On to New Adventures...

Catherine and Pabla

It has been a day.  Catherine's cat Pabla has left us for new adventures.  Parting is difficult...even when my relationship with Pabla had some mixed reviews.  She could be sweet.  She could be quite catty, placing herself between "Joy", and Joy's water dish, or between Joy and the doorway, or between Joy and me.  It was the strangest thing.  When Joy first came to visit at Catherine's house, I was worried.  Joy's track record with cats...well, it is just that...she chases them every chance she gets.  The orange tabby back at the condo; "Winter", a calico cat who would stand at the patio door of my apartment, baiting Joy.  Joy would growl and run at the door.  Cats are one of the few things she will bark about.  She sounds positively vicious.  I didn't learn this fact about my dog, until I'd had her for a year.  It was as though she had been on good behavior, but then she decided I was going to keep her and so she began indulging in this cat hating behavior.  Tut, tut!

  But when we first visited Catherine's house, Pabla was the exception.  Joy was utterly terrified of that cat.  She would rarely dare to be in the same room with Ms. Pabla.  After a while there was an uncomfortable truce, but Joy never barked or chased or behaved badly around Pabla.  

    

 t

A wildly windy day

The day we came home from the coast last week, it was wildly windy.  It was hard to hold the camera still for this photo taken at Cape Blanco.  It's funny.  The thing I liked least about growing up on the prairies of Nebraska was the constantly blowing wind.  But ocean winds don't bother me a bit...unless it's sand in the eye.  I get quite excited about walking on the beach when it's windy and you don't know what the surf will bring in.  The ocean offers wonderful gifts on windy days.

My friend who was with me said that she loved to visit the ocean but wouldn't want to live on the coast as the sea is so restless.  I loved visiting there this time around, but it came clear to me that I probably don't want to live there.  Maybe it is for that reason.  The sea is ever changing.  She is different each day, and sometimes her face changes several times a day.  Sometimes she is all grey and silvery; misty, pea soup foggy; sometimes she is every color of blue imaginable and it makes you want to sing.  Sometimes she is wild and stormy and angry looking; her waves pounding the rocks.

Spirit is often like the sea, and her work changes from one day to the next.  Life seems chaotic and painful one day, and the next day, many loose ends come together and suddenly you see the pattern and the beauty of it all.  The stormy times often yield up some beautiful treasures for discovery.

If I had my druthers however, I think I would like a calmer existence these days where change comes more slowly, in snippets I can handle.  I like my pictures to be in focus.  I like the peacefulness of a mountain valley, where the view is expansive, yet the surrounding hills provide some protection for the valley dwellers.

Well, enough metaphors for one very early morning.

 

Gifts

Ending the War Within

This evening I began reading Oriah Mountain Dreamer's The Call, which I haven't read in several years, and the last time I did, I simply skimmed the content and the meditations.  This time my intent is to read and to do the book.  It has come at an appropriate time for me.  The past couple of weeks I have been aware that I am angry.  I haven't been sure about what to do with that anger.  It's been simmering in the pot on the back of the stove for a long time, but the heat has been recently turned up, so it's been boiling.

We are not comfortable with our own or with other peoples' anger.  Too often anger intensifies into rage and hatred.  It is the stuff from which wars begin.  It is how someone can build a bomb that kills innocent bystanders.  Anger, if not dealt with appropriately, can turn deadly.

So most of us, simply push our anger down; pretend it isn't there; and in the meantime it grows more formidable.

Despite all of that however, anger in and of itself is simply an emotion.  It is not a bad or a good thing.  It simply exists.  What we do with our anger is what matters.  And sometimes it is what we don't do with our anger which matters.  Ignoring it can allow it to grow.

In the meditation after Chapter One in The Call, the author asks us to consider the things which we work so hard at.  How would we like to stop "doing."  Thinking and struggling with is doing as well as working.

Ending the Wars Within

Authority, Agendas and Alienation

"Although I have spent a lot of my life in jobs that require me to speak for God, I am still reluctant to do it for all kinds of reasons.  In the first place, I have discovered that people who want to speak to me about God generally have an agenda.  However well intentioned they may be, their speech tends to serve as a means to their own ends.  They have a clear idea about how I should respond to what they are saying.  They have a clear destination in mind for me, and nine times out of ten it is not some place I want to go."  from An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor

This author is a good one.  If you haven't read her work, you might check out some of her titles.  One of my favorites is Leaving Church.  I heard her speak one fall in upstate New York, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. 

Have you ever had a wonderful friend who is very good at being present along the way, but then suddenly seems to acquire an agenda for you,  giving advice, rather than just "being with" you along the way?  I suppose friendships have to go through such times.  Sometimes those agendas have to do with that particular friend's fears or his/her own values, and sometimes it has to do with something s/he observes in you and wants to help you change because it will make you more acceptable to others. 

People who speak for God, are especially prone to advice giving.  It seems quite ironic to me, because if there is anything  that calls us to be fully present to our lives, to this moment, to the people we love, it is God.  Advice giving plugs up the natural flow of things.  Having the "answers" for someone else according to your own small view of the world, can prevent Spirit from working freely in that person's heart and life. 

One of the books that has always moved me is Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak.  In that book he speaks openly of his depression, and how so often, people with good intentions would say how beautiful the day was, encouraging him to open himself up to it.  It only served to make him feel more outside the norm, more isolated.  He could see it was a beautiful day.  But the depression kept him from drinking it in.  One of the things that helped him the most, was this friend who came to sit with him in his despair, and who just rubbed his feet.  He could still feel his feet, and the gift of that foot rub.  And it fills me with emotion just writing about that.  That friend didn't have an agenda, except to be with his friend, and if offering some service could help his friend reconnect with the world, then that was what he would do. 

Organized religion often alienates people when it tries to put them on a leash, leading them in a direction they don't want to go, and in fact, are often not meant to go.  Church "authority" is called into question a great deal these days.  People have left "the church" to find their own spirituality.  I think I've wandered back into the church to remember mine.  I appreciate some of the structures and traditions of the denomination in which I've decided to root myself.  Sometimes we need the structures in order to feel safe and to keep moving forward.  But there is always a limit and personal boundaries. 

Being a feminist has given me a different take on what church authority means.  And losing oneself to service...well, there is blessing in both giving and the ability to receive.  Being always in the role of "giver" keeps us from recognizing our own limitations as human beings and our need for others in our life.  It can actually be a very controlling thing to be always in the role of giver.  It can also wear you out completely and utterly, sucking all of your life energy, and then throwing you away when you're used up.  Living a life that is balanced is essential.  Knowing how to give and to have a servant's heart is essential.  But knowing how to stop and allow ourselves to receive from others is every bit as important a spiritual practice, which restores us to ourselves.  An imbalance...never giving or never receiving, leaves us stunted in some important ways as human beings.

Last week the doctor put me on a low dose of prednisone.  He told me that if the symptoms I was experiencing disappeared, then I have lupus.  I started on Saturday.  I forgot about it.  But I got up Sunday with a surge of energy and happiness.  I smiled and sang all day long.  I got projects done, started writing a novel and wrote three chapters and then at the end of the day realized I was utterly pain free.  This was something I had not experienced in many, many years.  Whoosh...the reality hit home.  This was Lupus in my body.  So I was finally given a diagnosis of what I've known I've had for many years.  As a result of the Lupus, I also have Fibromyalgia.  It has brought up many emotions for me after many years of knowing something was wrong, without having been given a name for this thing which was so deeply effecting my quality of life.  I am feeling down at the moment.  Not because of the disease so much, though that is a difficult reality.  It has to do with being dismissed...not being heard, not being truly seen for so many years in visiting the doctor's office.  The symptoms of lupus have been there since my 30s.  The last few months the disease has been flaring up, causing much fatigue and discomfort.  And much of the time I soldier on, with a fairly good sense of humor intact.  But pain has a way of exacting its toll, and I don't smile all the time.  I don't feel much like engaging in everyday kinds of conversation.  I feel cranky and frustrated to the nth degree at times.  And I wish that I could go back to feeling the way I used to feel...the way I felt earlier in the week.  Energetic and happy and filled with clearness of thought.

Okay, so my suffering is a drop in the ocean of human suffering.  And I will search out ways that I can still serve others, even with my limitations.  There are always ways we can bring joy to someone else, or some comfort, or some peace.  But this is not an easy disease.  Pacing oneself is the only way to continue on the journey, and journey it is. 

Maybe I'm sharing all this because I want to encourage you, whoever you are, that we all have limitations.  Some of us more than others.  Let yourself receive the love you need in the ways you need it.  And if you are able to be present to someone else's pain, consider it a privilege.  We don't realize the great privilege it is to serve others, until that privilege is taken from us. 

Let's set aside our agendas for others.  We don't know what it is to live in their bodies or in their lives.  But when we are present for each other, it can be the most extravagant gift ever given.  Anyone for a foot rub?

 

Criatura

Connie Schroeder

“Having a lover/friend who regards you as a living growing criatura, being, just as much as the tree from the ground, or a ficus in the house, or a rose garden out in the side yard... having a lover and friends who look at you as a true living breathing entity, one that is human but made of very fine and moist and magical things as well... a lover and friends who support the ciatura in you... these are the people you are looking for. They will be the friends of your soul for life. Mindful choosing of friends and lovers, not to mention teachers, is critical to remaining conscious, remaining intuitive, remaining in charge of the fiery light that sees and knows.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

 

Ms. Estes seems to be speaking to me a great deal of the time lately.  I'm always picking up one of her books and finding some piece of wisdom which I cherish, and which helps me to find my way.  Blessed be!  She has written such a great number of books and stories, and has gifted us with such wisdom.

 

We are not the same people we were yesterday.  A new branch grows here, a new experience expands our view and perspective, a new storm leaves a scar on us, new shoots and growing things are budding and some days we are abloom with color and beauty and life.  Some days we pull back into ourselves, asleep for the season.  But then spring arrives, and sap begins to flow, and creativity begins to appear in new ways, opening us up to new ways of life. 

 

We are incredibly fortunate, when we land in the company of those who know that we are growing and becoming.  Our lives are rich when our lover and friends see who we are, and still recognize us, when the next week or month or year, we have grown and expanded and become more of who we truly are.

We are so very wealthy when lover and friends encourage our growth, shine their light on our light hungry leaves; carefully water our deeply growing roots; toss in some fertilizer for good measure and allow us to do the same for them.  

 

These are more than lover and friend.  These people are the ones whom we call our true family.  Leaning into their care and their love and offering ours with tenderness, changes the world! 

 

Believe it!

 

Trust it!

 

Revel in it!

 

Celebrate it! 

 

Embrace it!

 

 

 

 

Do Overs?

 

Last week's theater, Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire is still in my head today.  I was thinking back of a time when I lived in a small town in upstate New York, where anyone who wasn't born there, was considered an outsider.

While living in that town I met a woman in her 40s who had been a teacher.  We got together once in a while for a meal or to watch a movie.  I remember one day as we sat munching popcorn in my living room, she told me that she had been sent to prison for a while, and it was hard being back.  Every time she left the house, she heard people whispering about her.  I thought at the time, it sounded a bit paranoid.  But then I learned that she had been with an underage young man.  He had been 17 at the time.  When they were caught by his mother, he was just a few days from his birthday.  She was very angry about getting caught.

I was horrified.  I was quite judgmental.  And when my judgment came out of my mouth, she left, and I never saw her again.  At the time, I was glad.  And I felt quite justified in my attitudes.

Even now, it makes my skin crawl.  Abusing one's power is a creepy thing.  And the woman in A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois, is both a pitiable character and in some ways makes one's skin crawl.  We tend to want to make people like Blanche into monsters who are more than human.  But she is just a human being, who went beyond a couple of bad choices.  But her choices created a deep wedge between herself and what was acceptable. 

How long should someone pay for those choices?  And do those kinds of choices, give others the right to abuse? 

Another time, when I was looking at joining a church in a large city, the pastor talked about a man who attended, who was a pedophile.  He asked me how I thought the church could make room for such a one?  I didn't know.  I still don't know. 

This particular issue tends to make me more judgmental than any other.  I made a promise when I became a young adult that I would never abuse someone young and innocent.  I've kept that promise.    When someone else steps over a boundary...even by a few days, I don't have any tolerance in me.

God can forgive anything at all!  I believe that.  And I have forgiven those who have abused their power over me when I was younger.  But I won't invite them back into my life. 

And maybe that is a question which is not even fair to pose to myself.

We are all human, and we have all made poor choices in our lives...sometimes really stupid ones...sometimes even evil ones, which leave a stain that doesn't wash away very easily.  Sometimes it is difficult to find the answers, or the ability to forgive...others, or ourselves.  And yet it is all part of the work we are called to do as human beings.  If we refuse, our lives get really messed up. 

Maybe the key, and I think Spirit has been challenging me on this one this past week...has to do with repentance.  Blanche wanted to start over.  Did she deserve a second chance?  We all want a second chance...but that is absolutely impossible, unless we turn away from the mistake, sin, or evil that has been done.  And those of us who have been wronged, must hold the wrongdoer accountable.  Forgiveness without the work of repentance is cheap and meaningless...and can actually do more damage to both the wrongdoer and the wronged, if the hard work is not addressed.

Do overs?  Yes.  I believe in them.  When there is a willingness to do the work of repentance and forgiveness; when we are willing to open our lives to the work of God's Love. 

  

Reflections

Gazing at the reflection of my life,
there before me,
I wonder
why the picture
has so much remained the same.
Trying so many different ways...
attachment,
detachment,
loving,
anger,
meditation,
action,
art,
work
friendship
oh...the pain of that
so often betrayal by the one
most trusted.

Still, the reflection
remains,
full of color,
and beauty,
through time and space
and living years.
I give myself to
completion,
to this moment,
this hour,
this day,
until the image fades away.

What else is there to do
but to paint on this canvas of pain
marred by my own mistakes
my own missteps of trust
and even honesty?
--------------------------

Good theater is a powerful means of reflecting to society its absurdities, cruelties, injustices, as well as the things which human beings do right, which is love and humor, forgiveness and pulling together in crisis.

This past weekend I had the good fortune of seeing a Tennessee Williams play I have seen before.  Its message seems timeless, as so many things have not changed in the 66 years since the play was first done.  It was well received.  People seemed to embrace its message.  And perhaps to be fair, some things have changed a bit.  But young men who are gay, are still often shamed and bullied and some end up killing themselves.  And those who make terrible mistakes, especially women, are condemned and labeled and excluded from the society of the "righteous", whose own crimes are often much worse than the one whose life is put on trial by friends and family and community.  Funny, how the "righteous" are simply the ones with the power to exclude and condemn.  And the ones with the power, are the ones whose voice seems to be the voice that counts....even when that voice is rooted in lies or vengeance or brutality.

Mr. Williams was a brave sort.  His work still speaks.  And his own life was fraught with difficulties...but then, that is how one becomes a good artist of any sort.

Here among the Stones

"Here Among the Stones", photo by Constance Schroeder, copyright 2013

 

Here among the stones
she grows
their silent song
pull her roots within
their cold, rough surfaces
strange comfort
to the leaves which drink sun and rain
and at the end of day
lay back against these ancient pieces
of the earth.

And in the darkness of the night,
the stones sing out a song,
communing with the stars
and she delights in its deep hum
of harmony all around her.
She grows
her prayer
her small flowers
join the blessed harmony
all about, beneath, beside, above, within...

The song go on,
here among the stones.

-------------------------

Choosing to live in harmony with the world around us, with the communities of which we are part, with family and friends is often a silent and even difficult choice.  Choosing to remain silent when disagreements rise up.  Choosing to be supportive of one who has hurt us.  Choosing to love even when we've been thrown off kilter are powerful, life affirming choices, and yet so difficult.  Choosing laughter and warmth seems like a no brainer, and yet many of us refuse the joy which is right before us.  Instead, we delve deeply into the darkness, the grief, the violence of the world.  We watch television shows which promote violence on so many levels.  We read books which celebrate violence, we play video games which draw us further into worlds of fear and rage.  We think ourselves somehow exempt from the effects.  But we are not. 

We are glad when one who has killed is himself killed.  And we do not see our own responsibility in the violence.  We have become such individualists, that we do not know how to live with each other in community and in peace.  Our pain, our anger, our bitterness has created such walls of division that we refuse to build bridges of healing.  It is because we ourselves are desperately in need of healing. 

There is One who calls us to stillness.  We can only hear the song of the stars when we find the stillpoint, the center of ourselves, which roots itself in the ancient and the eternal.

May we live in harmony with goodness and peace this day. May we choose love and life and wholeness.

Shalom.

Spring

Taken April 9 in Ashland, Oregon.  Copyright 2013, Constance Schroeder

It is a sad day...multiple bombings at the Boston Marathon, three people dead and many injured.  What is the reason for the violence?  What illness takes hold within a human mind that desires to hurt and to harm and to kill?   What deep pain turns into a bitterness capable of such rage and harm?  What a terrible waste of life and potential and possibility it is when someone allows their pain to poison and destroy. 

In the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, there is a verse which says: "Let no root of bitterness spring up, and by it many be defiled."  I think this is the very thing that verse is speaking about.  When we allow old injuries to take root, when we refuse to work hard on issues of forgiveness, our bitterness and anger begins to effect how we see things.  And our anger comes out in ways which are destructive...like today's marathon.  We think of ourselves:  "I would never do such a thing."  And yet, our bitterness Xes people out, pushing them away from us, and creating more pain and anger beneath the surface.  Unkindness, gossip, labels, excluding others can be the beginning of deeper violence. 

Someone said that one comes to appreciate spring more as one ages.  I think it must be true.  Autumn used to be my favorite season.  But now, each spring, watching for new life in its many forms, begin to peek out, spring up, blossom, bloom and dazzle us mortals is a great sport!  The past few days I've been noticing that the lilacs are budding, and today, I noticed some blossoms, and that intoxicating perfume, which is one of my favorites of the season.

This tree is part of an orchard.  It is obviously an older tree.  The age of it is showing.  And still it is full of blossoms that promise a wonderful harvest in the fall. 

May the things which take root in our lives, be filled with possibility and beauty, with goodness and the promise of a rich harvest.  Let's weed out the bitterness.  Let's keep our lives free from insidious, and fill it with goodness.
 

A Street Called "Straight..."

Taken in Ashland, Oregon.  copyright 2013, Constance Schroeder

Yesterday's epistle reading was the one where Paul has a vision and is asked why he is persecuting Jesus.  The upshot of the deal, is that Paul is blinded and led away to a street called straight.  According to Tony Hutchinson's (our rector at Trinity, where I attend), "straight" in the Greek means "upright." (It doesn't have a thing to do with being a slur against LGBTQ people!) And Paul waits for some man named Ananais to come and lay hands on him so he can regain his health.

Tony's sermon yesterday left me with many feelings, and in fact I spent part of the afternoon doing a bit of weeping, trying to understand exactly what was going on in me around it all.  I'm still not sure I quite understand what the Spirit is stirring in me, but I am leaving the work in God's hands, and just trying to stay out of the way.    

I do know that since moving here to Oregon, I have been doing my best to do things differently.  I don't want to go back to the things that left me more broken, more confused, more covered in mud and pain.  Arriving at Trinity has been a bit like arriving at a "street called straight," a place where I have found people who live lives rooted in hope; people who treat others, even the stranger, with respect and with kindness.  And my life has become the better for it.  Little by little, as my health allows for it, I am choosing to serve in the ways I am able to serve.  Little by little, I look for ways to use my creative mind in ways that might be helpful to others. 

Funny, how one's early years can demolish so much potential in a life.  It can take a very long time to heal enough that others do not continue to humiliate and destroy the possibility in a life.  It can take a very long time to learn enough not to do it to oneself.  Forgiveness, praying for one's enemies, and finding sisters and brothers who live on a street called straight is the way for one rooted in Christian tradition to heal and lead a life that God can use.

Someone once said what a "waste" childhood sexual abuse is in this world.  And it is true.  Years when one should have the energy and exuberance of youth, get stolen away.  Relationships are marred.  Bad choices get repeatedly made.  The pain, the destruction continue, even when actual abuse has long ago ended.

Forgiveness

Sunrise in Ashland, Oregon, April 9th.  photo by C. Schroeder, copyright 2013

Every new day offers us forgiveness.  We begin again.  We eat, we sleep, we work, we dream, we relate, we love, we do all sorts of things each day, and often things of which  we are ashamed.  It's an odd thing the human heart.  When we treat someone badly, we seem to try and justify it somehow, and the bad treatment goes on and gets worse.  All because we cannot say "I'm sorry." or "Please forgive me." 

I'm not sure what makes asking forgiveness, or forgiving such a difficult thing, but if there is any one thing that messes up the planet, it is our inability to release our resentments and to move forward. 

We are beloved.  It is often our uncertainty about that particular status that makes for difficulties with others.  I've been reading Henri Nouwen's book:  Life of the Beloved.  He talks about how our insecurities make things a competition.  Could we just see that we are beloved, and there is no competition when we are held within the love of God.  We are each beloved. When we can see each other in that context, we can relax.  Competitions and disagreements can ease. 

"Joy" my dog...taken in February, 2013.  Yes, that is my shoe at the bottom of the photo :-)

“If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”
― Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary

 

\A lifetime of knowing one's neighbor sometimes is not enough to honestly be able to love them fully, as they deserve to be loved.  After a year and half of life with "Joy" who offers ever new perspectives on life, and who often loves me so well,  I am still learning how I can best love her.  Trying to use my imagination; trying to understand how I can best help her; trying to figure out what makes her react so dramatically at times, we live together in an easy peace, most of the time.  It's the times when I come home to a chewed up jacket that leave me puzzling over her behavior. 

 

Sometimes it is easier to be compassionate toward a canine friend who is frightened and panicky than it is to be compassionate toward the person next door who refuses to smile or engage in conversation.  It's easier to judge...to be angry...to put them in their place, or simply avoid them all together.  Some neighbors don't seem to want our love in any way shape or form.  Maybe the best way to love them, is simply to give them their space. 

 

You know what I've found in loved ones of the human variety, is that asking them how I can best love them is a most welcome question.  It often brings tears.  It often melts away defenses and offers a way through the misunderstandings and the anger.

 

The other day, after being out and about, I came in the house and started to cry.  I didn't know why for a few minutes.  But after a while I figured it out.  My feelings had been hurt, and I felt as though the person I had been with hadn't really seen me or my situation.  We all want to be understood.  My feelings have gotten hurt a couple of times lately, and part of me wants to rush in and confront the person who did the deed.  But then that wouldn't be trying to understand them, to accept them.  If the offense was a larger issue about justice, I would probably speak up.  But since it's my feelings and my struggle, I will try to find a way around it, releasing the resentment and opening to compassion.  And that compassion is both for myself as well as the other.

 

Seeing our neighbors means also seeing ourselves.  We must understand our motivations, the trauma and the old "stuff" that often cause us to react rather than respond.  When we can have compassion toward ourselves and understand ourselves clearly, it is much easier to make the choice to open our hearts to our neighbor, or spouse, or children, or friends. 

 

 

Perfection

flowers from the choir brunch

Perfection...two days after the choir and clergy brunch which I organized, I am still trying to recover!  But these flowers are just perfect.  I fell in love with them, so I brought them home.  Simple and elegant, each time I pass by them I find myself catching my breath in wonder. 

Oh to be such perfection!  Oh well...humans that are perfectly beautiful on the outside, sometimes lack that beauty in other ways.  Still, one can wish, one can dream! 

There is a part of us that is so perfect.  Remembering that can be challenging, but it's there, made in the image of God, and when we can get our egos out of the way, it shines.

Good Friday

Not everything is blooming.  There is much that still waits for new life to begin. 

Today is Good Friday.  This morning, getting up at 6:00 am in order to go to Morning Prayer, was very difficult.  This body was weary and aching and not willing to cooperate.  I certainly was not standing in judgment of the disciples who couldn't stay away to pray with Jesus, the night he was betrayed. 

Grief weighed heavily on them, along with great fear.  They knew what was coming.  Jesus had talked about it.  They didn't want to know, stayed in denial, slept through Jesus' anguished prayers, ran away or denied him when the moment came of his betrayal and being taken away to be crucified.  We heard the passion story read last Sunday, and this week, those of us immersed in the life of the church, are walking through it in detail. 

Last night people stayed and kept vigil through the early morning hours at the church.  One friend was there by 3:00 am and was still there for Morning Prayer.  

This morning, when we arrived at the church and I walked to my preferred spot to sit, I knelt for a moment of silent prayer as I sometimes do, and then sat back in the pew, looking at the alter.  Woosh...There it was, the altar, stripped and bare, no altar candles, the eternal flame which always (almost) burns in its red glass was extinguished, and the little door on the place where the elements are kept (I know there's a name for this, but I'm still a new Episcopalian, so you'll have to allow me some slack),  was open and the elements gone.  All of it was a poignant reminder of the stark absence of hope those early disciples and the whole world felt that First Good Friday, and that can appear in our lives at any moment.  Tears came, and my heart felt both full of a kind of wonder as well as bereft of the symbols and signs which have come to mean so much to my faith these past months.

It is only temporary.  But as Barbara Crafton talked about in her beautiful essay today: don't try to tell that to someone who has just lost their beloved to death.  The reality, the emptiness, the terrible separation that  feels so permanent, comes with a grief that feels inconsolable.

Many years ago, on a Good Friday (forgive me, if I've told this story a dozen times before), I traveled by subway from Brooklyn to attend a day long service at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  I arrived early, and went exploring and discovered the chapel in the front of the main part of the Cathedral.  As I turned the corner and walked into that space, my senses were suddenly filled with a great perfume, like the scent of the oil that must have filled the room when the woman who anointed Jesus' feet broke open the alabaster jar.  Everywhere you turned, flowers filled the room.  They were for the main part of the Cathedral for Easter, but here in the smaller space, those flowers were an astonishing and glorious gift.  That year had been full of such sadness, as I was teaching in an inner city school, and the stories of the people and the children, hurt my heart. 

Yes, the poor will always be with us, but the extravagance of God's love, poured out, is a precious and lovely anointing on our broken world. 

The Lighter Side

Last night my best friend and I were talking together.  It was a very serious conversation about health and making ends meet and how hard life can be at times.  We did compline together, a practice which both of us appreciate.  My favorite prayer time of the day.  We always remember a few people in our prayers, and I always include the names of those who would probably consider themselves my enemies.  Praying for one's enemies is not an easy action.  Being deliberate about it is the only way it will happen.  For most of us, rehearsing old wrongs is about the only way such names get mentioned at all, which creates more space for more misunderstandings, and for bitterness and anger to grow. 

Finally at the very end, when we normally say amen, I sang it, in silliness, going on and on, until we were both hooting with laughter. 

Staying too long in the pain wears us out.  We all need a break from it.  No matter how messed up life gets, or how hard, laughter is one of the best ways to release the stress, break the tension and store the heaviness away for a while. 

Hope your day has lots of it.  Laughter I mean...

Emptiness

Sometimes we live with a deep loneliness in a certain way, and when someone comes along who understands that place and we don't feel so alone anymore, some of us get clingy.  Okay, plain and simple...this is me.  There are places in me that not many people understand.  We all have those places.  The really spiritually mature folks know about those lonely spots in themselves and are able to stay with the emptiness, so they can be more present to others.  It's a kind of hospitality.  That emptiness makes room for the stranger. 

There are some places, deep within the unconscious of the human heart, where the wind never ceases to howl, and the darkness presses in so closely it feels like a heavy and stifling blanket thrown over us.  Fear lives there.  And the only one who can speak peace to the terror, is the One who calms the chaos and can cast out a whole legion of demons. 

Recently, when I was doing an exercise in which I invited Jesus to work in my subconscious, I opened the door and in my mind's eye, there was a wall of the Grand Canyon.  He was going to have to join one of those caravans that travel to the bottom of the canyon on donkeys to get anything done in there.  It's deep and wide, to say the least.  A dangerous trip for the hardiest.  And at the bottom of the canyon is a raging river that has carved out that canyon over millennia.

When my family visited the Grand Canyon, I was about 12, I wouldn't get out of the car.  I was afraid of heights.  I guess in some ways, not much has changed.  I still don't want to look at the scary stuff.  It's easier to turn away, but it stays with us, even when we run the opposite direction.  Doesn't stop me from running however.

I wrote the poem below this afternoon and felt it would be a good add on.  There are so many layers of things to dig through, and I work so hard to figure it out, and I put up so many defenses, trying to protect myself and all of it wears me out...when I'm not running that is. 

One of my instructors told us that when she got completely befuddled, she would lie down on the earth for at least an hour, and when she got up again, things would be clearer.  Just being out in nature helps me to a degree.

armed with a spoon
determined to dig
through all the layers of earth
of stone
of rubble
of fossils
to end up at the underside
of the earth,
the work
wears us out.

Hacking away at stone
doesn't allow for tenderness
we think
and try to be as hard as iron,
unyielding,
though clearly the spoon is bent.

Lie down you children of earth
against your mother's heart
take in her sweet aroma,
and listen to her song.

Go gently
walk gently
speak gently

wait in the silence,
leave your little spoon
for appropriate things

and the stone will melt away
like wax in summer's heat,

The children
will learn to trust again,
come out to play,
their laughter dancing
in the moonlight. 


  

Opening

Last week was a dickens of a week.  Three major things went wrong, and I went reeling from the blows, one following another.  But despite the catstrophes, and a couple of days in which I sank about as low as I go, feeling like some droopy flowers noticed the other day after a particularly cold night, I find myself opening to the sun again. 

The re-emergence began yesterday morning after my meditation, and then a visit from a friend.  We had lunch at one of my favorite spots and talked about everything EXCEPT the problems.  Well, that may be an exaggeration, but I found myself recovering from that dive into the depths.  My friend brought a bit of sunshine along with her, and offered me a helping hand. 

The temptation after bad news, for many of us, is to isolate when feeling so badly; to shut out the sun, quite literally.  Some of us barricade ourselves in the house, watching melancholy movies, eating badly, feeling terrible!   Some folks turn to drinking or taking drugs.  Some go temporarily insane.  And many want to blame others for the pain.

The good news is that it doesn't have to stay that way, even if it's the way one has always coped.  When hard things happen if we reach out for the help we need; trying to find the thing that is going to lift us up, rather than get tangled up in the self hate, in which some of us have spent so much energy and time, love begins to trickle back into our lives.  Taking responsibility for our own lives is part of the answer.  The other reality, is that as we immersed our lives in community (and for me this is definitely the liturgical life of the church), help comes.  As we open up our hearts, it is amazing the gifts which appear in the form of friends:  both old and new; practical help; happiness about the things which really matter; solutions to catastrophes that don't need to be the end of life as we know it...and are certainly not the measure of one's worth as a person.

Well, it is amazing how "busy-ness" comes to a quick halt without easy transportation.  So I'm diving into creativity to fill the time.  And since I'm trying to organize an Easter brunch, I'm thinking that I will make some cinnamon rolls to freeze...or muffins...or scones?  Oh dear, did I remember to buy butter?  I did.  So I'm set.  And I'm set up to make some cards.  And I'm preparing for a house concert in April.  And I'm working on some new poems.  And a friend and I have been talking about writing a musical together...and that's sitting on the back burner, awaiting attention.  Not to mention that Joy needs a good walk today, and the house could use some cleaning.

There's enough to keep me busy for a while. 

Hope your day is full of sunshine, and that your heart is wide open to it!

C.