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!

Easter Eggs

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.

To Bless the Space Between Us

May I live this day  

compassionate of heart,  

clear in word,  

gracious in awareness,  

courageous in thought,  

generous in love.  

John O'Donohue  

 

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

The Blessings of St. Patrick! Here is a gorgeous rendition of both the heart of his message and the very way he was able to do what he was called to do. And the same for us, eh? Though for you celebrating today, St. Brigid did describe her vision of heaven as a great lake of beer! 

Sláinte!

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

Moments and Memory

We were heading out in the car, stopped at the red light, when she looked over and said the man in the car next to us was a hippie.  I glanced right, and saw an older man, looking like he was heading to work, no signs of hippie to my eyes.  "Why do you say that" I ask, and exasperated, she says, slowly and surely so I can 'get it', "because he drives like he is hip!" And she puts her arm out on an imaginary steering wheel, wrist on top, hand hanging down..."a hippie"!!!

And I instantly see in my minds eye my own dad, much younger (I am a child beside him) driving with his wrist on the wheel - a cool customer.  Flash to years later and he stops by to visit his daughter, living with her hippie friends, for a morning cup of coffee (I made him a smoothie).  I walked him out to his car after.  He put his arm on the wheel, sat there smiling at me, lingered with his hand dangling, and then slowly turned, looking over his shoulder, backed out the drive. 

Thanks Dad.  This memory makes me smile.

Hymn by Edgar Allan Poe

At morn--at noon--at twilight dim--
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe--in good and ill--
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine.

As the story goes, Poe was living near Fordham University and was irritated by the bells ringing at 6:00, noon, and 6:00.  He went to complain, and the Jesuits there explained to him the Angelus - a prayer of devotion to the Incarnation. Its name comes from the scripture verse (in Latin), Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariæ. 'the angel of the Lord came to Mary'.  His Hymn is poetry and prayer...

Here is one of my most favorite pieces; and yes, I wish the bells rung here, constant reminder of our not being alone, but accompanied by Grace, calling us to prayer.  I love his poem, and how he too found consolation here. 

The Angelus by French painter Jean-Francois Millet

 

 

Mom & Dad

Lessons from the ashes...

From Egotism and Cruelty

to Love of Ones Neighbor and Friendliness

to Prayer and Faith…

Love the title pages in this film!

 Cinderella1914 with Mary Pickford

Part 2 can be viewed on this same link

If my life had title pages for the lessons I've learned, or rather, like Cinderella,

pointing to the lessons I am about to learn...it's a fresh perspective on perspective, eh?

There is something innate to the human soul that knows that, every so often, one must make a journey of descent, be smudged, lose one's lustre, and wait while the ashes do their work. All ancient traditions, be they religious or purely mythical, abound with stories of having to sit in the ashes. We all know, for example, the story of Cinderella. This is a centuries-old, wisdom-tale that speaks about the value of ashes. The name, Cinderella, itself already says most of it. Literally it means: "the young girl who sits in the cinders, the ashes."  Moreover, as the tale makes plain, before the glass slipper is placed on her foot, before the beautiful gown, ball, dance, and marriage, there must first be a period of sitting in the cinders, of being smudged, of being humbled, and of waiting while a proper joy and consummation are being prepared. In the story of Cinderella there is a theology of lent. ~ excerpt by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

 

We should try unceasingly to allow each one of our actions to become a moment of communion with God: not a studied act, but just as it comes from purity and simplicity of heart.

~Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

My Little Brother

Today is my brother's birthday.  Even now, (at our advanced age - I know, I'm older) I can still see his wide open smile from boyhood that shines fresh and engaged in whatever is happening in any moment...the only thing wider than that smile are the arms he opens wide to all, huge hearted and welcoming.  I'd love to ride our bikes together again in that wide dirt circle, speeding through the carport again and again, plop against that old barn in the back and talk about nothing which was everything, read together, oh,oh,oh, and him insisting no, no, no.  He is our kids favorite!  They have felt all this and more from him!  I love that in our adulthood we can still run to the bridge and wish on the moon, hold hands and pray in the Father's love, relish all that is good while holding in open hands all that breaks our heart.  I love the tenderness of his heart.  I love his laugh, his serious side, the way he zooms in close, forehead to forehead, connecting with people, while the world holds it's breath, waits (watching love in action does that to the world)  I love you little brother, and I miss you every day.  Time to book a flight!

Minute to Win it!

Feasting before the fast, we play a quick game of gratitude...in one minute write all you are grateful for, then share with one another.  It's a fun and simple way to honor God's Blessings before the fast.  Just as Jesus entered the desert "full of the Spirit" it is good to recall the fullness of God's love experienced in our lives as we enter a season of simplicity, seeking to deepen that life in us.  I love her list! 
Your turn...what are you grateful for...in one minute?  Go ahead, write it here!



A Blessing for Ash Wednesday

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
~Jan Richardson

Love this

Family-a Cosmic View

I get these daily astronomy photos and find them so awe-inspiring,
but this weeks description drew me into playful reflection...

GALAXY as FAMILY
Bold lines are from the original description of the above photograph...
Typical in grand spiral galaxies
( aka the massive and complex family tree in which we all live and from which we all come)
dark dust lanes
(you know who you are and where you’ve been)
youthful blue star clusters
(the delight of youth's unique gifts that keep perpetuating the legacy)
and pinkish star forming regions
(ah…love making; love begetting love)
trace spiral arms that converge on the bright nucleus of older yellowish stars
(the embraces shared with love-worn elders, big-hearted wisdom, grandparents)
But this composite hints of two anomalous arms that don't align with
the more familiar tracers
(two who were once strangers fall in love, make a life, and the family expands)
Seen here in red hues
(passion, blood & roses, the cost and glory of love, like God’s own self-donation in Christ)
sweeping filaments
(the mysterious ties that bind)
seem to rise from the central region
(heart/gut, home)
evidence of energetic jets of material blasting into the galaxy's disk
(don’t need to spell this out, do I?)
The jets are likely powered by matter
( and what matters, the daily lived reality in which we cling to one another)
falling into a massive central black hole! 
(Could be your child's room, the disorienting busyness of life,
the way the days turn into years,
or the deepest mystery that holds us all) 

But look...isn't it glorious, residing in the heavens, bigger than anything
I could ever imagine, and more magnificent than I have ever dreamed.
Now tell me this imagery doesn’t speak to the best of the experience we call family…

Luck of the Irish

Today is my Dad's birthday.  I have this picture from his childhood, with his mom and dad, my grandparents.  I do not remember my grandmother at all.  She passed to God when I was very young.  But my grandpa and I had many fond times together.  I remember mostly the time he always had for me; how he would listen, tell a story, and especially his easy, slow laugh.  Now my Dad is the grandpa and his own father gone too.  From the Child to the Father to the Old Man, time is a funny thing.  Time flies, they say, and you don't believe it, the days dragging on with work and busy-ness, until one day you look back with wonder, and if you are lucky, buckets full of gratitude for the love and life you've known.  Me...I'm feeling lucky!  Happy Birthday Dad!

Recordar: To remember; from the Latin records, "to pass back through the heart”

Scientists say that we are made of atoms, but to me a little bird told me that we are made of stories.

Proverbial Wisdom

The Gate of the Year

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied,
‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’   m. l. harkins

Chekhov and his wife, Olga “Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.” Anton Chekhov

Three Little Birds

For those of you who visit here just to hear this sweet song...
here it is, on it's own, just for you...
Need to find a new gadget for playing tunes as the old one closed shop!
But not now...it's Christmas!

OLD FRIENDS

Old friends meeting for lunch, we’ve shared our lives for decades now, weaving in and out of our days.  There have been broad gaps of time, yet whenever we come together time falls away.

We were laughing, shaking our heads, crying too as we shared these many days.

Ended up sharing memories.  They were tracing our years through the growing up of my family.

How they helped me sew Jessica’s dress for her first big school dance/date.  Hung the curtains in the kitchen of our new house together. They remembered Conor’s heartbreak when his cousins ruined his Lego creations during one Christmas at our house.   Recalled Katie’s young sense of injustice and humor when she’d come over after school and tell all.  Wondered at the miracle of Kyla, watching her grow into such a delightful and confident girl.  They have carried these along with me, and much more besides. 

We were all married young, and lasting love has been our common grace.  Shared laughs over our humble beginnings, tiny first homes and the things we did without so happily, young romance still fresh in our minds, wondering when all this gray arrived.

Yes, we’ve shared a good road.  We nod, and our banter falls silent.  I wonder what they were thinking.  I was suddenly lost in remembering…

He’d sold our car, taken his wife, grieving over child-loss, to spend the summer traveling Europe, and back home, no money in our pockets, we had only a bicycle and he rode me on the handlebars to morning mass.  I was so full of love, so proud to be loved by him for all the world to see, like the queen of an impetuous parade.  I felt my own beauty that day when we stopped there, in the back of St. Mary’s.  He kissed the palm of my hand even as I still felt the handlebars hard imprint on the back of my legs.  Just put his love right there, in the palm of my hand, quick as that.

We ordered dessert to share, and why not.  Held our spoons ready to dive in.  It was delicious. 

While We All Sup Sorrow with the Poor

 

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor.
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears,
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Oh Hard times, come again no more

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door.
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh! hard times, come again no more.

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave -
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days have you lingered around my cabin door.
Oh Hard times, come again no more

Oh! Hard times

For the families and loved ones lost in the Newtown Tragedy

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!!!

Walk this way

Why do we love and admire kingdom people like Mary and Joseph, and then not imitate their faith journeys, their courage, their non-reassurance by the religious system? These were two laypeople who totally trusted their inner experience of God and who followed it to Bethlehem and beyond. Mary and Joseph walked in courage and blind faith that their own experience was true—with no one to reassure them they were right. Their only safety net was God’s love and mercy, a safety net they must have tried out many times, or else they would never have been able to fall into it so gracefully.

Adapted from Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr, pp. 66-68

Oh Christmas Tree

Putting up the tree, baby Jesus is nestled in the branches first - in the 'heart' of it all, the tree evergreen like God's faithfulness...the wood of the tree which formed a manger...a boat...the cross. And so we surround and adorn with lights for the Light of the World, with happy memories framed in glitter and paste celebrating the blessings we have so enjoyed. St Nicholas' abound - reminding us to be generous to the poor, to serve God with joy. Angels are scattered about, with Kyla's latest rendition on top, to proclaim the good news! There are stars to guide and hearts to follow the way of Love incarnate. Pearls are draped that remind us of the pearl of great price. I find so much reflection there this year...Come to me Jesus, be born more deeply in the poor manger of my heart...

 

Oireachtas...or Love is like a little boat upon the Sea

A sea of Irish, (yes, here, everyone is Irish no matter where they came from) musicians fill the air with a celtic beat, and there's dancing everywhere; the ballrooms, yes, but also the halls and the stairs, the bathroom and the line at Starbucks, even the elevator, so they had to post this:

It's a rolling sea, waves of wigs toss and bounce, coaches counting out the steps; confident commanders guiding us all, moms bent; pinning and tieing, whisper their assurances, secure the decks...dads stand like masts; strong and steady, catching the changing winds with broad sails.  Friends and family on deck too, waiting, watching. 
There's an arm around each one...then, as if some silent signal blows, they leave the shelter of those who love them, (I see the arms still stretched out as they go, hovering momentarily to wish them well).  Off they go, their sea legs sure, to dance! 
All eyes turn to watch. Hard shoes thunder across the stage...ghillies lift them on an unseen wind, and we, the travelers on this rare ship, watch in amazement, hold our breath, until they return from the other side back to our arms.  It's quite a scene, played over and over morning til night.  It's a pericope of family life, albeit in high drama! 
I overheard one who said it well.  Picture this; a teenage boy, dressed in his dancing best, all glitter and shine, with his Da behind him, hands on his shoulders.  Country Irish, with a heavy brogue, his Da says, "Now remember lad, whatever happens in there, you're still me Jack... you'll always be me Jack."  
Yes...I cried... And thanked the Lord for such traveling companions. 

Every time you leave home
another road takes you
into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
will startle a little at your entry
Old places that know you well
will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit...

When you travel,
a new silence
Goes with you.
And if you listen,
you will hear
what your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing.

Make sure, before you go,
to take the time to bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast,
so that the compass of your soul
might direct you towards
the territories of spirit
Where you will discover
more of your hidden life;
and the urgencies
that deserve to claim you...

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed
and live your time away to it's fullest;
Return home, more enriched, and free
to balance the gift of days which call you.

John O'Donahue Benedictus

The holy land is everywhere. - Black Elk

Meeting the Light Completely

Even the long-beloved
was once
an unrecognized stranger.

Just so,
the chipped lip
of a blue-glazed cup,
blown field
of a yellow curtain,
might also,
flooding and falling,
ruin your heart.

A table painted with roses.
An empty clothesline.

Each time,
the found world surprises—
that is its nature.

And then
what is said by all lovers:
"What fools we were, not to have seen."

 

 Jane Hirshfield from October Palace

Woman, your faith has made you well

A young girl whose face shines with an interior light, moves quietly among us all weekend, and with a grace-filled humility raises her voice to sing at Mass on Sunday...does she know the song Sacred Silence...yes...she wrote it; and then Jenny Pixler sings our meditation and we open ever wider to God's grace through her gift.

A woman whose heart has been broken in sorrow and anger turns loss into light and hate into healing, though the way is anything but easy.

A woman of age and grace, tiny and mighty, affirms the feminine perspective so needed, nods her smiling approval, leads the way for us all.

A woman who was wife, is now widow; and with all her strength her arms are wide stretched as her heart is held in prayer, tears streaming her ache for yes.

What about betrayal, she asks. 

What can I do to cultivate this love, she speaks with a voice hesitant and low. 

How do you trust like this, she whispers, coming from behind as I walk toward the open road.

She talks to me over a meal, sharing her concerns about one she loves.

We sing together We n' de ya ho and I who cannot sing find my voice.

She carries a camera, a woman of vision, and helps others to see.

A young woman, tempted to keep her face toward shadow, hidden, turns to let the light touch her face and walks straighter and taller into her life.

They hold hands, twirl and jive, all smiles on the dancefloor, the freedom of movement and music moving them.

She cannot imagine Christ, comes up blank, feels her desire stronger than her experience.  Her yearning to see makes others ache for such want.

Two women sit in a corner, laughing, tears streaming down their faces at the good of it...later I see them, walking hand in hand, Martha and Mary, sisters in faith.

I see her standing tall in the treehouse (built by my husband and son years ago), looking out at the expanse, and wonder what her thoughts are standing there, when I see her bow her head down, lean on the rail, and I pray.

A woman walks up to read Gods word, shoes off, her quiet walk known by me, her life intent, that God be glorified.

She runs, literally, to reconciliation; last but not least...for the least is the greatest in the kingdom of God.

Women carrying their loves and losses, children and husbands, hurt and hope in their hearts.  Carrying them to Galilee, to the mountain top.  They never travel alone.

Hands reach out to help, console, create, hold tight, share strength and consolation, snap and clap and fold together in prayer...

All of us, daring in our newly recognized communion, to reach out and open wide the door to faith together.

Let My Love Open the Door to Your Heart

 In the liner notes of Townshend's Gold (Remaster) CD, he refers to this song as "Jesus sings."
  Pause the playlist at bottom right to enjoy this song!
I spent the weekend up in the mountains with a group of women,
daughters all, willing to stand together, in a place set apart
to let the love of Christ open the door to our hearts.

With the Church's call in Porta Fidei, we were nudged
to contemplate what that door was like for each of us at this particular time in our lives...

Was the call interior, to receive Christ's love more deeply in our own personhood?

Was it a threshold call to trust in that in-between place with our eyes fixed on Him?

Was it a beckoning forth, to set out on pilgimage, to follow in faith where Love leads?

Like those old keys that would work in just about any door, we considered a way of opening, entry, passage. 

K Know the Word
Oh not to memorize chapter and verse to cite impressively but to know the sweeping story of God's love, the heart of God revealed in sacred story and living word...to know Christ the Word, even as I am known.  As in the biblical sense to 'know man' , so to know Christ, fleshy and real, with authentic intimacy and love beyond words...to know that Word in the prayer of the heart, to be so knit together in love that the story of scripture and the life of faith is experienced as an immersion in the living loving truth of God...no longer just God's story, but my story lived out daily in acceptance, faith and humility (humus: of the earth, to deeply receive the life God gives and then, grounded in Him, to offer it back fully and free)

E Live Eucharist
Eucharisteo - To truly receive Christ, body soul and divinity with open hands; swallow it; believe. TRUST. Bread of Life broken in the One Life laid down in love for us all and for our salvation.  To Live Christ, indwelling, through the gift of that sacred meal we share, but also through His spirit now in us; Real Presence.  Test yourselves daily to see if you are living by faith...perhaps you yourselves do not realize that Christ Jesus is in you- St Paul to the Corinthians.  In our Blessing.  In our Brokenness.  In our Sharing.  Be the Body of Christ His Word and our Faith tells us we are.  Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice of praise.  And be Thankful.  For All I Thank Him; embody the gift and joy which is at the heart of all (greek charis/chara) we have been given.

Y  Be You
Be the child of God that is your true identity, uniquely you, in this time and place.  Be a saint on The Way, a blessed one whom God has gifted to the world.  Be honest with yourself, TRUST to let God in to your truest self (whom God already knows for God alone sees the heart) You know...the one who gets angry and giggles in those inappropriate moments, who likes to dance but is too shy to do it, who holds love and fear tightly in her hands.  Fall in love and follow Christ because of love, live your YES in the middle of mystery.  Be wholly holy: whole, sound, happy, dedicated to religious use; coming from and going toward God.  That makes everything along the way (aka YOUR LIFE) ripe with the possibility of encounter, healing, joy, gratitude, love, mercy, hope, salvation. 

Faith isn't something you put on, like your Sunday best, but rather a living Sabbath, the daily habit of grace; to worship (at it's simplest - to give worth, value, trust to something) in the extraordinary ordinary moments we call life, God; Who is Love. 


     

Let Your Life Sing

For Jenny...For Us All

I have great faith in all things not yet spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

so that what no one yet has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, may I be forgiven,

but what I need to say is this:
may what I do flow from me like a river,
without anger, without timidness,
no forcing and no holding back.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing You as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

Ranier Maria Rilke

 

 

On the way up the mountain

 

'Storm Comin' by The Wailin' Jennys

Pause the playlist at bottom right to enjoy this!

A Prayer Among Friends

Among other wonders of our lives, we are alive
with one another, we walk here
in the light of this unlikely world
that isn't ours for long.
May we spend generously
the time we are given.
May we enact our responsibilities
as thoroughly as we enjoy
our pleasures. May we see with clarity,
may we seek a vision
that serves all beings, may we honor
the mystery surpassing our sight,
and may we hold in our hands
the gift of good work
and bear it forth whole, as we
were borne forth by a power we praise
to this one Earth, this homeland of all we love.
  John Daniel

Wrong Turn

I took a wrong turn the other day.
A mistake, but it led me to the shop where I found
the very thing I'd been searching for.

With my brother I opened a packet
of old letters from my mother and saw a side of her
that sweetened what had been deeply sour.

Later that day the radio sang a song from
a time when I was discovering love,
and folded me into itself again.

"Wrong Turn" by Luci Shaw, from What the Light Was Like

How joyful to be together...37 years now

“How joyful to be together...as when we first were joined in our little house by the river long ago, except that now we know each other, as we did not then; and now instead of two stories fumbling to meet, we belong to one story that the two, joining, made. And now we touch each other with the tenderness of mortals, who know themselves...”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems

Getting our eyes fixed

Today my daughter-in-law is having lasik surgery, getting her eyes fixed.  My son had this done last year to his great delight.  And my husband too, back when the technology was brand new!

When I first met my husband in high school he wore thick glasses, and had done so since childhood. Those thick glasses would steam up when he played tennis or lingered too long in a kiss.  I thought that adorable.  For our Jr Prom he took me to the Bali Hai and after dinner we sat on the harbor looking at the city lights across the water.  He took off his glasses, staring at that horizon, and told me he wished I could see how beautifully the light blended together. 

Decades later, he no longer needs those glasses, his vision perfected.  I, on the other hand, can no longer hold the book far enough away to read it, and have eye glasses scattered everywhere.  I think of this as God's mercy, that as I age I cannot see clearly my own reflection, but rather see myself in a softened glow.  Ignorance is bliss!  But it is an ironic twist that my husband saw me in soft-focus all those years in my youthfulness and now, in my old age, he sees me clearly! 

They have encouraged me to get my eyes fixed too, but I do not go willingly 'under the knife'.  The rarest consequences always seem to find me there.  My vision will have to be fixed in other ways. 

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say that there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers...
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent.  The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
...Doctor, if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.
~ Lisel Mueller ~

When Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?",  the blind man looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around." Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Mark 8:24-25

Remember to Forget

My mother-in-law is forgetting things.  Yet her memory is also amazing.  She can recount the smallest detail of life when she was a youngster in Chicago, a war bride, a mom gone back to college, a secretary at the Pentagon.  Catch her on a good day and she can easily quote Merton or toss out a gaelic endearment/insult.  Last time we chatted she had me in stitches.  Today she was recalling truckloads of misery.  Wallowing in it.  Lord knows we all have our days. 
I commiserate with my husband and tell him I have been newly inspired.  Since it seems inevitable that we all begin to forget things, I am choosing now what I will forget.  I am throwing out all the small and mean and miserable things.  Too many words!  Why let them take up space!  I want to remember the avalanche of grace and goodness I've known.  I'll keep enough of the tears to remind me of how much love I've known, but no crying over spilled milk.  Yes, I am going to remember to forget.  Dodge the arrows that weren't meant for me, sweep up the broken bits from that fall.  I'll put up snapshots of my sweetest memories.  My tongue will remember ice cream on a summers day and how to say I am sorry.  My hands will hold tenderly to affection and let slip away what must on any given day. 

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.