Month / April 2020

by Karen Twinem

Christian Mindfulness Practice: Flash Prayers

Developing the daily habit of offering up a sentence-long prayer at specific times is a common suggestion. Kenneth Boa and Jenny Abel, authors of the free-pdf “A Guide to Practicing God’s Presence,” call these “flash prayers” or “arrow prayers.”

Use your own Jesus prayer or one of these suggestions:

  • Come, Lord Jesus.
  • Holy Spirit, act through me.
  • I thank you in all things.
  • This is the day that you have made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.
  • May I love and serve you and others today.
  • I love you, Lord.

Of course, you can also write your own prayer. Just make it easy to memorize.

You can use this prayer at various times through the day. One way to remind yourself is to set a subtle alarm for times. Other times to use flash prayers include:

  • When you walk up
  • When you are about to eat
  • Before a meeting
  • Before making a call
  • Before sending or responding to a text
  • While waiting in line
  • At bedtime
by Karen Twinem

Angels Watching Over Us Every Step We Take

Even the hard times contain blessings as well as fear. Abiding in Jesus through the pandemic involves accepting the path as it is and moving forward. If we do this, we will learn much about God and ourselves.

The Lord promises that walking in His Presence is a well-planned and well-staffed operation. “For He shall give His angels charge of over, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone,” says Psalm 91: 11-12.

So, if we are discouraged about the impact of the pandemic on our bank accounts, our families and our dreams, we can be sure that God is with us. Look for the blessings, and pray out your gratitude. And be sure to thank God for those angels who are with you right now.

This reminds me of the Amy Grant song, “Angels.”

Under the authority of God’s word, we know we are his children, our names engraved on the palms of His hands. He knows how we feel. He knows what obstacles we face, and He will be with us.

by Karen Twinem

Christian Mindfulness Resource: Abide App

The Abide app was the first recommendation I received from a friend when she discovered my interest in both Christian mindfulness and the use of apps for insomnia. I now share her enthusiasm.

Abide, which costs about $40 a year for the premium version, has a wide array of Christian meditations, teachings and stories for all times of the day. It’s reportedly the #1 Christian mediation app.

The team creating Abide is Carpenters Code, a small group of former Google employees who decided to use their abilities to serve God. Their mission is to allow the world to experience the peace of Christ through Biblical meditation.

The daily guided meditations, found on the Home screen, come in lengths of 2, 5, 10 and 15 minutes, to suit our schedules.

The home or “Today” page also offer links to meditations for sleep, anxiety and emotions. A journal is on the page as well. Under the Sleep menu, Bible stories, meditations, psalms, material for children and other non-fiction meditations are available.

The Topics menus offers a variety of materials for dealing with emotions, growing spiritually, seeking guidance, healing, praying in the morning, offering thanks and more. The guides are short courses on topics including marriage, grief, money, parenting and more.

I’ve just gotten started with Abide, but so far, I highly recommend it.

by Karen Twinem

A Perfect Prayer for a Pandemic

Lord, help us to see that our well-being is inextricably bound to the well-being of our neighbor. Our sorrows are shared. Our longings are shared. Our fears are shared. Enable us also to share compassion, patience and courage today. Amen.

Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro
by Karen Twinem

Christian Mindfulness When You Are Wearing Out

The joy of the Lord is my strength. That is something I need to remember in this phase of the pandemic, when it feels like I am running out of steam. I now have insomnia, the result of many nightmares about bad people trying to break into my house. (Very subtle, subconscious.) This tests my ability to practice Christian mindfulness, but in the end, it will strengthen it.

The Lord knows that many of us are starting to wear out. Any initial burst of adrenaline and interest in the uniqueness of the situation are gone. That can be good news.

God is our strength, always there when we are not feeling strong enough to take on a difficult challenge. This pandemic is not even in the Top 5 of bad things that I have experienced. So I know, looking back, that God gives you the strength. But we have to ask for it.

Only by connecting with the Lord in times of quiet and prayer … as well as practicing the presence of God moment to moment … will the strength and the joy flow through us. Calling on the name of Jesus hour by hour, even minute by minute, will build that connection. That is what Christian mindfulness is all about. For more on that, click here.

As Paul writes in Philippians 4:19: “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

by Karen Twinem

Resource: Christian Mindfulness YouTube Channel

The Christian Mindfulness YouTube Channel is an active source for meditations and prayers. Updated regularly, Richard HH Johnston started the channel in 2009. Johnston speaks with a Scottish accent and operates the channel and its website, Christian Mindfulness, from the United Kingdom.

He is currently doing a Gospel Diamonds series in which he “looks at the beauty of the gospel from different angles.” The series, like much of the other material on the site, is deliberately simple in production value.

Johnston writes on the website that he created the materials based on more than 20 years of mindfulness, meditation and contemplative practice. He also provides online courses, certificates, workshops and retreats on Christian Mindfulness, contemplation and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

He noted that his materials integrate biblical theory, contemplative practices and the latest scientific studies in mindfulness, meditation and CBT.

by Karen Twinem

Christian Mindfulness Practice: Name What You Need

The breath prayer is a common practice in Christian mindfulness or contemplation. A variation that helps during a pandemic or just daily life is to ask for the grace, knowledge or virtue you need at this moment in the prayer.

When you feel frightened, overwhelmed or unsure, sit or stand quietly for a few seconds. Then start your breath prayer. “Come, Lord Jesus” or “Come, Holy Spirit” work well if you want to create a prayer.

Inhale saying your breath prayer. Then exhale naming what you need, such as:

Come, Lord Jesus. Bring me patience.

Come, Holy Spirit. Grant me the wisdom to deal with this.

Come, Lord Jesus. Let me feel your peace.

Come, Holy Spirit. Speak through me.

by Karen Twinem

Earth Day: Is God Telling Us Something?

This is the 50th Earth Day that I have celebrated. In 1970, I was involved in creating the Earth Day celebration at Westerville High School. And I’ve celebrated ever since.

This Earth Day, I wonder if God is telling us something about how we are taking advantage of the earth by showing us what happens when we stop. The air is cleaner. Wildlife is peeking out. Lions are sleeping on the roads of African national parks.

Does man impact earth and cause climate change? I think this unintended experiment shows us just how much that is true. Did God allow this pandemic to demonstrate this? Is the Earth sick of us?

Simple Living Works is a blog and podcast that has roots dating back to the voluntary simplicity movement in the 1970s. Its latest episode was a discussion about whether this pandemic proves that only huge dramatic events will steer humans away from destroying our environment.

Let us call for blessing on the Earth on this day:

Dear Mother Earth, who day by day

Unfolds rich blessing on our way,

O praise God! Alleluia!

The fruits and flowers that verdant grow,

Let them his praise abundant show,

O praise God, O praise God,

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia

Francis of Assisi
by Karen Twinem

Commemorate the Holocaust

I remember watching filmstrips about the liberation of the concentration camps in Europe in elementary school in the early and mid-1960s. I thought that the Holocaust happened very long ago among heathen peoples. Looking back, I know what I saw had happened only a decade or so in the past. The heathens thought they were civilized, even superior, people.

Today is Yom HaShoah, the time to remember the Holocaust. It’s time for me to remember how many people who thought they were good Christians participated … actively or passively … in it. As the eyewitnesses leave this Earth, we must all remember and fight those who want to deny reality.

O God, we are conscious that many centuries of blindness have blinded our eyes so that we no longer see the beauty of your chosen people, nor recognize in their faces the features of our privileged brothers and sisters.

We realize that the mark of Cain stands upon our foreheads.

Across the centuries our brother Abel has lain in blood which we drew or which we caused to be shed by forgetting your love.

Forgive us for the curse we falsely attached to their name as Jews.

Forgive us for crucifying you a second time in their flesh.

God of Abraham and of Moses, we pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear your world.

As you have made them your own, so make them continue to grow in love of your name and in faithfulness to your covenant.

You are our God, living and reigning, for ever and ever. Amen

Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers
by Karen Twinem

Focus on the Presence of God in the Pandemic

No matter how isolated we all feel, God is with us in quarantine. This unique time in history creates an opportunity. We can choose to practice Christian mindfulness. We can feel the presence of God moment by moment during these days of pandemic.

Romans 8: 38-39 famously reminds us:

I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, no anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love go God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That’s true for a pandemic, too. God calls to us at this and every moment by our names. The quiet of quarantine gives us more of a chance to listen. As Sarah Young writes in Jesus Today:

“When world events are swirling around you and your personal world feels unsteady, don’t let your mind linger on those stressors. Tell yourself the truth: Yes this world is full of trouble, but Jesus is with me and He is in control.”

We need to move our focus from the pandemic to the presence of Jesus over and over again. “But Jesus is with me” is a good breath prayer. I use “Come Holy Spirit” repeatedly to move my mind from the present to the presence. Let’s all do this.