The Sustainist

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 5

 You Are Beloved

Being a good steward begins from a place of blessedness in each one us.  We give and receive not out of guilt, fear, low self-worth, pride, or keeping up with appearances; we give and receive because we know who we are: beloved children of God. 

Jesus taught us to pray to God as a parent. This makes all of us siblings, not only with each other but also with Jesus.  As God affirmed Jesus as Her beloved son at his baptism, God also affirms that we are Her beloved children, with whom She is well pleased.  Sometimes, we feel we have sinned and alienated from God, and we do not deserve this title.   But no matter what happened or how bad things seem to be, you and I and Jesus are family. To acknowledge and affirm this relationship is the ultimate source of healing for each one of us, for reconciling with others whom we have alienated or hurt, and for reconnecting with God through our brother Jesus.  

With that fundamental connection with God, we are not afraid.  Every hair on our head is numbered.  We are worth more than many sparrows. We do not just react to projected fears in destructive ways by holding onto what we got.  By knowing we are beloved, we are not easily threatened by those whom we considered our enemies or strangers. Instead, we can recognize others, whether they are rich or poor, friends or enemies, as also beloved children of God.  We give to create blessings for others because we are all beloved.  And we receive blessings from others also because we are all beloved and we are all related and we are family. 

 

Here is a helpful process for this week’s activities:  Read the Bible passages more than once. You can read it and then do the hair thing. Then read it again and start coloring. Then read it again and write down any words or phrases that come to you and incorporate them in the picture.

Remember to take a photo of your creation and share it with other Holy Currencies Drawers using #holycurrencies.

 

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 4

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 4

 

Best Gifts Ever

 

This week, we reflect on gift-giving-receiving in our lives.  Being a good steward is about what, when, and how to give, and the potential exchanges that the gift promises.  A good steward also needs to know the experience of receiving gifts which may exchange into other significant currencies. Our past experiences might also impact the way we give and receive gifts today. Recapturing our own experiences of gifting will enhance our understanding of the creative, dynamic flow of giving and receiving, which forms the fundamental cycle of blessings.

 

Best Gift I Ever Received

When I was graduating from college, I was all set with a good job to go to as an electrical engineer.  But Gurdon Brewster, my Episcopal campus minister at Cornell, gave me a graduation gift that would change the course of my life.  It was a 5-day retreat with the biblical scholar, Walter Wink at a place called Kirkridge in Bangor, PA.  Immersed in a loving, inclusive community, I was invited to enter the bible stories in ways that was enlightening and empowering. In the process of this retreat, I discovered the truth about myself, my need for community, and my tangible relationship with God.  Gurdon’s gift of money, time, and place was exchanged for life-long relationships, gracious leadership, spiritual wellness, and truth.  Whenever I face difficult times, I always return to the memory of that week:  how free I was, how it felt to be totally accepted for who I was, and that I am a beloved child of God no matter how I felt about myself.  To use a cliché, this was a gift that keeps giving.  Reconnecting with that experience allows me to re-establish my self-esteem and find my courage to face whatever life throws at me.

 

Best Experience of Giving a Gift:

When Ellio, my godson, was a baby, I gave him a hand puppet - a wildcat I found at the Living Desert, in Palm Desert, CA.  He loved it and named it Carl.

A year later, he was diagnosed with leukemia and had to go through surgeries and chemotherapy for a better part of 2 years.  He spent days in the hospital and his constant companion was Carl.  Once we realized how important Carl was to him, the family just accepted that Carl was part of relationship network that Ellio needed to get through this life-threatening challenge.  We didn’t even try to understand how it worked.  We did know that he had frequent conversations with Carl.  The nurses and doctors all knew about Carl.  Carl was even allowed to accompany Ellio in the operating room.  This is definitely the best gift I have ever given to anyone.  Ellio was cured and Carl was a great part of his recovery.  Sometimes a gift can have unintentional impacts that we might never understand.

 

Notice I found photos that capture my experiences of gifting and pasted them in my Drawing book.  So you might want to add glue and scissors to your art supplies.  This is also the week to check in with your Accountable Person and share your experience of doing the last 3 weeks’ activities.  If you are doing this with a group, gather your group to share their insights from the last few weeks.  And also look forward to the next 4 weeks to see if there are activities that they can do together.  If you need help with the meeting agenda, go to http://www.kscopeinstitute.org/drawing-on-holy-currencies/ to download the facilitator guide.

 

For a brainy activity, read Chapter 2 of Holy Currencies.

 

Remember to share your experiences on social media using #holycurrencies.

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 3

 Who are you?

 

In order to be an awesome steward, we have to know who we are and who we are not.  We have to know what we got before we can offer ourselves for goodness and grace in the world. We begin with our names.

 

When I was born, I was given the name “Hung-Fat” - a transliteration of my Chinese name written in my birth certificate.  Yes, this is where my middle initials, H.F., came from.

 

The word 鸿 (pronounced hòng) means overflowing. The word 發 (pronounced fā) means expanding, which is a word often used to apply to money, as in the new year well-wishing phrase “Gong Chi Fā Chai.”   This phrase literally means “congratulations expanding money.”   My family was poor when I was born and I suppose my parents gave me this name hoping I would bring prosperity to the family.  For similar reasons, many Chinese businesses such as restaurants and hardware stores have the same name.

 

I used to be embarrassed by my name.  But over the years, I have learned to appreciate it, because I have re-visioned what it means for me and my life-work.   The word 鸿 is a compound word consisting of the words for river (江) and bird (鳥).  The image I have is a scene in which fishermen are pulling in a net so overflowing with fish that hovering birds can share the abundance.  As for 發, the image I have is of yeast in bread dough causing it to rise to the right shape before it is baked into bread for our nourishment. I have redefined my name as a symbol of living in abundance.  My purpose in life is to expand and share the resources given to me and not hold onto them out of fear.

 

We have different relationships with our names at different times in our lives.  I wonder how Jesus related to his name, which means “God delivers.”    I wonder how he might have struggled with living up to its meaning as he was growing up.  I wonder how his name helped him resolve to live his life and carry out his ministry the way he did. 

 

I invite you to ponder your own name – its meaning, the circumstances around how you were named, how it shaped you, how you struggled with it and how you might reclaim it, re-vision it, or even change it for the coming year.

 

If you need to do some research to find out the meaning or story of your name, go for it. When talking to people about your name, think of it as a way to strengthen your relationships. Who knows, you might learn something about other people’s experiences of other names.

For the sentence completion activities on the second page of this week, take your time with them. Do them over the period of the week. Carry the book with you everywhere you go and when you are inspired to write a sentence about who are or who you are not, write it down.  I did just that and each day this past week, another “I am . . .” or “I am not . . .” came to mind and wrote them down immediately.  I noticed that I had difficulty with “I am not . . .” initially, but after a couple of days, they began to come to me.  Here are some of my sentences about who I am and who I am not.

 

I am a gift from God.

I am a gift from my parents.

I am a gift for transforming communities

I am a gift for grace and truth.

I am an artist and I am most happy when I create.

I am a dreamer, always dreaming about new possibilities.

I am a facilitator of inclusive and gracious space.

I am a change agent.

I am an idea person.

I am not very good at asserting myself.

I am not afraid of fears

I am not a linear thinker.

I am not good at letting go.

I am not a time driven person.

I am not good at following up on stuff even though I know I should.

 

I am sure there will be more “I am” statements about me to come this week or this year.  I will revisit this page and add and change these statements as more insight about myself emerges.  I invite you to do the same. Remember to share your experiences on social media using #holycurrencies.

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 2

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

Circling through earth so all may grow

Vanquishing fear so all may give

Widening grace so all may live.

 

The Ven. Dr. Christopher A. Pappas considers these lyrics as the theme song for the stewardship initiative at Holy Trinity Church, Edmonton.  He wrote in the church’s October 2018 e-newsletter:

 

What’s great about a song is that it’s easier for us to learn something when we sing it than if we simply try and memorize it. And even better is that this tune in four succinct lines catches the entire essence of our roles as God’s stewards.

 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow - This line correctly points out that God is the source of all our blessings, of all that we have and all that we shall ever be. God is the source of blessings, of all resources, of everything, and thus everything is creation is God’s. This means that we are stewards of everything that we have. As stewards we don’t really own anything but are entrusted with blessings and gifts in order to use them for the furthermost of their owner’s mission. God made us the stewards of creation.

 

Circling through earth so all may grow - The blessings that God gives us to steward need to flow. They aren’t meant to be accumulated, stockpiled or hoarded. They are meant to move from one to another around the earth for there to be health. Growth comes when the resources we are asked to steward move freely and are distributed to others, moving from person to person, changing form from one currency to another. God asks us to move currencies around.

 

Vanquishing fear so all may give - One of the biggest impediments to gracious giving is fear.  Fear of scarcity. Fear of there not being enough. One of the challenges of good stewardship is replacing the fear of scarcity with the knowledge of God’s abundance. There is more than enough for everyone. It is fear that binds us; it is Jesus that looses those bounds. God asks us to trust in him and let go of fear.

 

Widening grace so all may live - Making time and space for grace so that all can have life. Jesus came so that all could have abundant life. By focusing on Jesus, making him central to our lives and allowing time and room for different thoughts and ideas, we can push back the boundary of our fear and make room that allows God to transform us and our context. God asks us to allow room for transformation.

 

Here is the link to my version of the song on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkDxIk_HU64

This song is one track on an album called Cycle of Blessings from my book, Holy Currencies Exchange, where you can also find the music score for each song.  You can purchase the Cycle of Blessings CD on CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon, or Spotify.

Of course, you can sing these lyrics with the traditional Old 100^th tune or any other alternative tunes for the doxology.  The key for this week is to have fun singing, dancing, meditating, and coloring the Praise God picture. Don’t forget to share your colorful creation on the social media platform of your choice using #holycurrencies.  

For a more brainy activity, read the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Holy Currencies.

Please share your experience of working through these weekly activities is going, either through social media or by emailing us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you.

Drawing on Holy Currencies Week 1

Covenant

One of my 2019 New Year’s resolutions is to do the weekly activities of Drawing on Holy Currencies and share my reflections with those who have made the same commitment through this blog.  Think of this as a covenanted community of people who want to be awesome, amazing and animated stewards. So get some coloring pencils, markers, and/or crayons and have fun coloring the pledge card for Week One of this book. (I found an art set for $5 at Michael’s, https://www.michaels.com/100-piece-kids-art-set-by-creatology/10152571.html#q=art+set&pmpt=qualifying&sz=24&start=64 that will work just fine for our project.)

I have to admit that I struggled with this commitment since I declared that I would do it a few weeks ago.  What if I am too busy and miss a week; what would my readers say?  It’s like deciding to have a baby and then being overwhelmed by the thoughts of making a lifetime commitment to raising another human being!  “Well, let’s not be so overly dramatic about this,” I said to myself.  This is not a lifetime commitment; it’s just for a year.  And it only takes 2 hours a week.  (I am using part of that 2 hours writing this blog post now.)  I can find that time by not watching 2 hours of TV or not going to a movie.  I can get up ½ hour early for 4 days of the week to do the activities as part of my spiritual discipline, or I can do ½ hours nighttime reflection before I go to bed which I’m already doing anyway.  I can even multi-task and do this at lunch time when I am eating alone.  Now I feel a little better about how realistic this can be done.  

To make myself feel even better, I also decided not to beat myself up for missing a week here or there.  I’ll let my readers know and I will catch up. Or I can just skip that week and not feel bad about it and invite another to share his/her reflection instead for that week.  I invite you to do the same thing: forgive yourselves and not let your guilt and perfectionism get in the way of you continuing this process. The key is to continue doing these activities despite my imperfection and incompetence and make it all the way to the 52^nd week.  

Built into this covenant, is an accountable person (AP): someone who will commit to checking on how you are doing with your Holy Currencies and will not mind when you bother him/her with your periodic Holy Currencies reports. Through the book, you will be interrupted with a little reminder every 4 weeks of so to check in with your AP.  It should be interesting for you to explain Drawing on Holy Currencies to your AP initially and as the year goes on.  I took the easy way out and as Peter Bechtel, who is the Transition Director of my organization, Kaleidoscope Institute.  So it didn’t take much to explain this to him. 

Another way to get an AP is to start a small group of 5-8 people who are committed to Drawing on Holy Currencies.  Make a covenant with the group to meet at least once a month to share insights and learning and to support each other.  Select one of the group members to be your AP.

Complete the pledge card, invite your AP to sign it with you, take a photo and send it to someone who oversees stewardship ministry in your church/organization. Why? This is what it means to be part of a community: let each other know what you are doing and invite others to help you keep your promise. 

You are also invited to post the fruit of your weekly efforts – colored pictures, photos, poems, insights, etc. - on social media.  Be sure to include #holycurrencies so this community of awesome stewards can keep each other informed, inspire each other and create interest in others to join us on this amazing journey. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @kscopeinstitute, like us on Facebook (Kaleidoscope Institute) and Instagram @kaleidoscopeinstitute.