Ready. Set. Go! ...to Arabia

We're thinking through spiritual seasons: chunks of time that serve specific spiritual purposes.  These seasons are not to be confused with pumpkin latte season.  That's where the spiritual discipline aspect of it comes into play.  We are often more willingly engulfed by the seasonal wares of the mass-market than by the spiritual seasons tenderly executed in our lives by the living God.

God may have you in a season of simplicity, trying to drive a few basic points home, trying to help you discover simplistic acts of worship and the simplicity of His love for you, but you will stop by Target and load up a cart with fall junk, make an impossible must-accomplish list, sign your kids up for that extra activity no one has time for, dive into a new friendship because you'll feel guilty if you don't make plans, and on and on.  God may have you in a season of loneliness - on purpose! - gasp! Perhaps He is trying to teach you to rely on Him alone.  Perhaps He is trying to correct false expectations in relationship, or to fashion you into a better friend.  Regardless, you'll fight against this season by joining a few dozen chat rooms, hammering down a friendship door that's been closed, insisting the problem isn't you and talking the ear off your barista while she's frantically trying to make ten pumpkin lattes simultaneously.  (Side note - What is it with the pumpkin latte?  Is there no other flavor of fall?!)

Spiritual Seasons

Slowly, I'm working my way through spiritual disciplines I usually shove aside, bury in a busy schedule, or simply ignore.  Disciplines that often slip our minds and rarely find their way into our routines.

Sabbath
Solitude
Seasons
Service

We've spent the last few weeks discovering how to keep an urban Sabbath.  Did you miss it?  Check it out here. Hopefully, we've learned what Sabbath is and what it isn't.  Hopefully we've enjoyed some best of the best.  Hopefully, we've started making some good.

I debated where to go next (in order?) and decided to tackle Seasons BEFORE we get into all the holiday stuff so that maybe we're a bit more prepared to handle them.  Plus, Seasons doesn't necessarily have anything to do with holidays - as we'll see, and I didn't want it to get murky.

A New Heart w/ Carol Bayliss

Speaking of Sabbath and how to properly celebrate - it seemed like the perfect time for Carol Bayliss to share.  If you don't know her, Carol is a long-time Westside gal.  She's stylish, spunky and surprising.  She loves travel, great food, theater - and her better half.  Carol's climbed many mountains in her time, but the most recent was a spiritual Everest.  It began with some health complications, and long story short, Carol found herself at UCLA waiting for a new heart.  And she waited, and waited and waited.

For 6 months she lived on the fourth floor, waiting for the heart that would save her life.

Sabbaths came and went.  As a church, we celebrated Sabbath without her present, but certainly she was heavy on our minds.  We visited her on Sabbath.  We prayed as a congregation for her heart, but mostly for her soul.  We learned new songs while she was gone, and I often thought of her returning and finding so much changed, so much new.  While she was gone, Oceans became one of our favorites.  Little did we know it was becoming one of hers as well.