Silent Retreat

I am home now in the midst of the noise and activity of life with husband and family and friends.  It is good to be home.

The silent retreat was a gift beyond explaining, but still I want to say something.

First, there is a tremendous blessing to silence in community.  I know people who live alone and with silence as a regular feature of their life.  But a silent retreat is different than that.  It is an intentional silence in which we are waiting expectantly and listening.

For what?  I cannot explain that either.  In some ways, we are listening for peace and for love.  One of the hallmarks of a silent retreat iis that it is a time  to savor the presence and the constant love of God.  Which is available always, but usually we are distracted, busy and essentially take it for granted.  It is a time of opening ourselves in a different way.  The first morning I sat in my room, took a breath and said out loud to God "I am here for you."  And I felt like God said - "I've been waiting for you."  And that was so important for the rest of the week.

I was a participant in the silence of the retreat and also a director who was supervised.  In the morning I would meet with Janice and as I approached the meditation room, I had the sense that she was waiting for me.  Similarly I arrived early for the "directees" and was there waiting for them. It is waiting to listen and hear about what God has been doing in the past twenty four hours.  And when I sit on a chair in my room or a bench outside with God who has been waiting, there is for me   to listen to the desires of my heart as well as show me something new.

The community aspect is similarly hard to explain but an important part.  We see each other walking on the grounds, we eat together silently in the dining room and we know that each of us is on our own exploration of the holy.  Separately and individually but together.

Finally, there is nature that is so necessary for a week like this.  Someone said that nature is God's first language.  There are times just walking in the woods or the garden or the grounds that just bring "consolation."  There can be  something transcendent  sitting on a bench in the woods, or watching a butterfly on a daisy, or sitting at a pool and gazing at a statue of St Francis.  It is "nonrational" but without a doubt brings a shift within my soul.

I wrote this on my last day as I sat beside a fountain and spent time with Francis of Assisi.

Come to the water

Let it Refresh your soul

As you linger here

Come to the water

Let Francis guide you

Into a simpler way

Come to the water

Sit in the silence

And know that you are loved

Come to the water

Drink in the beauty

Stay and receive new life

Be Here Now

I write this in the middle of a walk at st Francis Spirituality Center in Tiffin. I am one of the directors of a 6 day silent retreat. It has been a time of slowing down, letting go, and falling deeper into God's love and grace.


"Be here now"   God whispers 
And I try
On this green bench in the woods
The red umbrella at my side
A walking stick today
I rest here and breathe in the air
That is laden with the scent of green grass and bushes and ferns and moss
And the woody, leafy fragrance of the trees
I listen and hear locusts and random birds
And faintly faintly in the background the sound of traffic

I am here with you 
My creator of Eden
And the bees that buzz here
And the wind that moves the trees
And the birds that caw And whistle And trill 
And me

I sit here in the midst of sounds that ebb and flow and listen and wait
I listen and wait
I am here with you, my creator and surrounded by creation
Alone .....that is the only homo Sapian
But surrounded by life


I have walked to a highway and then back through the woods to land
Here 
With you my creator
And with my brothers and sisters of creation 
We are together
In our beauty
In our various stages of life

and my thoughts drift
I have been on this earth 69 years
longer than the grass beneath me  but not as long as some trees
are three quarters of my years gone?
How close  to  the end?
Are Days left? Decades?
How long for this plant? Or that shrub or this tree?
They surely do not ponder it
As I do
They are in this day
Receiving sun and rain and wind as I am

All of us are creatures of the creator
But this plant will not say " I've only got 3 months in earth. I'd better make the most of it'
They just exist... usually unnoticed ( as if the only noticing of value is by humans)
Receiving and blooming where they are planted

I wonder ,.......are these thoughts of mortality  the curse of being human or the gift
The Answer is  - of course -  both 

So I sit here  in the midst of the beauty of verdant, abundant life
blessed and cursed
But mostly blessed
It is a good way to spend time that we share
Here now at Peace with God

Last Night's Adventure

My husband is -I hope- sleeping. He has taken theee ibuprophens, 2 sleeping pills and a - as big as a horse - antibiotic

He has a splint on his right thumb, stitches on his lip, fractured cheek bones, three front teeth gone, scrapes on his knees and abrasions on his nose and chin.

He is 82 years old and was determined to go to the Knox county fair near mount Vernon to see the tractor pull. He doesn't remember exactly what happened. He was walking down a hill to the grandstands with his bag in one hand and a corn dog in the other hand and maybe blacked out. Or something. He fell hard. On his face and he looks awful.

I had known something like this was going to happen. I have known that he has problems with balance and memory and driving. I knew something bad was going to happen and tonight it did.

I got the phone call at about 6. I was waiting for my daughter to come home and we were talking about a movie. Instead a drive to my Vernon and 5 hours in the emergency room and then the drive back home at midnight.

And now he is sleeping. In the hospital we commiserated with him and  I prayed, we talked, he cried, we cried, we ate Wendy's hamburgers, we laughed, we waited and waited to hear about the results of the x rays. He was in pain and pretty uncomplaining. There was a lot of blood from his nose and mouth and we just kept giving him tissues and throwing them away

At one point I looked in the cloth bag he had packed for this outing. . It had a pillow he had made to sit on, an orange crush and about 30 sets of earplugs. He brought them to give to kids in the stands. This is what he likes...the thrill of the power of machines  and the wonder of little kids.

He jokes with the nurses and is sweet with the EMT kid who comes to check on him.

As I write this tonight I am grateful that the "something"that happened wasn't catastrophic. It is painful to be sure but it is a definitive experience which will probably put an end to his solo adventures.

He had wanted me to go with him but I just couldn't or maybe wouldn't. I told him that I will do county fairs and demolition derbies but I draw the line at tractor pulls. He has - over the years- conscripted lots of different people into going with him to races, fairs and tractor pulls. But this time there was no one interested. So I "let him" go alone with lots of admonitions about his driving. Although he wondered if this would have happened if I had been there and holding his hand, he admitted that he can be bull headed. And that is surely true.

I will soon join him in bed and hope to sleep. It has been a long night but I remain grateful for all of who he is- a creative, cantankerous, charming, bull headed, adventurous, garrulous force of nature. His sphere of activity is becoming smaller but I pray  he can find ways to " gallivant" and experience the rush of discovery and excitement without any more nights like this.

Here is my prayer for Chuck tonight:

May the God of HEALING be with you, binding and soothing your every wound, moving you gracefully in a dance of nurturing love and lulling you back to wholeness and health.

May you be gifted with a healing gentleness and compassion with which you might touch the lives of others.  

May the HEALING God bless you.

Amen

(From BLESSING UPON bLESSING by Maxine Shonk

Gratefulo Recipient

This phrase came to mind today as I was pondering the gifts of my life.  Sometimes  you hear the words "Grateful Recipient" applied to someone who received a transplant - heart, kidney, bone marrow etc.  Sometimes you know who the donor is and other times you don't but the receiver is definitely grateful.

I thought about it this morning as I was leaving a morning walk at Innis Woods Metro Park in Columbus.  I got there at 9 AM after dropping Addie off at Band Camp and almost had the whole park to myself.  It is beautiful beyond words - with walking in the forest, herb gardens, a children's garden, a rose garden, streams and fountains and pine trees and hostas and impatience and zinnias and on and on and on.

 I would walk awhile and sit on a bench and meditate or pray or just BE present to the beauty and the wonder of it all.  It is a Metro park so that our taxes help pay for it and I know there are a slew of volunteers that devote hours to weeding and planting.  And I get to be -  for an hour on an overcast Monday morning - a grateful recipient.










This was exactly how I felt this weekend at Camp Christian.  I was part of an intergenerational mission trip (with a daughter and a granddaughter) and we helped to create a new free store and to clean up the "Block House" for the interim regional minister to live there.  We worked some but also worshipped, ate, talked, played games and got to be at camp.  I posted this picture Saturday evening  with these words: "Serenity at Camp after a days labor.  This kind of beauty does not happen on its own.  Grateful for all the faithful servants who gave money and time to make this place the Holy Ground that it is."

I think that I spend much of my life receiving gifts from the work of others and often (usually) unaware and maybe just unconscious.  There is so much creativity, beauty, art and wonder in this world that others have given us and sometimes we see it.  And find ourselves saying over and over again - Wow! Thank you!  And I believe this practice of gratitude opens our hearts and lifts our spirits.  At least that is how I feel this morning.


Here is a Blessing by Maxine Shonk

May the God of THANKSGIVING be with you, 

bringing you to a place in your heart that bursts with profound appreciation. 

May you be moved to say "Thank You" to  your spirit, to your creation, to your streuggles, and to your history for the gifts with which they have blessed you.

May your grateful heart spill out into the world that waits for your word of affimration and hand of healing and love.

May the God of THANKSGIVING be with you.

Choosing Death

As I started to write this morning I was struck by the title of my last post - "savoring life" which is the opposite of what I have been thinking about this morning.  Suicide has been on my mind in the wake of two high profile suicides this week - Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade.

I found myself thinking about the death of a young woman I knew forty years ago.  She was - like me - the mother of a toddler and we attended the same church.  Occasionally we got together for play dates for her daughter Anna and my Kacey.  I knew that she was separated from her husband and living with her mother.  Her husband was in Oregon and we were in New Jersey.

I was startled one Sunday to go to worship and learn that she had died.  The next day I found out that  two nights before she had taken a shower, put on a clean night gown and then used the rope from her daughter's swing to hang herself.  I remember calling our minister as I tried to make sense of it.  I began to learn a little bit about depression.  For months she had been "frozen" and recently had thought about trying to reconcile with her husband againt her mother's wishes. Perhaps her hopelessness was feeling trapped in wanting to leave and not being able to. But really, for me, depression is as much of a mystery now as it was then forty years ago.

I remember wondering if maybe I had checked in with her that week - would that have made a difference? Maybe for a moment it might have.  Again, depression is the mystery and we are left to carry on.  My role in her life was very peripheral and yet I remember it all very well.

Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper wrote a book together The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss.  in which they  they shared their correspondence with each other.  She has been through not only the death of her husband but being present for the suicide of her son.  Here is a quote from the book:

“Does one ever know what another person is really like, even someone very close to us? Do we know what we are like ourselves? What we are today may not be what we are tomorrow."

This book captured so well the essential mystery of being human and in relationship with others who we love deeply who may or may not realize or receive it. I have learned that suicides sometimes happen because there is a moment of despair and the person quickly decides to "just do it." Jump off a building or shoot themselves.  The only funeral I ever did for a suicide was for a 13 year old who waited until his mother left to get a bagel and shot himself.  The first sentence in my memorial address was a quote from The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck:  “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.

I read an article this morning written by a journalist remembering her father's suicide which happened 20 years ago.  She describes literally cleaning up the kitchen after he shot himself.  While depressed people may think their life is of no worth, the truth is that they leave a hole and a great big mess behind for their family and friends.  I've always said that suicide is taking your pain and throwing it into the world - almost like buckshot - landing in places and with people that you cannot imagine.  So today the Psychiatrists are on TV as people around the country and around the world wrestling with these public suicides that stir our memories and bring up pain that has been buried.

I reflect this morning and wonder what difference it makes that I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  Surely I know that "Life is hard, but God is Good."   I also know that being human - with or without faith - is a struggle for all people.  How do we sort through our times of failure and foolishness and loss and grief. And then there is the great mystery of our different genes, personalities, addictions. wiring.  so that the whole idea of "choice" - choosing life or death - is easier to talk about than to do.  Our labels and slogans like - "just say no" to a drug addict or "push yourself away from the table" to me are inadequate.

And then there is the great mystery of mental illness which forces us to acknowledge our limitations of understanding and controlling those that we love.  It is a mystery to me, anyway.

So, what difference does it make to be a follower of Jesus.  I think it is three things.  First, the awareness that God IS Love and that God is with us.  And nothing can separate us from the love of God.
" ⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  

Nothing can separate us - not death or life - not even suicide.  Love wins no matter what.

Second,  the call that God puts on our heart to love each other.  And the awareness that what love looks like is often listening.  We are people who are hungry to be heard by another living human being and our listening can bring a connection that could save a life.  I believe that.

Finally it is about living consciously and  maing e a choose for life - which is to choose to do whatever we need to do to receive the love that God is offering.  For me, it is helpful to have a time of reflection, and to be part of communities that celebrate and express God's presence and to walk in nature and to do acts of service for others.  There   are lots of ways we choose life - just like there are lots of ways to choose death - like our numbing and destructive and negative paths.  We all have our own thing.

I am participating in a Retreat for Busy People for the next two weeks and here is a prayer that I received Wednesday written by Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho.  It is a wonderful expression of awareness of choosing life.

                                                        Don't Struggle and Strive so,.....

Don’t struggle and strive so, my child.
There is no race to complete, no point to prove, no obstacle course to conquer for
you to win my love.
I have already given it to you.
I loved you before creation drew its first breath.
I dreamed you as I molded Adam from the mud.
I saw you wet from the womb. I loved you then.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Stop racing ahead at your own pace; you will only be exhausted, flamed out and spent before the task is accomplished.
Pace yourself with me, walk alongside me.

Do you think I don’t know the demands of your life?
I see you striving for perfection, craving acceptance.
I see you bending yourself out of shape to conform to the image that you have of…
Do you imagine that I did not know who you were when I made you, when I knit you together in your mother’s womb?
Do you think I planted you as a fig tree and expected you to bloom roses?
No child, I sowed what I wanted to reap.

You are a child after my own heart.
Seek out your deepest joy and you will find me there.
Find that which makes you perfectly yourself and know that I am at the
heart of it.
Do what delights you and you will be working with me, walking with me,
finding your life in me.

My precious child, I will call you to account for nothing more than I have asked of you. Just be faithful to the task I have set before you.
Whether you succeed or not is no matter to me.
Live as you hear me speak in you.
Live in the truth you learn from me, then it won’t matter how the road may turn.
The goodness you live will set you free.

May you recognize in your life the presence,
power and light of your soul.

May you have respect for your individuality and difference.

May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
that you have a special destiny here.

May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words of false belonging.

May the frames of your belonging be generous enough for your dreams.

May the expectation in others eyes never decide how you are to be.

May you be blessed with good friends and learn to be a good friend yourself.

May you have friends who can see you.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

Respond to the call of your gift and have courage to follow its path.

May your outer dignity mirror the inner dignity of your soul.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May you have the courage to speak for the excluded ones.

May you learn to see yourself
with the same delight,
pride
and expectation
with which God sees you in every moment.

 

Savoring Life

My mornings on the back porch are a blessing in my life.  Today I sat and read about and experienced what it is to "Savor" my life.  I am reading through Wisdom of the Body by Christine Valters Paintner and she writes this:

The root of the word savor comes from the Latin word saporem which means  "to taste" and is also the root of sapient, which is the word for "wisdom."  Another definition I love is "to give oneself over to teh enjoyment of something."  When I give myself over to the experience of saviring, wisdom emerges.  Savoring calls for a kind of surrender.

I have been been busy with preparing for and leading Grandparents Camp and then having Chuck's daughter Lisa visit.  When I don't get enough time to reflect and savor the myriad activities of my days, I know I am missing something important.

Christine writes:  Savoring calls me to slowness: I can't savor quickly
                             Savoring calls me to spaciousness: I can't savor everything at once
                             Savoring calls me to mindfulness:  I can't savor without being fully present.

So I savor the enormous blessing of Grandparents Camp and watching the interaction of 35 children with their grandparents as Mary Jo, Marsha and I plan 23 busy hours of Bible stories, crafts, games and fun.  I was so tired afterward and it is only in reflecting that I can remember and recognize the beauty, joy, companionship and awe of this time together.

And I savor the gift of a visit from Lisa as I watch us continue to  become closer  as I age and my daughters and Chuck's daughter claim their connection in a deeper way.  We do what we do - play games, eat way too much and talk into the night.  We share a love of Chuck and each other and our history together which goes back decades now.  We are family.

And I savor the gift of my home and garden as I sit and look at my back yard.  Yesterday Audrey, Chuck and I did yard work together as we mowed grass, planted flowers, trimmed bushes.  Last night we sat around the firepit and enjoyed both conversation and the warmth of the fire  and each other's presence.  I savor it all.

And this really is just a few of the aspects of life that I savor.  There are times I just look at the pictures in my cell phone and savor the blessing of friends, vacations, children, grandchildren. Life has struggles and changes for sure but it is  also  full of goodness and enchantment. I confess that too often I don't take the time to savor the sweetness and wonder of it all.

My prayer for today is that I might savor - not only in reflection - but also in the moment. Often a brief moment.  Here is a reading from the book by Caroline Moore.

In this brief moment

I watch your hands
break the bread

and I am thankful

In this brief moment

I am one with the whole world

Plenty...or empty

In this brief moment
Mind and body savour
Life
in all its fullness

Memorial Day

As I get older, Memorial Day seems to weigh heavier on me.  It used to be a day off, a day for sales and picnics and parades.  But now I find myself reflecting on the meaning of the day and the underlying pain of remembering.

Yesterday as we approached First Community Church there was a display of flags which I told a companion looked beautiful on this sunny day. 

In the bulletin of the church was this description:
"It is a remembrance of those service members and veterans who perished due to invisible wounds related to their military service.  The phrase for these casualties is "22 a Day" which speaks to the number of military veterans who are taking their lives every day.  This display of 44 flags with the story of 44 lost warriors represents one weekend (2 days) of "The Silent Fallen" lives lost due to PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and other silent killers."

This was a sobering reminder of the reality that the sacrifice of serving in the military is more than just the "time served."  It may affect the rest of your life and, of course, those whom you love and live with.  The sacrifice is beyond words.

And so on this memorial day, I am in prayer pondering the challenge of living in a world in which war is continual and lives are always at risk and the wounding can go on forever.  We honor those men and women who have sacrificed in ways that many of us never will and pray that somehow we can try to seek peace, to negotiate, to reconcile, to build bridges. 

There was a quotation in the church bulletin yesterday by Henri Nouwen that I share today:

Did I offer peace today?  Did I bring a smile to someone's face?

Did I say words of healing?  Did I let go of my anger and resentment?

Did I forgive?  Did I love?

These are the real questions.

I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now

will bear many fruits, nere in this world and the life to come.