Celtic Prayer

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I figured I would read through one of the many faith related books that I own but haven't touched yet. It's called The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way To Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller. My InterVarsity leader gave me a $20 gift card when I graduated to spend at IVPress.com, and after shopping around for a long time I chose this book for two reasons - first, I've always been fascinated by the Celts and was interested to learn more about them and, secondly, I knew I could use a challenge to help stimulate my prayer life. Of course, I didn't get around to reading it till months after ordering it, but I think it was a good choice. It definitely gave me a new perspective on how and why we pray. Here's an excerpt from the back:

In uncertain and dangerous days of high infant-mortality rates, leprosy and plagues, the Celts breathed candid prayers out of the reality of their lives: Desperate prayers for protection. Praise for the God who was king over all creation. Honest prayers of confession. In these pages, Miller introduces us to six types of Celtic prayer that can connect us to God more deeply by helping us pray out of the circumstances and uncertainties of our own life.

I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who wasn't very spiritually mature because you need to have discernment when reading through this kind of theology. (There are definitely some things the author discusses that I don't agree with). I also think the writing style leaves something to be desired. But there are some hard-hitting nuggets of truth in there that have helped me in my prayer life.

The premise is that there are 6 different types of prayers that the Celts prayed, and after describing each of them in depth, the author provides an outline for you to fill in with your own thoughts and prayers. The first thing they explain is that the Celts were very in tune with the triune nature of God and would often to pray separately to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At first I thought that sounded a bit redundant, but Miller made a good point that when we pray today we tend to give the big things to the Father and the personal things to the Son, but pretty much ignore the Holy Spirit. Definitely a challenging thought considering the Holy Spirit is supposed to be a huge part of our connection with God. He also talks about how the Celts would memorize scripture and pray it out loud. This is a practical thing for us to be doing today because it keeps us open to what God wants to say to us through the Word instead of only expecting Him to listen to our requests. The Celts would also go on long pilgrimages where they completely relied upon God to take care of them, and - of course - they went out into nature and worshiped God for His creation. They also focused a lot on confession and how being aware of our sinful nature increased their need and desire for a relationship with God.

The section that hit me hardest in my life right now is what they called "The Lorica" or, in English, the "Breastplate" of God. This stems from the verses that talk about putting on the armor of God for protection. Miller writes about how we often feel like it's a selfish thing to pray for protection and good health, but since the Celts lived in such hard times and had nowhere else to turn for help, they always asked God to look out for them. The common prayer "As I lay my head down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep" was created by them because they were genuinely afraid of not waking up in the morning. The key to the Lorica is that you ask God to take care of you - not for your own comfort - but so that you can go on worshipping Him and serving Him on earth. This was a great encouragement to me because one of the biggest things I struggle with is the fear and uncertainty concerning my health, and having this new form of Christ-centered prayer provides me a wholesome way to address and lift that burden.

As we're getting ready to make this big step into the next phase of our life together, I can echo the words of St. Patrick:

Lord, set me on the rampart.

Give me health enough to live to complete the dream.

Celebrating the End

As the end of our time in Del Rio draws near (less than a month left!!) we find that we have been spending more and more time with friends. Now that James is no longer training we have a lot more flexibility and are able to accept all kinds of invitations for night time fun. Sometimes it will be a casual BBQ on the weekend with the single guys...sometimes it's a big house party for a birthday or holiday...and sometimes someone will have a spontaneous idea for a week night get together. Regardless of the scale, however, each party is memorable and I now have many fun pictures of us doing wild and crazy things with friends.

Last night was one of those spontaneous parties. Our friends Patrick and Ashley Chapman called us up around dinner time and asked if we wanted to get together and celebrate St. Patrick's Day. What was originally going to be nothing more than some drinks and/or dessert out turned into a big Irish fest at our apartment. True, there were only four of us there, but we went as far out as one can go with only an hour to prepare. I made some festive green decorations and set out all of the green and gold food we had. James was excited because we finally got to use the Guinness pint glasses that his friends gave us for our wedding. I played some Celtic music low in the background as we talked and played cards.

(I had a green skirt on, incase you were wondering... ;^)

I think the best part, though, was the mere fact that we're able to do things like that on a week night. I find that I'm often still in school mode and assume that week nights are not times to hang out with people... But we're adults now and (provided we have nothing particularly strenuous or important the next morning) we have the freedom to do whatever we want to! I look forward to entertaining a lot more once we move to Phoenix. We will actually have the room to host more than 6 people at a time, so that's exciting! Finally the party can come to us instead of us having to go elsewhere to join the fun.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more accounts of the many fun times we've got planned. We have every intention of properly celebrating the end of our stay in West Texas!

Looking Back

I have been taking advantage of the extraordinary photo viewing capabilities on my new iMac by working on one of my recent creative ideas. James and I use Walmart.com for all of our photo printing needs, and every time I'm on there I can't help but notice all of the cool gift and things that you can make with your snapshots. The one that seems to be the most useful is a hardcover photo album that you can design yourself. Some of my friends have made similar things to show off vacations they've taken or their copious baby photos. I think this is a really classy way to put together a photo album, so I decided it might be fun to make one for each base that we are stationed at.

It's been quite a job searching through both James' and my various photo storage places to find 3 years worth of pictures. (We've both got computer folders stashed all throughout our multiple internal and external hard drives, as well as stacks of CD's all over the place. Several of my pictures had to be pulled from internet photo albums since I lost a lot of files both times my computer died). It was worth it though, because we now have a clean and professional looking little book that encapsulates the 3 years that James has lived here in Del Rio. Of course, I left a couple pages blank and won't be ordering it until after we move so that we can include those last precious shots of our life here.

If you ever come visit, you can take a look at our first completely personalized coffee table book and see how far James and I have come since he first arrived in West Texas back in August 2006! (Or, I suppose, it's possible for you to order your own copy since it's all saved on Walmart.com. Let me know if you'd like to see it once it's finished next month!)

Here are some of my favorite shots, looking back...

The guys suiting up in San Antonio

James' T-38 flight (class) right before graduation

Carving pumpkins at Halloween

Being silly at the squadron Christmas party

Hanging out with friends last weekend. : )

(Note how my hair has progressively gotten shorter over time.)

James is IFF complete!!

After spending months and months waiting for James to start his final leg of training here in Del Rio, it's hard to believe that it's already over!! He had his final IFF (intro to fighter fundamentals) ride on Wednesday, then spent Thursday in a simulator learning the approaches into Luke AFB in Phoenix, and on Friday they held a casual graduation ceremony in the squadron bar. I was excited that I could be there to take a couple pictures for our family.

Even though he is finished, James fully intends to keep working hard and studying so that he can hit the ground running when we get to Phoenix. He is super excited and overwhelmed that there is nothing standing in between him and an F-16 now!! I'm so proud of all the work he put in and look forward to being there to support him as he begins his career as a fighter pilot.

Spring Has Sprung!

After being sick and living on my couch for a week, I was surprised last Thursday when I stepped outside for a much needed walk and found the world very much changed. All of the dry, brown brush is beginning to turn green and there are little wildflowers blooming along the pavement. Many of the trees already have green leaves on them, and the butterflies, grasshoppers and bees are buzzing around again. I don't feel like we really had a proper winter season here since it was sunny, tee shirt weather almost every day. But there is a definite change of season going on and it's kind of exciting! I took my camera with me on my walk this afternoon so I could post some pictures here. (I'm sure I looked very odd walking around in work out clothes with a gigantic camera around my neck...but oh well.)

I think the flower above is a good representation of Del Rio - it's a delicate, friendly little thing blossoming on a dry, prickly, altogether unpleasant looking plant. Not something you'd ever desire to have in your garden, but it's got some natural beauty nonetheless.

Believe it or not, I didn't adjust the color at all in the picture above. This very pretty little purple flower is only about the size of a penny and was sitting all by itself next to the walking track. Glad I noticed it before I stepped on it!

Some of the trees are covered with all these little yellow flowers. Very pretty and - thankfully - not so full of pollen that they make me sneeze.

I don't know if you can see it very clearly, but I managed to capture a picture of a little white butterfly alighting on that green stem. I'm glad there was no one in the park at the conclusion of my walk because I kept chasing butterflies around, struggling to get them in focus before they flew out of frame. Somehow I don't think I'm destined to be a wildlife photographer... ;^)