Concurrent

This is a word that I think about all the time - concurrent.  The dictionary definition is:

"existing, happening, or done at the same time"

This morning as I watch the news I hear about a blizzard on the east coast and two feet of snow in some places.  And here in Ohio it is cold and there is snow on the ground but no snow coming today.  And no staying in and no shoveling.  I talked to Melanie in Tucson yesterday and a completely different weather pattern as she gets to sit outside and take walks end enjoy blue skies.  Concurrent.

My mentor in Bowling was Vonnie Schall who  endured the sorrow of losing a teenage son.  I remember that she shared  about driving to the funeral and passing the golf course and seeing people enjoying the game.  And her thought was - how could that be when her whole world was destroyed?  Concurrent

I think this is one of the challenges of life - that we go through the ups and downs in different ways and different times.  Being aware of the sadness of others can affect our times of joy and celebration.  And our times of happiness and comfort can sometimes limit our awareness of  the pain of others.  

Yesterday I had a beautiful day of working at home and then playing pickleball with my daughter and other friends.  I feel so grateful to be able to continue to move my body as I live into these seventies. I had contact with all my daughters and just felt a  general sense of appreciation.

At the same time, I learn about the sudden death of a twenty year old and prepare to officiate a funeral for an eighty year old.  To watch the news is to be aware of not only omicron deaths and blizzards but also potential war in Ukraine.  It is all concurrent.  

Somehow this morning I think of the poem by Rumi called The Guesthouse.  It starts like this: This being human is a guest house.  Every morning a new arrival."  I think some of these arrivals come because we are affected by each other as good things and bad things are happening  to ourselves and others concurrently.

​

The Guest House

​

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

​

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

​

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

​

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

​

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

 

 I know that it is easy to concentrate only on the positive emotions and experiences - but our relationship - our kinship - with others means that no matter how good things may be for us in this moment we need to see and pray for and serve those who are suffering. .

This being human is a guest house - and a struggle at times - and an adventure always

.  I live in wonder and gratitude.

We do not know how

I listened to "Pray as you Go" this morning and it featured one of my favorite texts - about the sower who sows the seeds

"The kingdom of  God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how."

It just makes me realize how often I want to know HOW and WHEN! My life - and I think our lives - is spent sowing seeds in so many ways.  We are starting projects, building relationships, creating communities, and growing families.  It is all a form of sowing seeds of something that is in process.

I think about the Bible studies I do at church.  I have been leading two groups for a year and a half and essentially sowing seeds of love and learning.  And with both groups I can see that there is growth in our Biblical knowledge but also in our growing intimacy and comfort with the vulnerability that makes these kinds of groups special.  

This morning I am working on both a sermon for Sunday and a funeral message for tomorrow.  I sit here and "sow seeds" - putting thoughts and words together and hoping that they are going to be helpful and comforting (funeral) and compelling (sermon).  I will walk away soon and go play pickleball and trust that in the meantime, God is doing something with me and with this work so that the seed will "sprout and grow" or the project will come to a sense of completion.  I live my life trusting that when I do my part - that God will - with God's unseen presence - guide me.  

I wrote this in my journal today: 

 We do what we can and wait and see - Trust and see

These are the limitation of the sower - we do not know how the seed sprouts and grows - but we trust that it will  

I think this is called faith.

May the God of FAITH be with you,

sending you miracles and teaching you to expect them.

May God show you things that can be seen only in the darkness.

May your faith see you through the unknowns in your life,

calling you to trust the unseed presence of God in them.

May your faith serve as a beacon to light the way for other  pilgrims on the way.

May the blessing of FAITH be upon you.\

From BLESSING UPON BLESSING

 

Preparing for Church

In your light I learn how to love

in your beauty, how to make poems

 

You dance inside my chest

where no one sees you.

 

But sometimes I do,

and that sight becomes this art.. 

 

I leave soon to go to church.  And I share this poem by the Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi.  

I am drawn to the line "You dance inside my chest where no one sees you."  As I prepare myself for worship I sit in wonder and hope that  God is "dancing" inside me and guiding me this morning.  

I am the associate minister of engagement which says everything.  I am not the one who is in charge and my task is help all of us to engage the divine as well as the community.  This  morning I will pray in the services and welcome   those who come to worship.  

It is so easy for church to become routine and almost too familiar.  But my prayer for today is that we all might respond to the one who dances within us and engage in the art of loving each other.

That's all.

God' s Voice

Today in "Pray as you Go" is the Saturday examen - a chance to look back prayerfully at activities and prayer and discern where you have experienced God.

It has been a week of transition as I have moved from isolation in covid to re-entering the activites of my life that bring me joy.  And so I have experienced the blessing of Bible study, staff meetings, dinner out with a dear friend, and pickleball.  What a difference a week makes.

Yet, as I look at my journal and reflect back on the week I find myself always writing the same words - learning to trust, let go, surrender and live. 

There is no question that God speaks to me through the activities and people in my life.  I also continue to find meaning and wisdom through prayer, silence and reading. 

I have been slowly making my way through Rumi: The Book of Love translated by Coleman Barks.  His writings speak to my soul as I find myself embracing the gifts of this abundant and often enchanted life/

Here is one of his poems to reminds me of our limited vision of all that God is doing.

The Road Home
by Rumi º

An ant hurries along a threshing floor with its wheat grain,
moving between huge stacks

of wheat, not knowing the abundance all around. It thinks its
one grain is all there is to

love. So we choose a tiny seed to be devoted to. This body,
one path or one teacher. Look

wider and farther. The essence of every human being can see,
and what that essence-eye takes

in, the being becomes. Saturn. Solomon! The ocean pours
through a jar, and you might say it

swims inside the fish! The mystery gives peace to your
longing and makes the road home home.

 

ReOrientation

It was in reading Praying the Psalms by Walter Brueggeman that I first encountered the understanding of the seasons that we all go through in our lives.  He says that we will find ourselves in one of three places:

- the place of orientation where everything makes sense.  It is comfortable and predictable.

 - the place of disorientation - in which we feel we have sunk into a pit or found ourselves in unfamiliar and difficult terrain.  There is emotional pain and anxiety

- the place of reorientation as we are aware that God has lifted us out and we are in a new place of amazement and gratitude.

After almost two weeks of living in my home waiting for covid to go away I feel like I am back in that place of reorientation.  During that time I was definitely in disorientation - impatient, worried, concerned.

Yesterday I went back to work and it was as if the light was shining on me and I could see the many blessings of life at Gender Road Christian Church.  There is nothing like being away from your "normal life" to realize how special it is to be in relationship with others who are working together for God.

What I  know to be true is that all of us go through all of these phases throughout our lives.  As a church we continue to be in "disorientation" of a sort because of the pandemic.  We keep wondering about when to meet in person and when to zoom, about when to bring back the choir again, what to do about communion, etc etc.  I hear people talking about the "new normal" but we are not there yet - because we are still in disorientation. And have to wait in the discomfort of not knowing.

I am just happy to be through the covid journey of wondering how serious it is and when I am going to stop coughing and when I am no longer contagious.  To be back yesterday, working at the church put me in my happy place in a new way - grateful for the opportunity to use my gifts and to be with people I have grown to love.

One thing you know when you lived seven decades - that whatever place you are in will not last.  "This too shall pass" and I certainly want to savor the goodness and the blessing of reorientation for as long as I can.

Here is a prayer that reflects ME

May the RENEWING God be with you,recreating, enlivening, filling you with Gods worn life.

As you claim this life, cherish it and allow it to grow,

and celebrate it with "thank you" forever etched upon your heart.

With love may you call others to be renewed and refreshed.

May the blessing of the RENEWING God be upon you.

Re reading

One of the blessings of my life has been writing - writing this blog, writing prayers, sermons, and just memories and observations of life.  I have been in a couple of writing groups and I currently host a "Readers and "Writers Salon" which meets monthly.  Often I save what I write in a file marked "Writing." 

This morning I spent some time re reading what I have written over the years.  I found this piece of work that I wrote for some reason  in October of 2018.  That would be a month before Chuck had his surgery and two months before he passed away.  It speaks to me still about the gift of the  discipline of putting thoughts and feelings to word.

 

 

Wordtherapy

Thinking about the mystery of creativity

"Creativity is the antidote to despair" – what a concept and I believe it to be true

That is why I write a blog and am now doing morning pages

Creativity is the antidote to despair

So I sit here in my basement – blessed to hear this woman talk about things that I believe to be true

And know that too often I am blocking the flow, not living in the present, numbing and deadening the feelings.

Yesterday’s blog about living with sadness was really helpful for me because it put into words what was going on – and somehow dissipated – not really dissipated – but maybe disempowered the sadness that is

That just is

So it is all about putting it into words

Wordplay

        Wordwork

              Wordtherapy

                       Wordcreativity

It is all the same thing

Do not go gentle into that good night

And do not allow despair and depression to have the last word

Instead fight the darkness that can overwhelm

And speak and write and proclaim your feelings, your truth, your reality, your life

The hardest part is not allowing the demon of perfectionism,               the voice of inadequacy, 

           the fear of ridicule and              dismissal by the invisible audience

Instead being curious about what is happening here

Inside me – why am I feeling as I do? 

Let me get it out so that I can get on the balcony and look down and see the dance – 

 the construction –

 the destruction – 

 the missteps –

  the beauty of the dance

Of my singular life

 

++++++++++++++

The blessing  of writing is to be able to reflect and record in the moment some of what is happening and then YEARS LATER re read and sit in wonder at the gifts of my life.

Sidelined

I am still coughing and yesterday I woke with pain in my chest.  Covid is not done with me yet.

It was a day of watching TV, listening to podcasts, talking on the phone, reading and waiting. Still waiting.

I watched the beginning of two documentaries.  The first is the second season of "Cheer" on netflix.  We are continuing to follow the cheerleaders of Navarre Community college in the competitive world of cheerleading.  It is a team of 40 young people coached by Monica Aldama.  The last episode I watched had them preparing for a competition in  Daytona.  Only 20 of the 40 would be "on the mat" - that is performing.  Everyone else had to be cheering for them.  In the show, you saw the wrenching disappointment of those who were not selected and yet had to be part of the team by supporting those who were. 

Similarly I watched the first episode of "In the Arena" about Tom Brady.  I did not know the story of when he first came to the Patriots as the back up quarterback.  When Drew Bledsoe the acclaimed quarterback goes down with an injury, Tom goes in and performs well.  For several games.  Then he gets hurt and Drew is put back in and does well.  The big question then was the superbowl - who would be selected?  And Bill Bellichek picked Tom Brady who brought the team to victory with Drew Bledsoe in the unenviable role of being cheerleader and supporter when he himself desperately wanted to play.

This morning I found myself realizing that I am feeling sidelined.  I want to play, I want to work, I want to see people. My problem is that I keep thinking I am feeling better than I am and then start planning for getting back to my life.  Then the coughing continues and I know I have to live in reality. And the disappointment comes again.

So, I write this to acknowledge this  pain that is certainly part of the human journey for all of us. It is not only in sports where we have face limitations or in times of illness when we have to wait to heal.  That is the challenge of  of retirement for some - that we are no longer "in the arena" but in a supporting position for those who are.  It is not easy but it is inevitable.

So, my prayer is that -  having written this - I can live into this day and the next days with a greater sense of peace.  Yes - this too will pass. And trust and look for the gift in these empty days of waiting for covid to go away!

Here is a prayer that speaks to me today

May God bless you when you are plagued by DISAPPOINTMENT.

When what might have been fades into disillusion and previously held expectations seem foolish,

may god step into the breach with renewed vision and new hope.

May you look to this God to lead and guide you through the mire of disenchangment and into the fresh green meadows of God's vision and God's way for you.

May the God of NEWNESS bless you. 

Maxine Shonk