of the Kingdom trilogy, expanding it from three to four (and thus making it a quartet instead of a trilogy).
5. A book about the listening-group process, tentatively titled Listen to Me! Listen Well.

Scripts:

1. A treatment titled Lisa’s Strata, based on Euripides’ Greek play Lysistrata, in which the women of Athens refuse to have sex with their husbands until they give up going to war.

Articles:

1. “Our Table Is Always Set” (on the benefits and gifts of being hospitable).
2. “A Tribute to the Men Who Have Loved Me: Brothers, Fathers, Colleagues, Friends”

Oh well, best get moving with all this—I turned 69 this January, after all—perhaps I’ll settle for a quasi-writer’s life and be happy with the best that is possible under these circumstances:

1. Ministry
2. An intimate and happy relationship with one engaging and intelligent husband
3. Four adult children and four adult in-laws
4. Eight grandchildren, soon to be nine
5. A church we enjoy
6. Work on an international board of directors
7. Cultural activities
8. Curious intellect
9. People who often live with us
10. House and office and yard
11. An overseas microenterprise project we are nurturing along

All this—ALL THIS!—because I discovered three (incomplete) journals tucked away on a shelf in my home office.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

I found three journals hidden away behind a stack of books in the bookcases in my home study. On December 31, 1995, New Year’s Eve, I recorded the dream of the night before:

Dreamed I was visited by an old friend, bearded & disguised—but the eyes were the same, the voice. He wanted me to go with him on a journey/ to share with him the responsibility of the trip. And I thought in the dream, “Oh, it really is he…” and felt wanted and warmed.”

I’m not sure what this dream meant to me on New Year’s Eve, 17 years ago. But now in 2012, it calls to me, and I understand that the disguised one with the eyes that are always the same is still wanting me to go with him on the journey and take responsibility for my share of the trip. He always is the One who really is He. And when I think of this dream, which I had long forgotten, I still feel wanted and warmed.

But I would not have remembered had I not written it down in my journal. Are you recording the whispers and events that show God’s involvement in your life? How will you remember them 17 years after they happen?

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

During my influenza (sort of) week, I spent one afternoon in my sunny writing study just poking through files, pulling out books I loved when I read them but haven’t read since, and I discovered three writing journals tucked away in the back half of a bookcase shelf.

Writing journals, I thought to myself. I forgot I stored them here during that bout of organizing when I purged every drawer, the storage armoire, and the closet of my office.

Oh dear!—the last entry in the first journal I opened was made February 24, 2004—almost 10 years ago. I had been writing down my thoughts about writing—an exercise in potential pretension, to be sure. Perhaps I felt that my writing in this journal at least was too self-conscious, the effort of a writer attempting to be “writerly.” Perhaps that is why I abandoned the effort.

Near the end of these pages, however, I noted a prayer I had created November 9, 1998. It was quite lovely and my handwriting sort of fit the message. I think I was attempting to record these thoughts for posterity (oh, dear)—the scrawl in my prayer journals (which should all be burned before I die) are for my eyes alone—but this prayer was carefully inscribed.

All things good and
from You
and all things well—

today & again
blessing & sweetness
& near too.

again & again
& tomorrow—
You!
—11/9/98

This prayer would have been lost to me had I not written it in my journal.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Sometimes there are moments when we know we are in a place where history is being made. We say to ourselves, with a kind of wonder, Whenever anyone refers to this event, we will be able to say, “We were there.”

David and I felt this way last week when we attended a concert at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO for Chicagoans). This orchestra is recognized as world-class, and if we have enough money (for about a decade we had to drop our season tickets), David, who loves symphonic music, will buy a series of four or five tickets. That puts us on the CSO e-mail list (and the phone list for donation solicitations). When the concerts don’t look as though they will quite fill, David receives an e-mail notice that seats are available for reduced prices.

The concert last week was chosen by my husband because (1) Riccardo Muti, the CSO’s Music Director, was conducting, and we love his work, and (2) one of the pieces being performed is a favorite of David’s: Symphony in D Minor by composer César Franck. The two pieces presented before the intermission were unknown to us: Pacific 231 by Arthur Honegger, and then a 22-minute piece titled Alternative Energy by Mason Bates, whom the program explained was one of two composers-in-residence for the CSO.

If we leave our home in West Chicago at 6:30 p.m. and drive into the city, we miss the rush hour and can be parking our car in the underground Grant Parking Garage some 60 minutes later. A stop to pre-pay our parking ticket, then up the stairs to emerge right at the front doors of the concert hall, generally gives us a good 45 minutes to get ourselves settled in our seats in time to carefully read the notes for the evening’s concert.

I imagined what my husband was thinking when he read this description about Bates’ modern composition (David is not always taken with contemporary symphonic efforts): “Alternative Energy is an ‘energy symphony’ spanning four movements and hundreds of years. Beginning in a rustic Midwestern junkyard in the late nineteenth century, the piece travels through ever greater and more powerful forces of energy—a present day-particle collider, a futuristic Chinese nuclear plant—until it reaches a future Icelandic rain forest, where humanity’s last inhabitants seek a return to a simpler way of life.”

Oh dear, another pretentious attempt to bring some “new” interpretation to classical formulas. The biography mentioned that Bates studied in the Ph.D. program at Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. This evening was the premiere for this symphonic effort and was written expressly for the CSO. A photo showed a young man (the composer) at Fermilab in May 2011 recording the particle collider, which techno-sound would be included in the second movement with the composer himself running the computer in order to integrate the technology with the orchestra. We noted when the surface of the regular music-stand was replaced with one at least three times its size. How soon would it be until we could get to the Franck in the last half of the evening?

To our amazement, and as emphasized by the rousing “bravos!” of a standing ovation, we seemed to be present at the induction of a modern master’s work if not an actual masterpiece. The atonal, discordant composition we were dreading never materialized. Instead we listened, astounded, as this young composer seamlessly synchronized his modern “junkyard/particle collider/nuclear meltdown/folk fiddler” synthesis in the body of classic symphonic dispositions. We sat at the edge of our seats for 22 minutes and actually said to one another, “I can’t believe we’re here.”

(Well that is one of the reasons we love Muti—his ear for what is possible is exquisite. And after all, the audience of 1886 roundly disapproved of Franck’s D Minor work, falling flat at the premiere—which Muti has devotedly brought back to life during his own conductorial career.)

I wonder how often the God of the Universe orchestrates a moment so pure, so magical, so majestic and takes years—even centuries—to bring the movements all together—stars spangling the heavens in rotations of constellations, weather systems blowing across the continents dropping exquisite ice coatings on the trees or sun-splattered shadows over the gardens, dolphins gladly frolicking in the oceans, an evening conversation with friends so connective that the soul is happy, and we humans say to each other, “Oh, wasn’t that nice?” (NICE!), and we walk away and forget it.

Hey folks! There are alternate energies going on all over the place—divine ones. We need to stop and jump to our feet. We need to shout Bravo! over and over. We need to clap our hands, bang on the chair in front of us, stamp on the ground. We need to realize, witnesses to a masterpiece.

We need to remember all the rest of our lives and to say to one another and ourselves, with gratitude singing in the deepest part of our being, We were there.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

I found three journals hidden away behind a stack of books in the bookcases in my home study. In one of them I had recorded an incident. The date and location is noted as “November 7, 1995/Battle Green Inn, Danvers, MA.”

David and I had gone to eat in Concord, Massachusetts at a historic fire station that was now a restaurant. We were ushered to a table for two by the hostess who was wearing a trim black skirt, and although we were engaged in conversation with each other, we both noted after a while that it was taking a long time for anyone to come and say, “How can I serve you?”

Finally, our young waitress, obviously harried but attempting to be professional, apologized, “Do you mind waiting? Our chef has been rushed to the hospital…”

Since a pleasant afternoon stretched out before us, that was made all the more pleasant because we had nothing else in particular to do but drive the rental car to Danvers and find our lodging at the King’s Grant Hotel, we felt that we could take our time. The most pressing item in our day was my husband’s hunt for some authentic New England clam chowder.

The menu we were studying was a good one, but unfortunately there was no clam chowder. A printed note to customers informed us that dinner entrées were only served after 5 p.m. It was now around 1:30 in the afternoon—one with a crisis in the kitchen. So we went ahead and ordered—David a steak sandwich, and I a Caesar salad accompanied by a luncheon salmon ravioli.

My notes in the journal read:

A basket of rolls comes. David catches our waitress to remind her about cream for his coffee. Some customers are rather grumpy about the long-delayed service. Some are waiting in line to be seated. But David and I chat and wait (and wait), pleasantly relaxed, and watch the group dynamics in the old fire house, now turned restaurant.

“Do you mind moving to another table?” Our waitress is joined by an older woman we haven’t seen before. The hostess who brought us to the table has disappeared (maybe she is with the chef at the hospital). I remember she wore a trim black skirt. Our table for two, crowded close to the front door, which has been in a drafty spot after all, is now needed to shove together and expand other tables to make room for a larger group. No problem. I began to eye a more roomy and empty table for four. Hurriedly, our waitress stacks our coffee cups on the dinner plates and moves us. Another server who has come from the kitchen moves our basket of dinner rolls and the water glasses (David loses his cream). I take my coat, which I had draped over my shoulders, and fold it on an extra chair. We are promised free dessert for our cooperation.

The waitress appears again, embarrassment crowding her features. “I’m so sorry. We aren’t able to serve the ravioli; the chef has to be present to make the sauce. The only person back in the kitchen is a cook’s intern—or something.” We’re still amiable, after all accidents do happen, although in the corner of my eye I see one party get up from the table and rather grumpily move to the door.

David can still get his steak sandwich. I can have my Caesar salad (all the rolls in the kitchen have been consumed). The Soup of the Day is available (she offers this hopefully); a mushroom with jalapeno-pepper concoction. I order that.

“What happened to the chef?” my husband inquires. “He sliced his finger. It looked pretty bad. There was blood … everywhere.” I can see the young woman wonders if she should offer this last bit. (We are in a restaurant, after all.)

The Caesar salad and my soup come. The salad is good but dripping in dressing like the leftover at the bottom of the salad bowl I used to love to finish as a child. David and I share the salad and soup, and when his stead sandwich finally comes, I share a few bites of that as well as his curly french fries. Another couple departs in a wave of disapproval.

This is becoming funny. The waitress begins to pause a little each time she passes the table to give us updates on the status of the climate in the kitchen or on the crankiness of the customers she must apologize to, then apologize to again. Our good humor is an anchor for her. The restaurant is emptying. Only a few tables are full, one couple behind us and she has sent back her salad (I know why). Another couple are leaving, but they were served before the chef sliced his finger (not off, I hope!). They have been engrossed in conversation, totally unaware of the KITCHEN DRAMA.

“How’re you holding up?” David asks our waitress when she brings our free dessert—a pear tart and a slice of apple pie with white raisins, then hot coffee. (David has finally received a second pitcher of milk.)

The waitress is confidential; we have become friends. I note the fall sunlight rushing in the door. A little child, “Leah” an adult has called her, takes a shiny red apple out of a basket, then, grandchild-like, begins to spit the skin out on the floor. The grandma beside her says, “Oh, let Grandmother catch that,” and holds out her palm as the child spits the skin of each bite into her hand.

The old CONCORD FIRE STATION sign hangs across one wall, the dark rich wood paneling, brass fixtures, the narrow front room with a half flight of steps leading to a more open room, the face of another waitress peeking at us (word of our congeniality has gotten about back in the crisis kitchen)—all this materiality and life leans as though listening for our server’s answer, “Some people, like you two, are fine; some people are not so fine. I guess I’m just really bummed out by it all.”

David and I share our desserts. We leave a tip of $20.00.

This is a story that became funnier in the telling for the few months we remembered when the chef cut his finger in the kitchen of the Concord Fire Station-turned-restaurant. It was a real-life incident that is the stuff of story-making for any eager storyteller. But in time, we forgot all about it, and the incident no longer lived in the annals of our oral tradition—until … until I found the journals hidden in the back of my bookcase in my writer’s study. Then I remembered and laughed again and told the story to friends once more. (What is in the rest of the hidden journals?)

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article