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

A Poetic Rendering of The First Principle and Foundation Of Ignatius Loyola

Love made me -
Love sustains me -
Love leads me forth.

For this I sing praise,
bow low, and put
my life at the disposal of
Love.

Every tree - every
single star in the sky
points back toward
the Beloved.

May nothing pull me
away from Love - no
small wish of mine
next to the immensity
of the Beloved.

With the Beloved
may I shine.

~ Christine Rodgers

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.

 

Sunday's Gospel...

This image of Martha and Mary caught my eye...do we listen to Jesus from 'a safe distance', even while in the same house, doing what is necessary in our own minds, or will we allow ourselves to be drawn intimately closer...

Daily

  by Naomi Shihab Nye

These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips
 
These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares
 
These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl
 
This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out
 
This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky
 
This page I type and retype
This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again
like flags we share, a country so close
no one needs to name it
 
The days are nouns: touch them
The hands are churches that worship the world

PRAYER IN MY BOOT

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth
how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids
and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows
and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given
and every future rough edge
and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep

"Prayer in My Boot" by Naomi Shihab Nye

When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.   John Muir

Forgetting to Remember

Forget: To treat with thoughtless inattention. To fail to become aware. To leave behind unintentionally. To not recollect. Disregard. To lose oneself.

Sometimes I can go for hours forgetting to remember.  Wilson barks outside the front porch. Kyla laughs at Papa’s silly joke, rubs his nose with hers.  I lose track of time and then it’s a mad dash of a mad woman and the scrambled mess I leave behind tells the tale straight.

We pile out to dance class and when Kyla climbs in after, I can see that she is barely holding herself together, and when I ask her what's wrong, she chokes out, "They forgot what I know.  It was like I had to start all over again." Oh I know, daughter of mine, I know.   I am newly amazed at how God knit us together from such circumstance.  We hold hands.   Back home, we cuddle cozy on the couch and share some clementines.  She smiles. Roger smiles too at the sight while she begs him to join us, pleeeease.  This girl simply loves to sit tight together.

As the afternoon shadows lengthen Kyla sings songs, sorting what she might do for the talent show that is months away.  I only have to ask twice for the colored pencils to be picked up off the living room floor.   The phone rings, "Can Kyla play?" and she's bouncing out the door, arms full of dolls, heading down the street to the neighbors house.

My husband comes in like Atlas, but smiling.  He is a man whose smile comes easy.  I have been loved by him for as long as I can remember and my throat catches at the sight of him.  I show him the iris that bloomed today.  I remember.  Fix his dinner plate and he thanks me.  There’s that smile.  We share a glass of wine, talk about our day, continue the long conversation we've been having; discerning decisions that lay before us, discover peace under it all.   
 
When did I begin to forget again?  Ephphetha, Jesus said to the one who could not hear, Be opened!

I remember Kyla saying after breakfast, her head cocked near the window, "Shhhh.... if you listen, you can hear the birds......"   I remember the sight of them, conspiring over their cereal bowls.  And later, the two of us girls singing out “I want to be a saint so bad…I want to see my face on a holy card” and our glad laughing at the good of it!  And why not. 

Remember: To become aware of something forgotten again. To be mindful. To keep in mind as worthy of consideration or recognition. To show gratitude, as with a gift. To use the power of memory. To mention favorably, as in a prayer or friendship.

In the morning, I leave my heart open on the windowsill by the sink.   Shhhh…if you listen…

The very real presence of God is right here.    

I hear Him in the running water as I rinse the dishes from last night, my ears anointed in the quick explosion of flame as I light the stove, in the thunder of heartbeat held good morning close, and the quiet quake of creaking floorboards as I breeze by to put in a load of laundry. 

I quiet.  Mary Oliver’s good question becomes the whisper of God
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

Ephphetha, I whisper…be opened.

What's in your spiritual toolbox?

Adolfo Nicolás: The strength of Ignatian Spirituality

If you want to grow spiritually

31 days with saint ignatius

What are you doing this summer?  Dedicate July to a little reflection each day and see where Love might lead you...

SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR LENT

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An Ignatian Prayer Adventure