A little guidance from Henri Nouwen

“A waiting person is a patient person.
The word ‘patience’ means the willingness to stay where we are
and live the situation out to the full
in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.
Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else
and therefore want to go elsewhere.
The moment is empty.
But patient people dare to stay where they are.
Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there.
Waiting, then, is not passive.
It involves nurturing the moment,
as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her womb.”
 -Henri Nouwen

Pilgrimage

I planned to keep a journal.  I thought I would write each day about the one thing that stood out, that shone brightest with beauty or insight, revealed most His face.  I thought I would write about the one thing each day. 

 

The thing with pilgrimage is that you do all the preparation, then (not unexpectedly) you have no idea the way it will lead you, the way God will lead you.  If you are lucky, you do know only this...God will lead you.

 

Decades ago under the good guidance of Fr Eugene LaVerdiere, I was encouraged to deepen my praying with the scriptures by not relating to one of the characters in the passage but by being myself in the passage.  Think of a common biblical story – the pilgrim disciples on the road to Emmaus - something like this painting by Josef von Führich, 1837 ...

then 'step into the picture' and let it unfold.

  

This is what I experienced on pilgrimage - I stepped in, entering the humanity of Christ, of God with us, in a new and deeply moving way.  Walking so closely at times I could feel the dust from his steps fall upon my own feet.  Terra Firma.  We stood together on the same stones, drank in with our eyes the same landscape, stepped into the same mud of the River Jordan.  There was a comingling, an incorporation that I had not experienced before, stirring a longing in me, an interior movement, a recognition.  Uncontrived and inexplicable, like love ripened in a long marriage.  As though I had been looking all my life at his feet, his cloak, watching his hand, accustom to his voice.  When I received communion in the cave at Bethlehem that first morning, it dawned upon me that I do not only receive Jesus by this wondrous sacrament, become the body of Christ, but in a very substantial way He receives me.  I was not going on pilgrimage, we were.   At Dominus Flevit (God’s tears) I wept with Him for all our resistances, on the way to Tiberius I laughed with Him in the sea spray of Galilee, on the Mount of Beatitudes I felt the winds of the spirit carry His words to me.  The same stones that absorbed his agony at the flagellation received my body and it's heartrending load. 

 

If there was a one thing, this is it.  It was not some shining moment among many, some singular point of clarity and conversion, a flash revelation of mercy and love; it took more than a moment.  It was the ongoing impact of each experience, each place, each word spoken grounding me and awakening my senses, eucharisteo, humbling and joyful, overwhelming at times and so very ordinary, extraordinarily human.  It is the sense that everything belongs, that the stones do sing, and it is the grace that has come home with me, small pilgrim that I am.  It is the keepsake in my soul.  Everything brings me to Jesus. 

The Apple Orchard

Come let us watch the sun go down

and walk in twilight through the orchard's green.

Does it not seem as if we had for long 

collected, saved and harbored within us

old memories? To find releases and seek new hopes, 

remembering half-forgotten joys,

mingled with darkness coming from within,

as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud

wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees

reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, 

branches which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,

wait patiently, trying to outlast, 

to serve another season's hundred days of toil,

straining, uncomplaining, by not breaking

but succeeding, even though the burden

should at times seem almost past endurance.

Not to falter! Not to be found wanting!

 

Thus must it be, when willingly you strive

throughout a long and uncomplaining life,

committed to one goal: to give yourself!

And silently to grow and to bear fruit.

 

 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

 

Invisible Work

Because no one could ever praise me enough,

because I don't mean these poems only

but the unseen

unbelievable effort it takes to live

the life that goes on between them,

I think all the time about invisible work.

About the young mother on Welfare

I interviewed years ago,

who said, "It's hard.

You bring him to the park,

run rings around yourself keeping him safe,

cut hot dogs into bite-sized pieces for dinner,

and there's no one

to say what a good job you're doing,

how you were patient and loving

for the thousandth time even though you had a headache."

And I, (who am used to feeling sorry for myself

because I am lonely,

when all the while, as the Chippewa poem says, 

I am being carried by great winds across the sky,)

thought of the invisible work that stitches up the world day and night,

the slow, unglamorous work of healing,

the way worms in the garden

tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe

and bees ransack this world into being,

while owls and poets stalk shadows,

our loneliest labors under the moon.

There are mothers for everything, 

and the sea is a mother too,

whispering and whispering to us

long after we have stopped listening.

I stopped and let myself lean a moment 

against the blue shoulder of the air. 

The work of my heart

is the work of the world's heart.

There is no other art.

~ Alison Luterman ~

Lessons in Light

So, it's been a rough six months (you may have noticed I have been mostly absent from these pages) with losses and heartache of all kinds that could only be held, accompanied.  We have clung to one another and to God, walked, as trusting as we could, helping each other over the rough spots, and carried our hope bundled with a bit of thread...
Now it is Christmas.  My favorite feast - my season of hope.
He surprised us with lights to welcome us home, the whole place a joyful welcome sign.
A week later it was our turn.
We wanted to surprise him with the tree, lit in the window.
But when I plugged it in, only half the branches lit.
In my heart I sighed "not this, not this year" and left the room for a Christmas box thinking we'd have to leave the tree and wait for his help.
As I returned Kyla, in child wonder, exclaimed "Mom, the lights are all on!"
My first thought was to the heavens - Thank you,
When she said to me "Sometimes the Light just moves a little slow!"
Now it is Christmas.  My favorite feast - my season of hope.

Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel

Only after I'd written this did I realize 

it is Santa Lucia - the Feast of Lights!  I remember our girls wearing a crown of candles on their head with a mix of delight and terror!  

May you all be crowned with Light.  

Jesus [Go to your inner room]

I draw prayer round me like a dark protective wall, withdraw inside it as one might into a convent cell and then step outside again, calmer and stronger and more collected again.
        Etty Hillesum An Interrupted Life

Here’s what I want you to do:  Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God.  Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
       Matthew 6:6 The Message

Our walls of division do not rise all the way to heaven. ~St. Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow

And here is his morning prayer:

O Lord, grant that I may meet the coming day in peace. 

Help me in all things to rely upon your holy will. 
In each hour of the day reveal your will to me. 
Bless my dealings with all who surround me. 
Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul, and with the firm conviction that Your will governs all.
In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings. 
In unforeseen events, let me not forget that all are sent by You. 
Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others. 
Give me the strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring. 
Direct my will. Teach me to pray. Pray within me.

Most Holy God, I pray and beseech you, give me a pure heart, a way of speaking that befits the faith I profess. Grant me uprightness of purpose, powers of reasoning unhindered by passions, conduct that becomes those who fear you, and perfect knowledge of your commandments. 
May I enjoy health in body and in spirit.

Grant me a life of peace, genuine faith and living hope, sincere charity and bountiful generosity, patience that knows no bounds and the light of Your truth to proclaim Your goodness to me, that for ever and in all things placing my trust only in You, I may abound in every good work, and that in Christ Your gifts may increase in every soul.

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful. ~Amy Bloom

I love our coming together in the evenings...sharing our days events, the moments, things that touched us or distracted us; the people and things that occupy our hearts and minds in the days work.
Yesterday I was in the throes of secretly orchestrating a surprise party and went over to see how VBS set-up was going.  One of the VBS decorations was a life-sized cutout of a camel, and it looked just like one I have a photo of from the holy land.  Excited that I will soon be on pilgrimage there, I snapped a shot...me and the camel, for a bit of fun.
We pulled off the surprise too, a bridal shower to honor our sweetheart of a youth minister.  It was a wonderful gathering and so much joy was shared.  Her delight was on grand display, and she shared the moment so graciously with us all.  At the end, with her fiance there, we prayed a blessing over the couple.  All arms extended over them, heads bowed in prayer.  It is forever imprinted in my heart, and theirs too, I am sure.
As I shared these things with Roger, I showed him the photos of the party, and then appeared my camel shot!  He smiled and remarked how photogenic I am.  Told me I was beautiful.  I denied it, as I am so often critical of my own pictures and prefer to be the one snapping away great pics of others!  It is easy for me to see the beauty in others, in fact I am captivated by it.
But this morning I woke to this quote, my daily prayer prompt via email:

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful. 

Sometimes it just hits home, you know.  And I am feeling bountifully grateful for those dearest of loves in my life who encourage me, and see the beauty Love has planted in this imperfectly perfect child of God.

well, not quite life-sized, but a lot of fun!

See how The Lord takes care of me.

Waiting at the DMV and thinking of James Joyce describing the Church. Here comes everybody. DMV is a good image and a fun glimpse into the imagination of god in the body of Christ. Smiling grateful prayers...and then this;
The seat empties next to me and I hear someone pointing it out to another with clear directions.  A tall young man fumbles through and sits down, apologizing for the hand on my knee. A brief conversation follows until my number is called and off I go, reluctantly.  
I had just been talking with a young man blinded intentionally by his mother so he would not see the atrocities of his homeland, the horrors that were committed against his own family. Soft spoken, reflective and with an easy wide smile. He is getting his ID and is nervous how he looks. I told him he is handsome and he grinned "see how The Lord takes care of me". Useless to even try and hold back my tears when I am sitting here next to Jesus. See how The Lord takes care of me.

Buesking

Thank you, Miss Gladd

When I was in 1st grade, I had Scarlet Fever...this back in the day when it was deadly serious.  First a stay in hospital in isolation, them home but still quarantined for some time. 

By the time I was permitted to return to school, I was still frail and was not able to play at recess.  Instead, I was benched.  Each day I sat, my back to the wall, and watched the children play, feeling blue that I could not join them.
My teacher was a wonderful woman, Miss Gladd, who lived up to her name.  After a couple days sitting there, feeling forgotten with nothing but my disappointment keeping my company, she came and sat beside me.  She'd brought a small piece of string.  She asked for my hand, and tied the piece of string to my finger, as she told me it's purpose.  She said to me, "This is to remind you that God has you on this bench for a reason"  and explained it was up to me to figure out what that reason was. 
I was stumped as I daily sat there pondering her words.  Then, and I remember this so well, my friend Susan came over and sat with me.  We were both just sitting there with our backs against the stucco wall, eyes on the playground, and she began to tell me about a sorrowful thing that was happening in her family.  She talked and I listened.  I don't remember saying anything to her at all.  And I don't recall what she shared specifically (God has gifted me in that way).  What I do remember is Miss Gladd coming to sit by me second recess, and telling me she'd seen that I'd maybe figured out a bit of why I am here.  I felt the grace of God, before I ever could have named it as such.  I do know in that moment there aroused in me a longing that stirs in me still, my first memorable inclination toward God.
On Fat Tuesday I came across a thin ring, made to look like a knot around your finger.  With that ring, this experience, long forgotten, came back to me in a rush as clear as the blue sky above.  I am wearing it for Lent, a reminder to remember that God has me 'on this bench' for a reason. 

I have learned since my childhood the wisdom of that first principle shared earlier for Ash Wednesday...everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God.

ASH WEDNESDAY

I ask for the grace of an intimate knowledge of God's presence in my life and an awareness of my own response.

While not typically thought of as a prayer, the first principle and foundation of the spiritual exercises contains much that is worth reflecting on as I enter my Lenten retreat 'in the midst of the world'.
God, who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God's life
to flow into us without limit.

All the things in this world are gifts from God,
Presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.
As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God
Insofar as they help us to develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,
They displace God
And so hinder our growth toward our goal.

In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance
Before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice
And are not bound by some obligation.
We should not fix our desires on health or sickness,
Wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one.
For everything has the potential of calling forth in us
A deeper response to our life in God.

Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better leads
To God's deepening his life in me.

 

Lent's Invitation

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

John O'Donohue

For Sharon

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.

Let it not be a death but completeness.

Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.

Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.

Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.

Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.

I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.

    Excerpt from Tagore's The gardener 

Praying for family (Day of Prayer and Fasting for Syria)

I gathered prayers all week, rising early to offer my holy hour of prayer and fasting as the people of the world unite today for peace, though in truth the prayer for peace has been companioning me through these days. Why wait...
My own heart overwhelmed with the immensity of need, I found myself placing the need constantly before the Lord, only held out my hands and offered one word - Syria - to the Father's heart.

This morning, though, I read through those gathered prayers.  I prayed them slowly and with full intention in early morning darkness. I thought of all the others who were joining me in prayer unseen this morning...some in the comforts of their homes, some in churches, but also in shelters and on streets, in temples and especially those living in the midst of the terror we are praying to end.  When I got to the last, a litany of Mary of Nazareth, my heart broke wide open.  The myth of separation was again torn apart... those written prayers did their work, words I never would have thought of on my own pointed the way and I did follow. 
The power of prayer is not just to change circumstances...the very act of praying changes us!  May the example of Mary's humanity and the full humanity of her Son Jesus bring us all home to ourselves...to the oh so very human FAMILY of GOD...

 

Uncle Tony

My Uncle Tony, Lord rest him, has gone to God. 

He was a gem of a man - the patriarch of the family (big brother to a dozen siblings, including my mom!) when his own father died. A man of good humor, constancy and a great appreciation for life! He is threaded through my childhood memories.
He taught me to value curiosity:
He worked in the steel mills and his garage/workshop was scattered with magnets - magic for any child.  We could search out magnetic bits in the dirt like treasure hunters!  He knew how to play, explore, wonder.  Introducing us to magnets was to make of us appreciative explorers of the mysteries before us.

He taught me how to pluck a chicken:
A sight and experience I recall, but not pleasantly, so I will spare you the details...
He taught me to while away an afternoon in a backyard hammock:
I must have complained of 'nothing to do' because he led me to the backyard with great sobriety, to a hammock on a stand in the shade, and he lay down with me beside him.  Will you look at those branches.  We chatted awhile, and he told me this was a good thing to do when I didn't know what to do, just to lie here and look, to think about anything or nothing at all.  Then he went back into the house.  But he took the time to teach me a valuable lesson firsthand.  And he got me out of his hair!
He taught me to hang out in the kitchen for the latest scoop:
He was always there.  Sitting at the kitchen table, or standing with a dishtowel in hand.  He'd quietly laugh at the things he heard, a good listener.  Unobtrusive, he got all the juicy details.  He'd watch me, watching him, chin on the table, let me stay until the conversation took some turn and he'd shoosh me out.  I always wondered what it was the grownups talked about that I couldn't hear.  But it didn't bother me.  I just headed out to the hammock...

Unarmed Truth & Unconditional Love

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.  
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love this image of 'unarmed truth'.  We hear that phrase 'to speak the truth in love' but his words move it from a pious phrase to such a visual image of true humility. 

unarmed: without weaponry ( anything to injure, defeat or destroy) to have empty arms, to not hold something that provides security, strength, or efficacy to defend oneself...

This is how my husband speaks to me; with unarmed truth and with my closest human experience of unconditional love.  He speaks the truth to me; and even if it stings I see it is because the truth wants to live in me more fully and I have, in that moment at least, resisted.  He disarms me.

When I think of my human experience of unconditional love I think of my own children (and for that, all children) in that wonderful baby to child phase of wide open arms.  How they would rush into me with joyous abandon whether in affection or need.  How they could speak to me, even without words, and how I long for that truth to live in me more completely...to believe I am loved unconditionally, and to be that same love.  This is my image of God.  And from that place, as james taylor sang, to shower the people you love with love. 

My failings are close to home.  Those moments when unarmed truth is not chosen and I pick up the weaponry (I am right, or the one in control here, or just too tired of this)

Thankfully, I don't have the final word.  Dr. King was right.  Unarmed truth and unconditional love do have the final word, not in some last day when the world reaches it's conclusion, but each day, and having received, I offer my deep felt amen to God's grace.  May unarmed truth and unconditional love have the final word in me and you.

Hello World

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.        Frederick Buechner

If God said, 

"Rumi, pay homage to everything 

that has helped you 

enter my arms."

There would not be one experience of my life, 

not one thought, not one feeling,

not any act, I

would not

bow

to.

Rumi

For Easter Monday

Self-knowledge is not clarity or transparency or knowing how everything works, self-knowledge is a fiercely attentive form of humility and thankfulness...David Whyte

This is the night!

This is the night

that we gather in the darkness,

and watch while the Easter fire jumps

from wick to wick, from hand to hand. 

This is the night

that light spreads

From neighbor to neighbor

And friend to friend

On the hillside behind the parish.

This is the night

That we lift up our voices

And cry, “Lumen Christi!  Light of Christ!”

As we follow that fire

Into a dark and waiting church. 

This is the same fire

That spoke to Moses in a burning bush

And lit the spark of freedom. 

This fire once moved through the desert,

And led God’s people out of bondage. 

This fire once burst into a quiet room

And filled the disciples

With a Spirit powerful enough

To claim the world. 

This is the night! 

This is the night that we gather around the fire

And remember who we are-

The night that we pause to tell the story.

 

It can’t be neatly bound

Inside the covers of a book,

And it won’t stay put upon the shelf.

It can’t be tamed or controlled

Or even completely understood,

It demands faith.

This story can be told a thousand times

In a thousand different voices,

And somehow, each time, we hear something new. 

This story is so powerful

That it explodes galaxies into life. 

It is a story so enduring,

That time and death have no meaning. 

This is the story of a fire so bright,

It can illuminate each and every corner

Of an empty tomb.

Tonight, that empty tomb

Stands open before us,

Not just as the happy ending of a familiar story-

Not just of a personal invitation,

Or an eternal promise-

But as a challenge. 

This isn’t a story

That can simply be told and retold

Among families and friends.

This isn’t a fire that can be used

Just to warm our own hands.

 It’s not something to be lit

And blessed and passed

From neighbor to neighbor

And then blown out. 

This is the night

That the Alpha and the Omega,

The beginning and the end

The past and the future

Meet in the present.

Right here in this church

Right now among us.

Tonight Christ invites us

To look inside the empty tomb

And promise that our light

Will be bright enough

To transform the darkness. 

Tonight Christ leads us to the font,

And reminds us that this water

Must be deep enough

To flood a parched land.

Plunged into His death through the waters of baptism

dying to sin and the old ways

We are likewise raised to newness of life with him. 

Tonight Christ feeds us at the table

And asks that we share this bread with a starving people. 

Tonight we can’t just light the fire

And tell the story. 

We have to be willing to take

This light and this story

To every dark corner-

To places of pain

To places of need

To places of terror 

Lumen Christi!

Light of Christ!

Beautiful words, beautiful liturgy.

But unless we are willing to become the fire

And the water and the bread,

We don’t really understand this story at all. 

Two thousand years ago,

Some frightened and mournful women

Went to a tomb

To anoint a friend.

The emptiness they discovered there

Still has the power to fill the world. 

Christ is risen!

The tomb is empty!

This light is entrusted to you!