Author: Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

Spiritual transformation is about the right time and the right place – not the “what,” but the when and where.  We will change our normal living pattern.  For the Wilburn, we will eat peasant bread and drink a juice drink from the juicer on Mondays.  The kids will complain.  But the plan is disruptive.  As Rev. Dr. Craig Babb says ‘we need a holy irritant”.  Force something to irritate your day.  One person plans to write down three things they are grateful for each day.  This practice of gratitude is super.  It will work if she chooses the right location and time to write and ponder. Someone else was going to clean out a junk drawer or closet each week.  If you do this, I’d lay all the stuff out on a table and then observe and journal the standout items.  Answer, “Why was this pen important?  Why was this ruler so precious?  Did my child use it in kindergarten?”  Then we chase down the memory:  look at pictures of when our child was in kindergarten, and think about how time flies, what has changed since then… who are we now, who have they become.  What tragedies have come and gone; what hope and dreams have come and gone – what are we still waiting for?  This is the desert journey.  This is the power of restive prayer –...

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” Ruth Haley Barton states, “We reach for God because he first reached for us.  Nothing in the spiritual life originates with us.  It all originates with God.  So it is that the spiritual life begins in this most unlikely place.” – Sacred Rhythms, page 25. The Psalmist declares the soul’s desire O God, you are my God,earnestly I seek you;my soul thirsts for you,in a dry and weary landwhere there is no water. – Ps. 63 This season of Lent is different for me.  I resist and find suspect the language of The Book of Common Prayer, “…Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain you…” BCP, Collect for Ash Wednesday page 217.  The language of Lent has swung too far toward our wretchedness.  I don’t like the connection between feeling wretched and obtaining God.  First, I think the feeling of wretchedness is forced and unnatural – we don’t really buy it.  So in order to gain this wretched  opinion of ourselves we engage in self-denial, self-agnegation, self-abasement and even some mild abuse, namely through fasting and abstinence.  To make our Lenten fast even more forced and wrong-headed, we then fast from chocolate, soda or some other thing we really...

Written while on prayer retreat at Conception Abbey: Coming up with a pledge amount is not about coming up with an outrageous number that has no basis in reality or is obviously undoable without a miracle.  That is not faith.  That kind of wish-dream is the opposite of faith. It is magic.  Magic doesn’t need our involvement or our faith.  No, a legitimate “faith number” is based on our well thought out, smartly calculated assessment of our income and chosen lifestyle, which then causes us to live a lessened and simpler lifestyle that daily reminds us of our dependency on God.  That is faith.  It is not faith to come up with an unfounded amount that has no chance of coming true.  This sort of thing forces God to buy us a lottery ticket!  Real faith however, is never that dreamy, but rather is an amount already within one’s household income and real potential. The real act of faith is in the follow through, the act of making the commitment come true. Consider King David’s prayer after a victory… For it was not in my bow that I trusted Nor was I saved by my sword: It was you who saved us from our foes; …All day long our boast was in God, And we will praise your name forever. – Psalm 44:7-9 Apparently David really did engage in...

Winter Bride Come little flower and walk with me Through winter’s garden of frosted tree. Heaven’s breath as settled snow; love’s tune, “Come King Christ, earth’s redeeming Bridegroom!” Tread lightly, love, over our bride’s gown. Green pine, brown branch adorned in white stole Lays gently ‘gainst cheeks of earth’s deep fold. Jewels of juncos and jays inlaid Flash sun, turn gaze toward heaven’s maid. How shall He reply to such beauty? With trumpet’s blast and angel’s voices! Bring forth heaven’s love, “You, His choice is!” Now little flower, now! Sing sweet bliss; Closed eyes ready for the Lover’s kiss. Ah, but little flower’s fast asleep Assumption Abbey Ava,...

Last night was Hanging of the Greens.  Dozens of volunteers showed up to decorate the church for the Advent Season.  It was fun and powerful.  Everyone did a wonderful job and the church looks spectacular for the Christmas Season.  Chris Lea, Worship Director, resists the term “volunteer” because it sounds like people are helping this thing called the church, which is wrongly assumed by both church staff and congregants to be separate and different from the people who attend.  The church is family rather than a community center.  We help but we don’t volunteer, no more than doing dishes or mowing the lawn is volunteering at home.  You don’t volunteer at home.  You own it.  As owners the congregants have the ownership, responsibility and authority to decorate the church.  Yes, pastors and staff lead the charge but the brothers and sisters do the work and make it happen.  The church is nothing without everyone participating fully.  This participation is exactly what Paul draws out with his body metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12-14.  The body is made up of many parts.  They form one single body.  The hand cannot say to the eye, “Well you are not a hand – I don’t need you, you’re not important.”  The ear cannot say, “Well, I’m not important because I am not an eye.”  In my thought then, the hand doesn’t volunteer to...