What Gorgeous Thing

I do not know what gorgeous thing

       the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
       beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
       whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
       that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
       in the world that is without
questions that can't and probably
       never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
       with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.
   ~Mary Oliver

Sacred Memory

The other day Kyla and I were working together to organize her room. We rediscovered a bag of stuffed animals etc. we'd put away and among the items was a baby doll she carried everywhere when she was toddling around. It was fun to share with her this happy reminder of precious days passed.

Later we moved her little shrine to her bedside table.

 





















A holy card fell out, St. Kateri Tekawitha.

It has a relic, (a bit of red cloth) and Kyla commented that it was strange to think a piece of someone's clothing was sacred. I was surprised by my emotion as I shared with her that this bit of cloth was like her doll, which is 'just a doll' but also more, simply because it was hers, and is full of meaning and memory for us. She teared up too, 'getting it'. Happy grateful tears, a really good hug and yes, a sacred moment.

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

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!

Happy Holy Thursday

So here is Mary Oliver again...

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Something has happened
to the bread
and the wine.
They have been blessed.
What now?
The body leans forward
to receive the gift
from the priest’s hand,
then the chalice.
They are something else now
from what they were
before this began.
I want
to see Jesus,
maybe in the clouds
or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man
and clearly
someone else
besides.
On the hard days
I ask myself
if I ever will.
Also there are times
my body whispers to me
that I have.

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

Gaudete - Walking the Glad Road

9 year olds hear everything...
but where their fine-tuned ears will take them only the Lord knows.
Last night we were discussing our retirement while she did her homework. 
And as I pull into the parking lot at school this morning, she asks,
"So...when you retire, THEN will you be a nun???" 

It appears I am having a long novitiate!
But don't I know it!

Reminded me of years ago when Jessica introduced me at her high school on career day...She said it was hard to describe what I do...
"My mom, she said, is like a nun without a habit!"

Habit-Clothed, arrayed, invested, denoting a particular calling or rank.
From Latin habitus condition, character, from habēre to have, hold, and give.
Any regularly repeated behaviour that becomes intuitive, requiring little or no thought and is learned rather than innate.

The Feast of the Incarnation -Christmas- brings me back to the crib of Christ, and the poor manger of my own heart.  Yet in my poverty I find Him there and I am full of hope and yes, joy...that I can learn to be what I see, Christ...and learn to do what I know is true and so live the mystery of the Word become flesh. 

Christmas teaches me this habit is not gained by achievement or great spiritual works, but by the fleshy real experience of Love incarnate.  Practical theology!  Incarnation is not past-tense but continuation. Here my novitiate continues - to learn a life of love. What a glad road!

One day, God willing, I will retire, and hope that I wear a habit of grace in body, soul and spirit.
Then, perhaps, I will be a nun, which originally was nonna, an endearing term for an old woman!
Sounds like Grandma to me...Love it!!!

WAYSIDE SACRAMENTS

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything
that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -
a wayside sacrament.
Welcome it in every fair face,
in every fair sky, in every fair flower,
and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.
R W Emerson

Perhaps this is why I am so compelled to see,
to not miss the things that daily 'bless my soul'.
It is often, in the evening when i review my day,
that I can rest my eyes upon them and simply savor.
It is often after the encounter, in these little visits of memory
to collect the wayside sacraments of God's presence,
that I find myself spilling over with gratitude.
But there are also moments when it is impossible
to let slip to the wayside the grace we see and recognize.
Yesterday my husband and I stole away to see a movie
-The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
There is a scene in the garden
when a single crane takes flight.
It is somehow forever etched in my memory for its beauty;
it literally took my breath away and I was sorry to see it vanish.
I sat there and realized I had put my hand to my lips.
You know that gesture...
when we gasp awestruck, dumbfounded, so common and human.
I wonder if it is when we realize
that God is as near to us as our breath,
if it is connection beyond imagining.
If it is a way to hold on, if only for a moment, to life.
Life to the full.

MURMURATIONS

Like a gaggle of geese, though less well known;

a murmuration of starlings...

it is also prayer

uttered soundless except for the movement of lips,

breath escaping,

wordless,

spirit. 

Much for reflection here...

Watch it...BIG...Full screen

(click the title to see the video)

I wonder...

What does this speak to you?

I wander around the expanse of this new space with it’s open walls,

not sure where to put a picture I have just unpacked and so glad to find.

I hold it here...and there. Other things needing my attention, I lean it

against the kitchen window and forget it there. 

Now it seems it's where it belongs and i love it. 

It’s hues evoke something peaceful and deep, soothing in me.

There's an old calendar print on the back that was used when it was framed.

I’d seen it again in the unpacking, smiling (i love old things), and quickly forgotten.

Yesterday i walked outside and saw it there through the window.

How it caught my eye.

Somehow it touched me with it’s surprise of beauty.

Snowy mountains and blossoming meadows...a clear running stream and pale sky.

Surrounded by stained cardboard, tack nails and a twist of rusty wire.

Unprotected, it shows the wear and tear of time, beauty aged and sharpness softened. 

Some patches have been eaten away or torn; gone missing somehow.

This is not the backside of the print, like the weavings of a tapestry.

This is an entirely different scene, in the same frame, heretofore hidden.

Is it the landscape of things not chosen. 

The things we let take a back seat in our life;

The valley of ‘if only’.

The homeland we never dreamed possible

or if dreamed so, even then, just in bits and pieces.

Is it a glimpse into the high country, what we call the other side of life,

eternity here now (though mostly unseen or neglected),

it’s tattered state not worn through but just coming into view?

[Conor, I think now of you and ‘What Dreams May Come’]

Is it the magnificence of those who have backed me up,

been my mountain of strength, held me secure, let me shine.

Their own self-sacrifice shown in its rough edged paper frame,

which moves me to deep felt gratitude, prompts me to prayer.

Is it my own life, hidden away even to myself,

though not sadly or with regret, but given away

so as to make of my life a home for love.

I know...it’s just a page from an old calendar

in an old frame

of an old print.

like I said

(i love old things)

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
- 1Corinthians 13:12

Potluck

One of our dear friends recently discovered he is in the late stages of cancers' merciless grip.  The news stunned us all – he who is so youthful, vigorous and full of life – his mischievous laugh resounding forever in our hearts…mention Chris and that sound echoes through everyone’s head with delight.  These men have been friends since grade school at St. Mary’s, adding one or two along the way, from high school and SEARCH weekends, and they have held on, through wild adventures and weddings, through kids and the daily pulls that eventually shape our lives in different directions.  Usually, it would be Bob as the master of planning; a ping pong gathering, a party, he’d remember a birthday or use anything as a cause to celebrate…this time he used cancer ---

“Does anyone recognize these fugitives?” his email read. And there it was, from days long gone – a shot of the boys gathered round a table, the easy fun so evident on their faces as they ham it up for the camera!

And so we gathered Saturday afternoon for a potluck…

Kevin and Kara hosted, in their wide open home so like their wide open hearts.  We brought appetizers and dessert, so arrived first.  We were standing in the kitchen when Mike and Linda arrived (we hadn’t seen him in ages)…my husband saw Mike peek his head in and thought, “There’s Mikes Dad!”, quickly realizing no…that’s Mike.  Needless to say, it was an eye-opening evening!
He and his son carried in the cooler as we laughed about the days we’d all lived together in a big house on the beach, Rog and I the only married couple, and all these guys.  Mike always had a cooler ready then, glad to spend an evening on the sand.

Joe and Cathy brought bread and oil, Joe loving bread as always, knowing our need to break bread together, the meaning lost to no one.  The hard swallow of eucharisteo  borne more easily in communion.

Bob (the self-designated Wine Swine) and Maura were welcomed with ready glasses and raucous laughter.  Chris and Michelle arrived with them.  Michelle with a huge salad, fresh and full of greens and fruit and nuts.  She always makes the best salads!

We chatted and munched a good long while, took a tour of the house (Kevin is an architect) while Kara prepared the main course, lovely salmon and couscous.
Then we sat down at table.  Six couples who’ve been long wed, wives brought together mostly by the friendships their husbands shared; and knit together through the years, grateful for such friendships in their lives and ours.  We feasted on a delicious meal and told stories that had us laughing and crying, whole table conversations with each one shouting in their bit of the story and quiet ‘one on ones’ as we lingered on.  I brought out the dessert – pies – and as I sat down next to Mike he shared how his mom had been the pie maker at a local restaurant when he was small; how he loved pies (real pies…good pies).  My mom had been a pie maker too; daily heading out to the Wagon Wheel.  The weave of life and grace in our life a common thread knotted there…

Bob made toasts (he is a most excellent wine swine) and we took a group shot for posterity.  We all ended up in the kitchen, having the quiet  conversation with Chris and Michelle that had brought us all there, sharing love and hope, the hard facts of life softened with tears and gratitude and faith strong enough to hold us all.
It took us hours more to say goodbye…

In the days following, each has sent out an email of thanks to the group.  I sat down to write ours, and thought of asking for Kara’s recipe – the meal had been so good, I thought I might serve it Christmas eve.  But I had watched her prepare it, simple enough, and slide it in the oven.  Then I realized…

The meal was not prepared in any special way for us…we were prepared in a special way for the meal.  Apart, we were stunned and troubled…together we relaxed and remembered… in good company with good stories and our good God to see us through.  Because of that we celebrated, and life was the feast!  Simcha!