Faith to Go Invites God Sightings in Ordinary Time
The first thing I do every morning is throw on a pair of old sweats, lace up my sneakers, and go on a two-mile, early morning walk with my dogs and my sister. The second is drink coffee. When I arrive home from the walk with my tired and happy dogs, most often there is a cup of coffee waiting for me that I didn’t brew. My husband Tim did. On the days that he leaves the house early for work, the pot is usually set and ready to go, so all I have to do is push the start button. Tim doesn’t drink coffee. He drinks tea. But every morning, he completes this act of service and love for me.
It is my first God Sighting of the day.
If the phrase God Sighting feels unexpected to you, it comes from the Faith to Go podcast. A weekly discussion of the Gospel, Faith to Go is a ministry of The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego hosted by David Tremaine and me. Each week, we laugh and wrestle with the Gospel reading for the week ahead. We are often joined by a guest. These holy conversations have enriched my personal discipleship more than any other practice. It is the place where I learned that I have something to say about the Gospel, and more importantly, where I realized that I longed to hear what other people had to say, too. I wanted to encounter Jesus not just in church on Sunday, but in my everyday life. I wanted my understanding of scripture to be expanded through conversation and differing perspectives. That realization, which took place over several months in 2019, was profound, but it is not my favorite part of Faith to Go.
The God Sightings are.
The episodes begin the same way each week. Introductions, ministry context, and a God Sighting – a place where we have seen or felt God in the past week or so. It can be a “consolation” or a “desolation”, a time when it was easy to feel God’s presence, or a time when we felt bereft of it. Sometimes the God Sightings are big things: moments of clarity, of hope and healing, prophetic witness, and miracles. Othertimes they are small, like a perfect avocado cut open and lying on your cutting board, or my cup of coffee in the morning. Simple moments where we pause and notice God’s goodness in the world around us and in one another.
Ordinary God Sightings.
If this sounds familiar to you, it should. God Sightings are rooted in the Examen. The Examen can be found in Spiritual Exercises, written by Saint Ignatius of Loyola more than 400 years ago. Jesuits are required to complete it twice daily, at noon and at the end of the day – looking backward to notice where God’s presence was palpable in their lives. In my life, I do it at the end of the day after I have washed my face and crawled into bed.
A few deep breaths, an invitation for God to be with me, and a quick check-in.
For what moment today am I the most grateful?
What has challenged me today that I need to put down?
Where did I encounter God’s presence?
Simple and transformational, practicing the check-in daily has widened the lens through which I experience God, noticing God both within my daily life and God’s image in the faces of each person I encounter.
This past Sunday was Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. The season that follows it, “the season after Pentecost”, or Ordinary Time, will stretch all the way until Advent – almost half of the calendar year. And because my Faith to Go cohost, David, loves etymology, I know that Ordinary comes from the word ordinal, which means counted. So ordinary time isn’t just “ordinary”, it is a season where we pause to count our days. Or we pause to make our days count. Blending these two ideas – noticing God and making our days count, we invite you to an Ordinary Time practice. We are calling it Ordinary God Sightings, a simple check-in at the end of the day to look backward and notice where God’s presence was within it.
And because this is the Year of Discipleship in our diocese, there are resources to share.
- Download and print a simple Ordinary God Sighting Examen for yourself or to share with friends. Ordinary God Sightings is formatted to be postcard size, but could be adapted into other formats.
- Listen to Faith to Go each week both to reflect on the Gospel and to listen to the God Sighting. Most of them won’t be big, shiny miracles, but a simple noticing of God in our everyday lives.
- Use Social Media for discipleship. Each Sunday, Faith to Go will post a prompt inviting you to share your God Sightings from the week. Leave a comment with your God Sighting, or post your own video reflection and tag @FaithtoGo so that we can reshare it and broaden the conversation.
- Share your Ordinary God Sighting with the diocese. Use this simple form to send in a God Sighting that we can share on social media, diocesan communications, and possibly on Faith to Go.
I wonder how our relationship with God and one another might be changed by this simple practice. This moment where we pause, notice God, make our days count, and ask
For what moment each day am I the most grateful?
What moments challenged me that I need to put down or give to God?
Where did I encounter God’s presence?
I wonder how our Ordinary God Sightings could change the Church, could change the world.
by
Category: #Communications, #Outreach, #Worship & Formation, #Youth, Children, & Families
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6 replies to “Faith to Go Invites God Sightings in Ordinary Time”
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So beautiful, Charlette! Thank you for this! I am going to print and laminate the God Sighting cards for my centering prayer group.
Since I am old, and Instagram seems to hate me, do you have any other link for this? Maybe through EDSD or something???
I listened to you guys once – it was really interesting, but I need a good link so I can put it on my calendar with that link.
Thanks
Barbara
Great idea!!!!
Thank you Charlette!!
Your work in the diocese is a blessing to all!!
Fabulous. Thank you.
God Sighting, dated August 14- (sorry for the length, edit as desired)
Hi Charlette and David,
I’m finally getting to your Podcast regularly, and want to share a God sighting with you I had recently. As David mentioned this week, about his birthday at the end of June, mine also occurred on my birthday, July 3. It concerns a trip to the hospital for hip replacement surgery scheduled for July 2.
Having suffered for months with a seriously deteriorating right hip the surgery date seemed forever away in March and April. Finally the day arrived and I had informed everyone I new about it and had many comforting assurances of prayers and good wishes. The surgeon’s office called the day before with the time for arrival and surgery, saying arrive by 8 for 10:10 surgery and I would be released that day after a physical therapy appointment in the afternoon. That evening another call announce a delay until 11:30 arrival for 1:30 surgery. Arriving on time and prepared with an IV in hand, hospital gown and a comfy bed. At 12:30 an aid arrived to announce a further delay until 3:30! I began to wonder how late they would do the surgery and really didn’t want to return the next day.
The surgeon arrived around 3 and initialed my hip with a black marker and I asked, “So we’re going to get this thing in?” He said yes. Sure enough I landed on the OR table at 4:20, a familiar time for me, amusing and strangely comforting. The anesthesiologist reached across the bed as I sat on the edge of the bed, bent over a pillow to await his nerve blocker shot in my spine. My legs were not numb as predicted but the next minute the second dose of anesthesia put me to asleep on the pillow.
I was not completely unconscious and heard a curious conversation, and then awoke in recovery thrashing with my legs and arms, and uttering some curses until another shot in my IV put me out. Then lying in a hospital room, after sunset, I overheard a nurse saying the nerve blocker didn’t get into the right place. Once awake, and another visitor, the first question asked is name and birthdate. I answered and the nurse said your birthday is tomorrow! Yes, I assured her, and she immediately drew a birthday cake and balloons with marker on my white board! The visits continued throughout the night and in the morning a “Birthday breakfast” arrived with Hot! french toast and crisp bacon with all the trimmings. Another visitor, this time from the kitchen manager asking “how was breakfast” and I burst with praise, was given a birthday hat, “Happy Birthday” banner taped to my wall and a hearty version of the song with the whole shift crew!
Suddenly I realized the answer to all the prayers offered for my surgery: the delays in getting to the OR enabled me to stay overnight, what I truly hoped for since my housemates are attentive and able, but no comparison to the professional staff at Sharp Grossmont. PT arrived first thing in the morning saying they heard I was ready to get home. I passed their walking and stair-climbing test and was able to stay for a nice lasagna lunch and fond farewells.
Thanks be to God for the care, the prayers and the delays. They didn’t seem answered at the time but certainly made all the difference!