I am a minister, photographer, retreat leader, author and Quaker -- albeit one who's not always good at being a good Quaker. I am the author of "Awaken Your Senses," "Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality," "Mind the Light: Learning to See with Spiritual Eyes" and "Sacred Compass: The Path of Spiritual Discernment" (foreword by Richard Foster).
This blog is a compendium of writing, photography, seriousness and silliness -- depending on my mood.
My friend Jane and I lunch today at one of our favorite places. The menu has all sorts of tempting taste treats, but, since I was feeling especially chubby (as opposed to the regular chubby I usually feel) I went with a bowl of soup and a roll. It was tasty enough, but ... what made the tastes memorable was not how the soup tasted on my tongue, but rather the company I was keeping. The fellowship I enjoyed. The comfortable conversation with someone I've known since she was a teenager (and I was not!).
Which is something I often forget about when I think about taste -- I can't take the sense of taste in isolation. It, like all our senses, involves all of us. And so the taste of soup and bread at McNivens reminds me of Jane and the many years we've been friends.
It was a good reminder that, for all my sensory experiences, I do not live in a vacuum -- much of my "sensing" takes place in relationship to others. And that is a gift from God.
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The“Awaken Your Senses Contest” is underway. The contest is featured on:
1.This week, you are invited to pay attention to your sense of TASTE and see how it introduces you to the wonder of God.
2.If something cool happens, post a description about that experience on the Awaken Your Senses FB Page or Beth or Brent’s blogs.(All entries must be submitted by Sunday at noon.)
3.Brent and Beth will choose a winner on Sunday evening and that person will receive a $25 gift card for a gift related to taste.
4.Brent and Beth will also do a drawing from the names of everyone who participated each week and the weekly winner of the random drawing will receive an autographed copy of Awaken Your Senses.
5.The winners will be announced on Awaken Your Senses Facebook Page and Brent and Beth’s blogs on each Monday when a new sense begins!
Ah, a cuppa Joe. Java. Brain juice. Cup of tar. Coffee. I have that bitter brew with my breakfast each morning. I'm a pretty obsessive compulsive guy (should there be a hypen there?), so it's oatmeal and coffee seven days out of seven -- unless I'm traveling or we have company. Even then, though, there's one norm -- coffee.
This morning, since our contest is going on, I thought more about my mugful of mocha. Especially, despite the copious amounts of cream and "pink stuff" (the diabetic's sugar alternative) how it leaves an often slightly bitter aftertaste. Which made me think about words I've spoken over the years. Words that I've said that can't be taken back and leave an awfully bitter aftertaste in my soul and in the souls of those who I've spoken those words to. Words I wished -- often right after they flew from my fevered anger -- I could take back, but knew I could not. Too late. They were gone and on their wounding way. Drinking my coffee, I remembered the words of James --
"the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be."
As my mother used to say, "Brent, watch your mouth..." (The only reason she doesn't say it anymore is because I live 200 miles away and she knows it won't do any good, anyhow.)
I think I need some more coffee!
-- Brent
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Today (Feb. 6) is the start of the “Awaken Your Senses Contest.” The contest is featured on:
1.This week, you are invited to pay attention to your sense of TASTE and see how it introduces you to the wonder of God.
2.If something cool happens, post a description about that experience on the Awaken Your Senses FB Page or Beth or Brent’s blogs.(All entries must be submitted by Sunday at noon.)
3.Brent and Beth will choose a winner on Sunday evening and that person will receive a $25 gift card for a gift related to taste.
4.Brent and Beth will also do a drawing from the names of everyone who participated each week and the weekly winner of the random drawing will receive an autographed copy of Awaken Your Senses.
5.The winners will be announced on Awaken Your Senses Facebook Page and Brent and Beth’s blogs on each Monday when a new sense begins!
“Have you ever thought about tasting God in what you put in your mouth? The idea that food can remind us of the different attributes, ways and stories of God is a novel thought for most of us. If we are open to letting God teach us the ways of faith through our bodies, though, then we can learn the ways of faith through our taste buds as well as our brain. The sweetness of a freshly baked cinnamon roll can remind us of the sweetness of God’s love in the same way that horseradish at Passover reminds Jews of the bitterness of slavery.” -- Awaken Your Senses, pg. 26 (adapted)
Today (Feb. 6) is the start of the “Awaken Your Senses Contest.” The contest is featured on:
1.This week, you are invited to pay attention to your sense of TASTE and see how it introduces you to the wonder of God.
2.If something cool happens, post a description about that experience on the Awaken Your Senses FB Page or Beth or Brent’s blogs.(All entries must be submitted by Sunday at noon.)
3.Brent and Beth will choose a winner on Sunday evening and that person will receive a $25 gift card for a gift related to taste.
4.Brent and Beth will also do a drawing from the names of everyone who participated each week and the weekly winner of the random drawing will receive an autographed copy of Awaken Your Senses.
5.The winners will be announced on Awaken Your Senses Facebook Page and Brent and Beth’s blogs on each Monday when a new sense begins!
The Contest Schedule!
February 6 – Taste
February 13 – See
February 20 – Touch
February 27 – Hear
March 5 -- Smell
Tell your friends about the contest. Tweet, tumblr and blog about it. Spread the word. We can’t wait to hear about your experiences as you awaken your senses to the wonder of God.
1.Each week, for five weeks, Beth and Brent will post a sense of the week. You are invited to pay attention to that particular sense and see how it introduces you to the wonder of God.
2.If something cool happens, post a description about that experience on the Awaken Your Senses FB Page or Beth or Brent’s blogs.(All entries must be submitted by Sunday at noon.)
3.Brent and Beth will choose a winner on Sunday evening and that person will receive a $25 gift card for a gift related to that sense.
4.Brent and Beth will also do a drawing from the names of everyone who participated each week and the weekly winner of the random drawing will receive an autographed copy of Awaken Your Senses.
5.The winners will be announced on Awaken Your Senses Facebook Page and Brent and Beth’s blogs on each Monday when a new sense begins!
The Contest Schedule!
February 6 – Taste
February 13 – See
February 20 – Touch
February 27 – Hear
March 5 -- Smell
Tell your friends about the contest. Tweet, tumblr and blog about it! Spread the word! We can’t wait to hear about your experiences as you awaken your senses to the wonder of God!
-- Brent
Family of Brent Bill, employees of Brent Bill and brentbill.com, and Brent Bill's cat are ineligible to participate in the contest. Prohibited where void. Side effects include dizziness, neuralgia, and innuendo.
You, as the candidate who claims to take the high moral ground on important issues, missed a teachable opportunity to show how our democracy is about how we differ on issues but do not abide lies nor allow them to be spread on our watch. How could you allow such a lie to stand and not use your very public moral presence to refute the Muslim accusation?
I admit I was disinclined to vote for you before this incident. But I did believe, that no matter how or why I disagreed with you on your issues, that you were sincere in your beliefs and cared deeply about moral issues. I no longer believe that. Integrity and the willingness to defend another (even a person you disagree with) who is falsely accused seem to me go hand in hand. I guess I believe the commandment that says that we are not to bear false witness. I was saddened to see you disregard that commandment today.
Sincerely,
J. Brent Bill Ploughshares Farm 6960 E. Hendricks County Rd Mooresville, IN 46158 www.brentbill.com
Here are some shots from my October 2011 trip to Vermont. Everything from a country inn to an old fire truck tucked into a barn on North Hero Island to....
We hunger for beauty.I think that’s because that hunger is rooted in our hungering for God, for a real and profound connection to the Divine.That desire for connection comes from deep in our bodies and souls.That’s because, as theologian David Bentley Hart says, “Beauty crosses every boundary, traverses every series, and so manifests the God who transcends every division.”We are drawn to beauty as we are drawn to the Divine.
Closely linked to our hunger for beauty is our desire to create.While many of us, for whatever "good" reasons, have put off much of our creativity as we age.We’ve put away the Play-doh,making music with kazoos and waxed paper wrapped combs, quite telling each other fantastic stories, and the like.We have quit doing many of the things that gave us joy and hope and meaning when we were young,
These desires for beauty and creation are part of who we are – as creatures created in the image of our God.When we open scripture, the first thing we see about God is His creative nature.“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1 (NIV))God brought order and beauty out of chaos.In that same way, a potter takes chaos in the form of clay and shapes it into something beautiful.Or a baker uses ingredients springing from the earth and its bounty and makes a cake.Or a supervisor sees the potential in the disparate talents of a company’s workers and helps fashion them into an amazingly inventive team.Or…
Quaker writer Caroline C. Graveson once wrote
“There is a daily round for beauty as well as for goodness, a world of flowers and books and cinemas and clothes and manners as well as of mountains and masterpieces... God is in all beauty, not only in the natural beauty of earth and sky, but in all fitness of language and rhythm, whether it describe a heavenly vision or a street fight, a Hamlet or a Falstaff, a philosophy or a joke: in all fitness of line and colour and shade, whether seen in the Sistine Madonna or a child's knitted frock: in all fitness of sound and beat and measure, whether the result be Bach's Passion music or a nursery jingle. The quantity of God, so to speak, varies in the different examples, but His quality of beauty in fitness remains the same.”
Seen that way, beauty is redemptive.Creativity – whether in the art studio or lived out in the workaday world – invites us to participate in God’s redemption of this world.God calls us to bring beauty and order from chaos; to bring glad tidings of great joy at this and every one of God’s seasons.
Why do we hunger for beauty?As children of the living, creating God, how could we not?
Co-written with Beth Booram, its premise is that God has given us five senses and a brain with two sides, yet we often approach God in one way only: through words that are analyzed and processed logically in our left brain. The right brain, however, is the creative, intuitive center--the place that connects most to our seeing, smelling, touching, tasting and hearing, and that roots experiences in our hearts in transforming ways.
In Awaken Your Senses, Beth and I invite readers to engage their right brain in their faith through sensory spiritual practices that position your heart for divine encounter. Readings and a variety of exercises that utilize the reader's whole body leads them to experience God in new ways by
Our book has received some very fine endorsements --
"With Awaken Your Senses, Brent Bill and Beth Booram have given us a superb resource for seeking the God of life through sensuous experience, a way of knowing that has been sadly neglected--and too often held suspect--by the church. How did a faith based on the claim that 'the Word became flesh' become so divorced from bodily, incarnate knowledge? Here is a beautiful book that will help us reclaim our bodies, our senses and our relationship with God."
—Parker J. Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak
"Amazingly, we become dull to something as extraordinary as life, and bored by someone as awesome as God. This book woke me up without beating me up, and gave me tangible, practical ways to savor the sacrament of life, to have genuine gratitude for my body and its senses, and to sink into the glory of God until I felt nothing but joy. Read this and be blessed."
—James Bryan Smith, author of The Good and Beautiful God
To help get the word out about the message of our book, Beth and I are sponsoring a contest. It's an open call to any blogger to send us 5-10 questions about Awaken Your Senses. We will answer each one individually -- a sort of virtual interview. The virtual interview judged best* will win a signed copy of the book and a gourmet assortment of goodies from The Best Chocolate in Town (my favorite chocolate place!).
A picture of the book jacket, blurbs by others, photos of Beth and me, and video clips (like the one below) are available for the asking.
Questions for the virtual interview will be accepted through January 15th and the virtual interview must be posted by February 1 on the blogger's blog (is that redundant?). Entries will be judged by February 5th ("SuperBlog Sunday") and the winner announced to great acclaim on February 6th (the official book release date). Send interview questions (along w/ a link to your blog) to brentbil@sbcglobal.net
Visit http://www.bethbooram.org/ or http://www.brentbill.com/ for information about Beth or me.
Let the contest begin!
-- Brent
*as judged by my wife Nancy who rarely reads a blog (except mine to make sure I have not said anything to scurrilous) but knows good questions when she sees them.
Family of Brent Bill, employees of Brent Bill and brentbill.com, and Brent Bill's cat are ineligible to participate in the contest. Prohibited where void. Side effects include dizziness, neuralgia, and innuendo.
The party will be January 15 from 3-5:30 in the afternoon at Ploughshares Farm (6960 E. Hendricks County Rd, Mooresville, IN 46158). It's a drop-in/drop-out sort of thing -- so you don't have to stay the whole time, though you're welcome to, if you'd like.
We'll have food (fixed by Nancy, who's a great cook!) and drinks. Beth Booram (the co-author of the book) will be there and she and I will be happy to sign books.
Reservations are requested -- mostly so we know how much food to fix! Just email me at brentbil@brentbill.com if you plan on coming.
If you'd like a map to Ploughshares, just drop me an email (brentbil@brentbill.com) and I'll send one to you. Googlemaps is really accurate, though.
I hope you have a blessed holiday season -- full of the peace that this season is meant to bring.
Brent
PS If you live too far away to attend (or just don't feel like partying), but would still like an autographed book at the release party price, just email me at brentbil@brentbill.com and I'll get one to you!
PPS January 15 is also the meeting day of Friends in Fellowship, the Quaker worship group that meets at Ploughshares. It gathers at 6:30 and you'd be welcome to join us for worship that evening, if you'd like.
Awaken Your Senses is available at fine independent stores like
My friend Jane and I lunch today at one of our favorite places. The menu has all sorts of tempting taste treats, but, since I was feeling especially chubby (as opposed to the regular chubby I usually feel) I went with a bowl of soup and a roll. It was tasty enough, but ... what made the tastes memorable was not how the soup tasted on my tongue, but rather the company I was keeping. The fellowship I enjoyed. The comfortable conversation with someone I've known since she was a teenager (and I was not!).
