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    Ordinary Fragments: Meditations for the Dailiness of Living
    Ordinary Fragments: Meditations for the Dailiness of Living
    Ordinary Fragments: Meditations for the Dailiness of Living
    Ebook147 pages6 hours

    Ordinary Fragments: Meditations for the Dailiness of Living

    By Audrey Brown Lightbody

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    About this ebook

    Through fourteen weeks of daily devotionals, she guides us to understand that God is in the ordinary.

    The simplicity of the everydayness of living can serve as pathways to God. Life-changing moments are rare. The everyday is where humanity lives. In looking at a variety of fragments, a new and different understanding of the value of the very ordinary may emerge in the God relationship and thus change the individual journey.

    Audrey Brown Lightbody is, by nature, a true weaver! Her book is a woven tapestry of vignettes, reflections, poetry, and evocative questions a unique presentation of guided meditations which invite us to discover what of The Holy may be close beneath the surface of the ordinary of our lives. A book to be kept near at hand, these readings will prompt fresh insights and inspiration over many occasions. For group reflection, as well as individual prayer, Ordinary Fragments is a rich and deeply engaging resource.
    from the Spirit Group who shared the journey

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateSep 19, 2012
    ISBN9781449761325
    Ordinary Fragments: Meditations for the Dailiness of Living
    Author

    Audrey Brown Lightbody

    Audrey Brown Lightbody has spent her life in administrative and ecumenical ministries within the Christian church. She is a writer who has shared her insights through a variety of writing media: poetry, drama, curricula, books, and many articles. She is currently retired and living in Claremont, California.

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      Book preview

      Ordinary Fragments - Audrey Brown Lightbody

      CONTENTS

      PREFACE

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      PART ONE

      THE ORDINARY

      FRAGMENT

      THE PROCESS BEGUN

      PART TWO

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT - JOURNEYS

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – GOD

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – TREES

      ORDINARY. FRAGMENT - CRAFTS

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – TIME

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – BROKENNESS

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – THE ELEMENTAL

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – WHO I AM

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT - SILENCE

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – RELATIONSHIPS

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – PEOPLE

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – PASSAGES

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – VARIETY

      ORDINARY FRAGMENT – CHOICES

      PART THREE

      CONSIDERING THE SEASONS OF LIFE

      A GUIDE FOR SMALL GROUPS

      Also by Audrey Brown Lightbody:

      Faith Is the Journey; R. C. Law Co.1987 (a book of poetic essays based on travels on BART in Oakland, CA)

      Reflections on Caring for an Aging Parent; Chalice Press 1999.

      Fragmented Senses; Outskirts Press, 2006 (a book of poetry)

      To my Spirit Sisters who continue to share the journey

      PREFACE

      In my many years of living I have spent much time in meditation, seeking to find my own spirituality and tried to find as well, ways to relate what I have experienced and seen to the world about me. The concerns that come from the outer world have become a means for deepening my own relationship with God. As I have considered my own spiritual life, I have learned that it is not a solitary journey, but also must be done in relationship with nature, people and the universe of which I am a part. This book of my thoughts calls me to be a continuing seeker and sharer. In my previous books, in a variety of formats, I have been an observer of life and have tried to put into written form how those observations have led into deepening spiritual life. I desire to be a sharer of those insights to help others along their life journeys.

      Poetry and poetic essays are the way I have expressed my insights about daily occurrences, touching on a variety of subjects, primarily as they relate to where God has led me. This book entitled Ordinary Fragments, is intensely personal, using bits and pieces of my life and that relationship with God. My concern for the world and humanity is integral to all my writing and shows a deep compassion and concern for all people to know God’s love and leading.

      I have sought to place the reader, through fourteen weeks of daily devotionals, into a different understanding of the value of the very ordinary in the God relationship. In meditation, I am aware that we speak to God of our needs and hopes and listen to hear God speak; we hope for a dynamic, mystical, life changing message from God. In the written word we look for that moment in which God writes clearly for us in capital, bold letters God’s will for us. Too often, we fail to see and hear in the little words, the little sounds, in the everydayness, the word that God sends to us. Written large and bold is

      GOD IS IN THE ORDINARY.

      Ordinary Fragments offers a challenging way to find God’s word in the daily, ordinary events of our lives; in the bits and pieces casually tossed out in mundane words and acts. It suggests that the reader should choose to look for God in fragmented, very ordinary thoughts then through these insights seek to find the reader’s own ordinary pathway to hear God speak and see God in pathways that will illuminate the way to be within God’s will.

      Bits and pieces of ordinary living can serve as pathways to God. Life changing moments are rare. The everyday is where we live. What memory fragments of a very ordinary life would lead one into a new understanding of how God speaks in daily ordinary ways?

      Then it was that I had this idea about ordinary fragments. What if I were to pull from my memory some of those fragments, locating them in order to look at them, focus in meditation on what they mean or could mean to me as I continue on my life journey. If I put them front and center in my mind on a daily basis, pondering their value to me in the here and now, would I then be able to move them from the cluttered places of myself and find new ways to move forward on my life journey? Would this be reason enough to put it into a book? You, the reader will give the answer.

      Acknowledgments

      All Biblical quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ and are acknowledged within the text itself. These are all only a bit of a verse and not in its entirety.

      All bits of hymn verses have come from The United Methodist Hymnal published by the United Methodist Publishing House; Nashville, Tennessee in 1989. Within the text I have placed an asterisk. These are the fragments and the hymns: immortal invisible from the hymn by that name # 103; God walked and talked with me from In the Garden # 314; feed me until I want no more from Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah #127.

      This manuscript was shared with friends who make up Spirit Group. Meeting on a regular basis to consider spirituality and its meaning in our lives, they did me the honor of using this manuscript as our guide through the summer months. This invaluable gift allowed changes in the original text as we shared together in the living out of these meditations. Thank you to Donna, Joan, Pat, Barbara and Shirley for being a part not only of this journey but our larger shared journeying.

      INTRODUCTION

      Fragments are little bits and pieces of any number of things – some leftover cloth, some broken pieces of valuable or not-so-valuable items within a household, a tiny bit of verse, the rest of the poem forgotten; all of Google would seem to be made up of fragments, or it can be an idea that comes from some other source and then is temporarily put aside, a piece of a journey, a piece of a day, or even a piece of a life. When I began to think of fragments, I realized how much of our lives, the world’s life, is made up of fragments – and for the most part they are just ordinary items.

      I thought of other words that are similar in make-up: shards, remnants, bits and all of these, as well as fragments can become clutter and in the larger world sense can lead to chaos. How do we separate out the good from the clutter, from the chaos? The many catastrophes that have enveloped our world over the ages and most recently in the years of our lifetimes: hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, oil spills, pollutants in the atmosphere, wars; all have left fragments, remnants, clutter and chaos in their wake.

      How do we as individuals and even society make use of the fragments on our individual and corporate journeys? I know there are no simple answers, no answers that work for everyone, for a whole world. I wondered about some ways in which I might help cut down on the clutter in my own life, help others to do so in their own lives, and thus be a guide in finding an ordinary, simple way to help myself and perhaps a world fight free from the chaos.

      The first example that came to me, as I thought about clutter, was an attic or storage shed. All of us, I suspect, are guilty of putting too many fragments – whether they be of clothes or furniture or high school yearbooks, or letters, cards, remembrances or just things with which we hate to part at any given moment - away for use another time. Then they sit there until we want something and, hopefully, we have made a note of its location and we go to find it. Thus we have removed one piece, one fragment from the clutter. Then there are those items that remain hidden away for years and perhaps one day we decide to clean out that accumulated clutter of that attic or storage shed.

      Then it was that I had this idea about ordinary fragments. What if I were to pull from my memory some of those fragments, locating them in order to look at them, focus in meditation on what they mean or could mean to me as I continue on my life journey. If I put them front and center in my mind on a daily basis, pondering their value to me in the here and now, would I then be able to move them from the cluttered places of myself and find new ways to move forward on my life journey?

      You see, I am not trying to find anyone else’s way to lose the chaos, but if enough of us could do this, perhaps it might spill over and allow many of us then to work to remove the clutter and the chaos of the world. (That last is a dream, a hope, a not present reality, but it may be a beginning way.)

      There is nothing new about this, many saints through the ages, many persons who dare to dream dreams have sought ways to accomplish these goals – I am aiming at a single, very ordinary person, myself, and in so doing daring to share myself hoping that others may find their own unique way to use the ordinary fragments of their lives.

      PART ONE

      STEPS TO BEGIN THE PROCESS

      THE ORDINARY

      FRAGMENTS

      THE PROCESS BEGUN

      I began to wonder how I would find a way to begin this process using the ordinary fragments. There are two words in use above as I look ahead to thinking about my life journey. The process begun will provide a suggested way to use the meditations.

      THE ORDINARY

      I want to start with the ordinary because it is where so much of life is lived. Ordinary is customary, normal, not unusual. Thinking about the ordinary gets me into the whole routine of life: the day in which I do my washing, my cleanings, committee meetings that are a regular part of each week or month. There are so many tasks that fit my ordinary. If I stop and think about it, the ordinary is not something that is the same for everyone. What is ordinary for me may not seem the same for others. If I have

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