tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35971781132181445082024-02-19T13:19:25.827+03:00Cracked Old Pots"For God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in our hearts.... But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2Cor 4:6-7)
A jar of clay? A pot. An image of earthly humanity. And at my age, my "pot" has been used and beat around. Which makes me what? A cracked old pot, not so much containing God's glory as helplessly hoping that's what will shine through and ooze out in a way that blesses my world.Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-56213900495124412382017-09-19T21:05:00.000+03:002017-09-19T21:06:45.871+03:00From Water to Wine—and our upcoming season at Spa for the Soul
Remember that? Remember how (check out John 2) Jesus went to
a wedding and ended up turning water into wine? John begins that story with “On
the third day…”. His narrative before that references several “next” days, but
today I heard echoes from Genesis. The
book of John begins just as Genesis begins: “in the beginning…”, and makes it
plain that Jesus was the Actor who brought creation Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-79301894361582925912016-02-23T16:33:00.000+02:002016-02-23T16:33:30.846+02:00Listeners that bridge the way to prayer
The image in my mind as I begin is of that ladder Jacob saw
in his dream, the one that served as a bridge between heaven and earth. We see
in that bridge a picture of Jesus, of how His incarnation, death and resurrection
open a way for us to move between this life and eternity. Today I think, too,
of the one who listens in the power of the indwelling Spirit, as one who serves
the speaker as a Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-59480245384456008052016-02-22T10:38:00.000+02:002016-02-22T11:43:01.914+02:00Qualities of listening as evidence of Spirit-indwelling
Consider Peter. He’s the outspoken disciple, the one we feel
we know best because he talks the most and because he says the things we would
say if we had the guts. He talks the most in the gospels, and there we know him
as the one crazy for Jesus who always gets it wrong. He talks the most in Acts
(leaving the later-come Paul aside), and there he speaks to crowds clearly and
effectively, Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-54139353797947799072016-02-21T10:06:00.000+02:002016-02-22T08:45:43.979+02:00Imaginative Listeners
Today I’m going to take a leap. I suggest that
the discipline of spiritual listening includes tools that take us beyond
words into realms of visual imagination. It's a suggestion fraught with potential for misunderstanding. So (my mind roams the
minefield) I will need to include some “this is not
what I’m talking about here.”
I start with a confession. I am a WORD person. I love
words and Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-7369056185452538262016-02-13T14:18:00.000+02:002016-02-13T14:18:27.168+02:00Pre-occupied listenersIt is early Lent, that season of the church year that invites
us to journey with Jesus into the wilderness, to enter the solitary, dark
place, the refining place, the place where Satan was loosed to throw his worst
in Jesus’ path. Three famous temptations, and the first was to satisfy his
body’s 40-day hunger with bread from stone, to break into His divinity to
satisfy a legitimate personal need,Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-28814273166504400002016-02-11T17:18:00.000+02:002016-02-12T07:35:16.520+02:00To listen without boxes...
There’s Job, sitting in the ashes, face swollen, red sores
and scabs from scalp to the naked soles of his feet, pus oozing, rot hanging on
the air about him, muttering curses. The guy who had it all, whose life was
permeated with blessing and joy, wisdom and attentive generosity has been left
unshielded from Satan’s worst.
Look! Here come his friends. When word reached each in his
distant Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-2965077270333982712016-02-09T14:04:00.000+02:002016-02-22T10:43:51.638+02:00The Soul-Battle of a Listener
Lately I have been immersed in the hard work of listening.
After a fallow season, guests again retreat here to Spa for the Soul. They come
to rest, to pray, to regain perspective, to learn, to find healing, and to
explore new territory in their pilgrimage with Jesus. They stay a week. Or
three. Often I accompany them as spiritual director.
Spiritual director. That’s a whole other topic. In Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-72193029678691667852016-01-13T09:46:00.001+02:002016-02-12T04:16:46.245+02:00Refugees on their road...
An odd thing, and I will write something about
it. Maybe you've been here, to Spa for the Soul. At rest in a comfy chair on
the balcony, it continues to look like a slice of paradise. Meis doesn't LOOK
any different. We don't see the refugees soaking wet, cold and hungry in
the rocks in the morning. Our village harvests olives and chats together. Yet
it is there among us, not somewhere across Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-13100821689285956542015-12-24T16:03:00.000+02:002016-02-12T04:15:41.887+02:00On the eve of nativity
O Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the
world, have mercy upon us.
We who are victims of evil plead Your mercy. We who are
refugee, wracked with disease and dis-ease, sufferers of abuse by those who
should love us, impoverished by corruption and endemic injustice, abandoned and
alone: we cry O come Immanuel, stand with us, among us, and pour Your mercy.
O Lamb of God that takes away Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-22336229783724996072015-12-22T12:49:00.001+02:002015-12-24T16:08:46.633+02:00Morning prayer late in advent
To be read in a minor key.
Lord God, I welcome you. “Your statutes have been like songs to me wherever I have lived as a
stranger.” Psalm 119:54
Yes,
Lord, Your Word, Your ways, are the constants in the far-flung places I have
found myself. Since I was a babe, I have found myself a nomad,
always the stranger. That sits heavy on me today, as it sometimes does. Yet
wherever I have lived,Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-71584322809686986872015-12-07T11:14:00.000+02:002015-12-07T11:16:38.228+02:00Word Play: Safe
A friend’s recent Facebook post: "Safely back after 40 days on the road. Praise God!"
Facebook comments as we headed home to Turkey: over half expressed wishes and prayers for our safety.
In our recent months in the US I heard
the safe word daily, whether hopping on my bike, heading out to camp, or embarking on a cross-country wander. And there was the constant question about our
Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-9400779739905063462015-12-02T10:41:00.002+02:002015-12-02T17:56:10.800+02:00Cappadocia: Thanksgiving in great company
This year we took Thanksgiving,
that most meaningful of American feast days, on the road. Back home in Turkey just
three weeks, we were still a little foot-loose. The season felt lonely. A
movable feast, a portable holiday, suited our community of two. Just at dawn on Saturday morning we set off on the 11-hour journey to Cappadocia, that region
in central Turkey rich with the dual attractions ofJeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-6649323606524914982015-11-19T17:30:00.000+02:002015-11-19T17:30:33.543+02:00Prayers from the balcony
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
JA
X-NONE
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-87962721150219248322015-11-17T15:03:00.002+02:002015-11-17T16:15:58.965+02:00Two homes
For four years now we have lived between two
homes. One is Spa for the Soul in Turkey, perched on a hillside overlooking the
Mediterranean. We live here two-thirds of the year, our doors open to guests
seeking sheltered quiet space. One is on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington
State. A Pacific-northwest house in our home country, it is repository for the
treasures of our 40 years married.  Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-40262808570674125072015-11-14T14:16:00.002+02:002015-11-14T15:48:14.633+02:00Words: I want to play with them awhile
I love words. From long summer days filled
with book after book against the loneliness of school-break exile at Grandmom’s
to the pleasure of writing letters and essay answers and college papers, to the
intrigue of word permutations and possibilities uncovered as I studied English
literature and journalism, to the mysterious potential for transformation
through living deep with God’s Word: Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-45702506720452717702015-03-11T15:25:00.000+02:002015-03-11T20:23:24.984+02:00The Tuesday Report -- the magical becomes commonplace
I started thinking about this on a Tuesday back in December. We were boarding a plane for Ireland to spend a week waiting with dear friends between two major surgeries. The following Tuesday found us in Dublin boarding a plane back to Istanbul.
Curt with Ken Needham, after Ken's heart surgery, waiting together for cancer surgery
A month later, in mid-January, there was another Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-68148881555656755222014-12-02T15:08:00.000+02:002014-12-02T15:08:00.539+02:00The Tuesday report -- living the dreamSeven years ago we clambered around this house and land for the first time. Wide-eyed wonder; hearts pounding. "This is it!" We'd searched long, through several countries, not sure what we were looking for until we found it--a home for that nebulous sense of Divine invitation that has become Spa for the Soul.
What did we see in that shabby, dirty villa with its overgrown weedy gardensJeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-11394186468711088982014-11-13T18:20:00.000+02:002014-11-13T18:20:17.841+02:00The Tuesday report--that crazy mix of fruit and blessing, work and disruption, and just plain hard
Tuesday
morning. November sun mild on the balcony. I drew the chair close to put a foot on the low ledge. It rested
there, toes all browny-pink with the month-old pedicure. Nails so long that one had started to curve round the end of its toe. Polish remover pad in hand, I
surveyed the distance and counted the cost to reach those toes and minister to
them.
My 59-year-old back was tight.
It Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-22494934851408777912014-11-06T10:26:00.003+02:002014-11-06T10:46:55.357+02:00The Tuesday report--from a Friday perspectiveThe Tuesday report: an occasional meditation on the everydays of
expatriate life. How many times has someone said to me, “Your life is so
exciting, while mine is, well… I’m here in the same place doing the same things
I always do.” Yet wherever you and I live, life happens in everydays. We gather
food, do laundry, encounter friends and neighbors, find time for a shower, show
up for prayer. Why Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-73055511529705163452014-05-15T18:03:00.001+03:002014-05-15T18:08:23.742+03:00To my daughter on Mothers Day"I love that you are different from other moms," begins Cait's Mothers Day note to me. I was still in bed, perusing my iPad before making a beginning of a glorious Sunday morning. Hmpf. That comment can set a mom back. She went on to wander through a meadow of memories plucking images for my Mom's Day bouquet. She, too, lay in bed, still Saturday night in her place half across the world.
Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-31999454712544259412014-04-26T16:35:00.002+03:002014-04-26T18:59:28.913+03:00Resurrection realized--layer on layer: praying with those two on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:13-35)
An interrupted
journey. They had a plan, were going somewhere. Maybe headed home, back
to life before Jesus. They were “discussing” events. “Discussing”
resonates with trying to explain, to analyze, to make it all make sense somehow. What
were they saying to one another? "But we had hoped that He was the one who
was going to redeem Israel." He was a prophet, of that they were certain.
And now Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-23530836289813933992014-04-23T16:42:00.000+03:002014-04-23T16:42:00.732+03:00Holy Saturday: Tattered VowsPeter. So brave. So sure. He has never loved anyone or anything like he loves Jesus. Confusing, mysterious, undependably dependable, Shekinah-radiant Jesus. As others backed away from call too hard, path too strange, Peter whispered, "Where else would I go?"
Betray Jesus? Peter is ready to fight for Jesus, to stand in front and shield Him even if the sword should pierce Peter's own body. In his Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-5441985526028781822014-04-09T14:35:00.001+03:002014-04-09T14:55:39.630+03:00Lenten Pilgrimage--a journey of moving on by staying still
Joseph’s flight with his little family to
Egypt raises aspects of pilgrimage such as finding our way forward step by step, holding loosely to our
understanding of plan and road, ever listening to the Lord and attentive to His best path.
As the
week closed, I felt both graced and challenged to walk for a season by remaining still. To wait and watch from the
threshold, where a great deal of Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-70643421959293001272014-04-07T18:07:00.003+03:002014-04-07T18:11:05.738+03:00Lenten Pilgrimage--sometimes it is good and right to flee
"When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. 'Get up,' he said, 'take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.'
"So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3597178113218144508.post-27611046957686089182014-04-04T11:32:00.002+03:002014-04-07T18:19:44.816+03:00Lenten pilgrimage--we discover the way forward step by wondering step
Discovering the way forward step
by wondering step,
Only in the looking back do I
discover where I was going….
Is it another of those tensions? One of those contrary juxtapositions in which things that seem paradoxical are both true? A mystery of God? God is One, yet Three. We dwell in the already/not yet of Christ’s first and second coming. We die, yet we live. Do we who
belong to Jeri Bidingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07671421552847333115noreply@blogger.com0