Last month, I wrote about the possibility of returning to Gandhi’s ashram in Ahmedabad, India and bringing a small group from FCC with me. I want to begin this month’s Shalom reflection with an update.

Due to construction happening at the ashram during the main window I had hoped to visit, the surge in airfare prices, and the need to work carefully around church schedules and my responsibilities here, the trip has been postponed until 2027.I am currently exploring January or February dates with the ashram and will keep the congregation posted as plans develop.

While I am disappointed not to go sooner, I also wonder if this delay may become a gift. With more lead time, it may be possible for more people to consider whether this is a journey they feel called to make. It is still very much my hope to return, and to do so with a handful of curious souls from FCC who want to learn from a community shaped by simplicity, service, spiritual depth, and resilient love.

In the meantime, I have been greatly encouraged by the response to our current worship series on Four Bows Meditation — both in worship and in the small groups meeting throughout the week. It has been moving to see so many people enter this practice with openness, humility, and curiosity.

As I mentioned on the first Sunday of the series, one reason for offering this kind of series is that May is Mental Health Awareness Month. In recent years, meditation and mindfulness practices have come to be respected not only in spiritual communities, but also in psychological and medical settings. While meditation is not a replacement for therapy, medication, or professional care when those are needed, it is widely recognized as a practice that can help many people manage stress, anxiety, distraction, emotional reactivity, sleeplessness, and the mental clutter that so easily accumulates in daily life.

In other words, meditation is not simply for monks, mystics, or people who imagine themselves to be unusually spiritual. It is for ordinary human beings trying to live with greater steadiness, compassion, and awareness.

Of course, for Christians, meditation is not merely a wellness practice. It is also part of the deep stream of prayer. Jesus himself regularly withdrew to pray. He went to lonely places. He rose early. He stepped away from the crowds. He sought communion with God before making important decisions after long days of ministry and in moments of great strain. Presumably, Jesus did this not because he was disconnected from God, but because he wanted to remain deeply connected — grounded in God’s presence, responsive to God’s guidance, and aligned with his deepest identity.

If even Jesus needed regular time apart for prayerful communion with God, it may be worth asking whether the occasional ten-second prayer offered while driving from one appointment to the next is enough to sustain us.

That question feels especially important for FCC right now. This year, we will be entering a season of visioning as a congregation. We will be asking who we are, who we are becoming, and what God may be calling us to embody in the years ahead. In a church visioning is not merely strategic planning. It is discernment. We are not simply trying to decide what we want and then organizing ourselves to accomplish it. We are seeking to listen for the movement of the Spirit and to ask how we can become more faithful, more courageous, more compassionate, and more responsive to God’s call.

That is one of the deeper reasons for this series. The Four Bows are not an escape from the practical work of the church. They are preparation for it. They help us loosen the grip of ego, anxiety, control, and reactivity so we can listen more deeply — to God, to one another, to our own souls, and to the world God so loves.

They say it takes twenty-one days to build a habit. Whether or not the number is exact, the wisdom behind it feels right: practices become part of us through repetition. So, beginning on Pentecost Sunday, May 24, I invite you to participate in a 21-Day Meditation Challenge.

The invitation is simple: commit to some form of prayer, meditation, or mindfulness practice for twenty minutes or more each day for twenty-one days. This will be selfmonitored. No one will be checking up on you. No one will be grading your spiritual performance. The point is not perfection. The point is practice.

Four Bows Meditation is one option, but it is not the only one. Some may sit in silence. Some may walk prayerfully. Some may use breath prayer, centering prayer, lectio divina, journaling, or another mindfulness practice. During the challenge, anyone who wishes may also sign up to receive a daily email with a link to a different guided Four Bows meditation. More information, including sign-ups, will be coming.

Why not challenge yourself? All you have to lose is twenty minutes a day. But the sky is the limit on what you may gain: steadiness, clarity, compassion, courage, deeper prayer, and perhaps a greater capacity to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Grace and Peace,

Eric Elnes