Ready for Spring

My Mantra for the past three months has been: "I'm waiting for spring."  And it is here and I am grateful, grateful, grateful.

Yesterday I did a meditation for the spirituality network board on spring.  I found some of it online and used it to offer up different images of this season.

1. Spring  - something we do with our bodies.  We spring - or leap - over creekbeds or puddles.  We leap.  Sometimes we need to take a leap into new activities and, of course, there is the "leap of faith."

2. Spring is a coil - which is wound tightly and can get stretched and goes back into shape.  It is a picture of resilience as the stress of life might test us but then we go back to becoming ourselves.

3. Spring is water - like water that comes out of a rock.  It is clear and cool and refreshes us.

4. Spring is a new season of life.  We often do "spring cleaning" so that we can let the light in and see more clearly.

I presented these images and asked each person which one spoke to them today.  I found the one that really resonated with me was the "Leap".  I want to leap into life again and try some new things.  In this picture there is a sense of freedom and abandon that I find attractive. 

So, the daffodils here are not blooming yet as they were in Washington DC - but they are coming and so is spring.  A time to find resilience, refreshment and new life. 

Here is a wonderful poem by Rumi I shared last night.  It is really powerful when read outloud.






Spring Giddiness
Rumi
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let’s buy it.
Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?
All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.

Stretching my Mind

I have just returned from a trip to Charlottesville Virginia for the "Festival of the Book" followed by a short trip to Washington DC where I went on a tour and visited the "Newseum."  A busy five days and I am filled with images and ideas.

I went to a fascinating lecture titled "Generals Behaving Badly" and learned about Benedict Arnold, "Mad" Anthony Wayne and Robert E. Lee. The new information about Benedict Arnold was that he was a real hero and a man of bravery in the battle of Saratoga.  He really saved the day there and had he died then, it would have been a hero's death.  Later he was sent to keep order in Philadelphia and treated really badly by his superiors.  He ultimately changed sides and  his name is remembered as a synonym for dishonor and betrayal.

Mad Anthony Wayne was not crazy but a man with a temper.  He was called by Washington to help settle the frontier that was Ohio and that meant confronting the native American Indians who resided there.  Some see him merely as an "Indian Killer" and at the same time we wonder what would have happened as American settlers moved westward bringing their culture and values.

Finally, the question with Lee is whether he is remembered as hero or treasonous general who was s leader in dividing the country.  I did not know that he was indicted for treason in 1865 and  could have been executed.  After the war,  many leaders tried to say that the purpose of the civil was was "states rights" but historians now uniformly say it was about slavery.  Robert E. Lee himself was a slave owner and had a reputation for bad treatment of the slaves and also poor treatment of prisoners during the war.

So, the point to all of this writing is to say that it leaves us - 150 years later - wondering whether these men were heroic? monsters? statesmen?  noble? evil? good?  And the answer is probably YES.

What I learn every time I go to this book festival is how much history I don't know and how easy it is to settle for comfortable labels.  I went to another discussion about the debates of congress in the nine months between January and September 1850.  The issue was the expansion of slavery into the land taken by Mexico. The southern representatives believed in states rights and the northerners were more concerned in keeping the union together.  The writer of a book about this learned that - like now - many people fell into "abolutist" language which makes compromise difficult. Throughout my time at this Festival I learned about the human tendencies to fall into black and white thinking that keep us divided.

The last day we went to the Crime Brunch and he heard Don Winslow speak.  He is a writer of a lot of books about the Mexican cartel and dug trafficking.  I really like his writing and have read several of his books.  He does extensive research and sometimes they are hard to read because of the violence and the decandence of the people.  His contention is the the problem is not Mexico but the US consumption of drugs.  I wish I had the statistics of just how many drugs are bought and sold in this country.  He made the case that it may start with back pain or maybe the emotional pain of living.  But ultimately the question for us is:  how do we live with pain?  And, let me tell you, that resonated with me.

I continue to grieve my husband's death and am almost embarrassed by it but "it is what it is."  That is, it feels like a bowling ball of sadness I carry around even underneath the fun and interesting activities that I engage in.  It is hard to explain, but it is real.  I just believe that it is all part of life and that my task is to acknowledge it and keep on moving.

I am stretching my mind in many ways and grateful for opportunities like I had this past week to learn and to think and to consider and reconsider what i thought I knew about history.  And what I continue to learn about life.

Conversations with Chuck

It is 4 oclock in the afternoon. I had lunch with a friend and came home and watched a little TV and then turned off the TV and cried.  Enough.  Enough.  So I might as well come downstairs and write a little bit.

Yesterday I drove to Elyria and back for a listening conference.. During the drive I found myself wondering if and wishing  that Chuck was with me.  We had had a March snow Sunday night and for a while the trees on the drive were glistening with snow.  It was almost ethereal and I immediately thought Chuck would have loved this.  I got off the highway and drove through small towns like Spencer Ohio.  I passed Spencer Feed store and wondered if Chuck had ever been here.  He loved driving the by ways and the sights found in  small towns.

I passed Amish farms with laundry on the line and saw a father and son walking to a barn.  Later ! passed two Amish carriages with the horses clopping along the road.  And again, Chuck would have loved this.  I remember and miss and honor his eye for beauty and  constant curiousity about his surroundings. 

When I got to the meeting a man I have known for years greeted me. We have served on many committees and he asked how I was doing.  It turns out he lost his wife  two years ago.  He shared about the grief groups he has participated in and confessed that even the night before after he turned off the TV and went to bed, he found himself in tears again - missing her. And I thought -   Two years!  That's how long Jo Dee told me it takes til you can "walk upright" again.

This journey of grief.  I hesitate writing about it, but it just goes on.

It is not that I am stuck exactly.  I live my life, go to meetings, have lunch, make plans for the future.  Today I cleaned out part of the basement and threw some Chuck stuff away and gave some clothes to good will.  But undeerneath, not far from the surface, is the sadness that is present.

As I talk to him, wonder if he is here, and  miss him.

Living in the Everything

Of my life.  Of life itself.

One of my gifts to myself since retirement has been a subscription to the Sunday New York Times.  I sit with coffee and read and read and read on a Sunday morning.  I have a regular process which begins with the front section that I read pretty carefully, then Sunday Styles, Sunday Review, the arts, and the Magazine and the Book Review. 

The front section is full of news of the world and it is alot.  There is so much going on and it is mostly disturbing.  This Sunday:

•  racial conflict in South Africa's wine country,
•  ISIS in te Phillipines,
•   Billions of dollars of tax incentives in NYC for Hudson Yards, 
•  The Migrant family separations go on,
•   the democrats are swerving left. 

 That is just the front page.  Lately I am finding that it  feels like it is too much.  There is greed, corruption, hate, lying.  Throughout the world.  And it is hard to process all of it.  But I know it is not good to live in ignorance.  So I read and wonder about it all.

When I read other parts of the paper - especially the style section, the book review and the arts I am reminded of the creativity and beauty of the world and the people in it.  I find it uplifting.

And my life has so much in it.  I have had a busy weekend: Mary Wood came and spent the night with two students from Burma.  They are all studying together to get a Doctor of Ministry here in the next three years.  Afterward, the two will return to the refugee camp to teach.  They were so inspiring. Saturday we had friends over for fun and games and last night I went to a comedy club with Marnie and Audrey and her friend Morgan.

At the same time, there continue to be the times in my days where again I encounter the empty spaces within me at this new life without Chuck.  I call it the "deep pool of grief" that I carry around within me.

And so I sit this morning and ponder what it is to live in the "Everything" of life:  the good and the bad, the light and the dark, the beauty and the ugliness.  And where is Jesus in this?

It is the second week of Lent and I read this scripture

"Whoever says "I abide in him" ought to walk just as he walked"  (1 John 2:6)

And I continue to work my way through the Richard Rohr book The Universal Christ and read
"We have faith in Christ so that we can have the faith OF Christ."

I remember that Jesus lived in the everything, too.  Right from the beginning.  I am always touched by his birth in the context of the murderous Herod.  The dreams come to Joseph and he departs to Egypt for a time.  And this week in worship, the text was about the temptation of Christ in the wilderness and in the midst of these trials the angels come and minister to Jesus.  There is the everything - the good and the evil, the trials and the celebrations, the love and the hate. 

I am getting ready for a book discussion tonight of Anne Lamott's Almost Everything and find this quote: 
“Light not only warms, of course, but illuminates both things we want to see and don’t want to see.”

So, I guess living in the light means that we see everything - and trusts that evn in the ugly and hateful and empty times, God is doing something to bring life and beauty and healing.  That, I think, is the faith OF Christ.

Here's a prayer that speaks to me this morning

To Know You

O Lord, you have searched me, and known me,
You understand my thought afar off.
You compass my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways;
for there is not a word in my tongue, but lo
you know it altogether.

O you who know me so utterly, help me to
know you
a little.

Arthur Stanley Fisher

And Lent begins

It officially began for me last night at a beautiful Ash Wednesday service.  In which my broken heart was broken wide open.

I cannot explain how the silence, the music, the haunting bells, lighting candles just filled me and exposed my brokenness in a very real and deep way. 

In the bulletin there was a reading by Joan - here is some of it

"To be invited to begin again, to be ready to start over in life, is what the practice of Lent is all about.  Then we are free to rethink everything we've done in life and everything we want in life and everything we've demanded from life and get down to basics: the presence of God and trust in the God of surprises.
If Lent is to be real at all, we must recognize that we are on a journey that twists and turns between what we were before and what we are beginning now.  There is no settling down.  There is only the call of the New Beginning where God dwells in the heart and takes all our fear, all our loneliness away."

I think  I became very emotional on reading this because  - besides living with a pool of grief within me - I am afraid as I am beginning a new life without Chuck.  There is so much to this newness that brings what i would call a free flouting anxiety.  As I sat in the church we sang the Taize song

Come and fill our hearts with your peace, You alone O Lord are holy,
Come and fill our hearts with your peace, Giver of mercy

We sang it over and over until it sang us.  And I had a sense of peace flowing into this broken and hurting heart. 

The blessing that ended the service was this:

Peace for the earth and her creature
Peace for the world and its peoples
Peace for our fathers
Peace for our mothers
Peace for our brothers and sisters
The peace of heaven's vastness
The peace of the ocean's depths
The peace of earth's stillness.
To bless us in this night
To bless us in this season.

That is the peace that I need to walk with during Lent as I live with a broken heart and into a new future.

This morning I read the three scriptures of the day.  The first one was Exodus 5: 10-23 - which was about the people of Israel groaning under the slavery of Pharoah.   Here is the opening veryse

So the taskmasters and the supervisors of the people went out and said to the people: "Thus says Pharoah, I will not give you straw.  Go and get straw yourselves, whenever you can find it; but your work will not be lessened in the least."

What struck me about this was the impossibility of the task before them and the constant pressure from the "taskmasters and the supervisors."  I thought about people who say they are "hard on themselves." - which is many people I know - including myself.  It is as if we have a "taskmaster and a supervisor" speaking words of criticism and judgment within us as we live our lives.  Many of us live with an inner critic that is always demanding more of us  - we should be better parents, spouses, employees, citizens.  We should eat better, exercise more, volunteer, take care of ourselves better, be more responsible.  Always not quite good enough. It is a form of bondage.

The next reading was Psalm 91   
"You who live in the shelter of the most high, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress' my God in whom I trust..
...for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone."

And the third reading was Acts 7:30-34 where Stephen recounts the events of the Exodus.  When God came to Moses in the burning bush he began to tremble.  God said
"I have surely seen the mistratement of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning and have come down to rescue them.  Come now, I will send you to Egypt.

I know this is simplistic but after reading all of these I thought we ultimately are called to rescue others from bondage - it could be literal bondage - like slavery, it could be addiction, it could be the bondage to the taskmasters and the supervisors who inhabit our minds and keep us from living the abundant life of grace.

All I know is that I live in a house filled with angels who remind me of God's protection over me.  God wants to bring me out of bondage - even the bondage of grief - as he prepares a new way for me.

Here is a blessing by Maxine Shonk

May the God of FREEDOM be with you,
liberating you from that which prevents true growth.
May your freedom bring sponteneity, creativity, and hope into a wounded world and may it open others to the possibility and promise of new life and resurrection.  
May the God of FREEDOM  be with you.
Amen

Ash Wednesday

A quick post before a busy day - spiritual direction giving, lunch with Marsha, spiritual direction receiving, picking Reagan up at track and then Ash Wednesday service.

As Ash Wednesday begins I start with a new journal for this season.  And I start with ideas about what i want to do as a discipline - as undisciplined as I can be - for this time.

I went to the library yesterday and picked up The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr.  As I read a little bit this morning I wrote this down in the new journal:

The essential function of religion is to radically connect us with everything

Einstein - One 2 ways to live - as though nothing were a miracle and as though everything is

Christ is everywhere.  In him every kind of life has a meaning and a solid connection

Lingering - this is what Lectio Divina Is

Contemplation - waiting patiently for the gaps to be filled in and it does not insist on quick or easy answers

It never rushes to judgment

I write these words and vow to be more contemplative during this season through three practices

1. lectio divina

2. rummaging through the day

3. suspending judgment

Of course, right now - in this moment I don't have time to do these - perhaps after lunch today before I see Loretta.  I see the difference between me and many people - in that i know myself to be more contemplative - and less compulsive - than I used to be.  And I want MORE of that peace.

So, my prayer as I begin this day and this season is that I make time and take time to be still and silent and waiting.  Engaging the contemplative life.

A prayer by Maxine Shonk

May the God of CONTEMPLATION bless you,
calling you into the still point of Divine Presence.
Out of the silent center of your being may you bring serenity and peace to every circumstance and to each person.
May your contemplation bear fruit in the words that you speak and the work that you do.
May the God of CONTEMPLATION bless you.

Soul work

And play!

This has been a good weekend for both soul work and play.

First the play - I went to "Artigras" on Saturday which is a day of a pilgrimage through soul art.
The day started with a talk by Kevin Anderson about writing "nested meditations." They are poems that begin with a single statement and then through wordplay startle the reader into different understandings.  Here are two examples of them.  They are best read out loud with silence between each stanza.

Prayer is casting awareness into silence.

Prayer is casting awareness into silence,
fishing for the Big One, waiting for the tug.

Prayer is casting awareness into silence,
fishing for the Big One, waiting for the tug
of the sacred - setting the hook, reeling

Prayer is casting awareness into silence,
fishing for the Big One, waiting for the tug
of the sacred - setting the hook, reeling
 with laughter when the line snaps again

Here is another

I want to live on water,

I want to live on. Water
stirs that up in me.

I want to live on.  Water
stirs that up.  In me
pulsates an eternal longing.

I want to live on.  Water
stirs that up.  In me
pulsates an eternal longing
for what a breaking wave may know.

Kevin Anderson is a psychologist who writes poetry.  He spoke often about the circumstances that informed his poems.  Usually the first line would just come to him and then we would work out the rest.  He was so vulnerable and real and what a great beginning to the day.

We then did three activities - drumming, making prayer beads and boxes and writing. I really enjoyed the drumming.  It felt like a real time of just letting go and also being connected to a room full of people sharing a beat.  Loved it.

I am not exactly a craft person but I did enjoy doing these "nested boxes" and the prayer beads.  We could pick any color and I immediately picked yellow and lime green.  I am waiting for spring of my spirit and spring outside in nature.  So these colors spoke to me.  The inside nested box had a butterfly made of hearts which remind me of the life within me and the new life that is still available.  Here is a picture:

 In the writing part, we were encouraged to try to write our own nested meditations which turned out to be much harder than he made it look.  We also were give the option of trying an "acrostic."  We had 12 minutes to write and I felt like I was getting no where and suddenly came up with this acrostic about grief.

G - Giving myself mermission to acknowledge my deep sadness

R - Remembering times of fun, happiness and love

I - Imagining the future without him

E - Experiencing emptiness

F - Feeling alone and abandoned.

What was noteworthy for me, was the word "abandoned" that came up in my writing.  I DO feel abandoned by him.  Who is going to take care of me?  Who is going to take care of our home?  Somehow it was helpful and healing to identify this feeling.

Yesterday I preached at Gender Road Christian Church.  You can actually see the sermon on line if you are interested - they have a facebook page.  I ended up preaching on the transfiguration and the message was the invitation to go deep enough to go to the "mountain" and experience the mystery and awe of God.  And at the same time going deep enough down the valley of loving and serving others and experience the helplessness of that on our own without God.  It was essentially about "waking up."  I received some real positive affirmations and it was good to be there.  I preach again in two weeks.  Even though there is always stress to the process, I like it.  I like thinking about the text and the sermon and then finally delivering it.  And I like doing it occasionally.  It is soul work.

Yesterday  afternoon I went to a listening session led by Audrey for Disciples in Columbus.  She did a wonderful job and I was able to share some of what the region had meant to me and  about the essential loneliness of being a pastor. We need to be connected and the region has always provided that.  There are things you can say when you are retired that you can't say when you are still working. Once again it was good to be with colleagues in minstry.

I have been up since 5 AM.  I threw out about 2 dozen jars of pickles that Chuck had made years ago.  The clean up and clean out is both physical and emotional and slowly but surely I am doing what I must.  What is noteworthy today is that I look back on the last 4 days and realize that I have not cried.  Not the sobbing crying that continued daily since December 24th.  I am feeling more settled and centered.

My sense is the soul work and soul play brings healing and I need to continue to explore ways that will feed my soul.