stopping by woods on a rainy evening

I enjoyed another wonderful retreat at Tallgrass Spiritual Retreat Center in the Flint Hills last weekend.  If you haven't yet visited this place, I highly recommend you do so before Billie leaves this summer!  The countryside is gorgeous:

Whoops, hang on...

Okay, you have to like lots of sky and cows and fields.  And yes, this is the Flint Hills.  I just can't take pictures and drive at the same time on the windy, hilly parts, but they honestly are beautiful.

Technically, this isn't a hill; I was just holding my camera crooked.  Those are cows on the horizon, not ants.

Anyway, I learned a bit of SoulCollage.  I'll just let you explore their website.  It may seem voodooey or New Agey to some of my readers, and it can be used that way, but it doesn't have to be.  I appreciated reflecting on various aspects of my personality, or my inner selves, and learning from and about them.  For example:

 

This card represents my goofy side.  Obviously  I'm going to have to make more cards to adequately express this part of myself.

This represents what I call my shaman.  By "shaman" I don't mean one who uses magic, but simply one who hopes she is used by God to facilitate others' communion with him.   I broke a rule there with the sign's words - it's supposed to be pictures only - but "wine" made me think of "whine" which made me laugh and of the blood of Christ.  I realize in the top left that it looks like I think God is an ape.  What I mean to communicate with that photo is the connection humans have with animals and all of creation.

This one represents me as a member of a large family.  I saw the pic of the boy with the cow first, and it reminded me of Grandpa and Dad.  Then I saw the photo in the upper left and was reminded of my mom.  I grumbled to myself that I hadn't meant to bring my family with me on this retreat, but when I saw the rainbow-colored parrots, I gave up.  It reminded me of a cousin who loves rainbows, then all my cousins.  So here you have a portrayal of various and all family members.  (Dang it.  I just remembered there was a small picture of a turkey in the stack of pictures.  I could have used it for my brother.  Oh well, live and learn.)

This one started out as a portrayal of the dark, or, in Jungian terms, the shadow side of me.  I started with the picture of the forest and the words (oops) from his poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."  I added the snakes, then I found the picture of the Jewish boy with wording (oops oops) similar to Frost's, so I put that on there, then I put on the other pics and decided this represents a combination of my shadow self and the part of myself that is interested in learning about other religions.  The dark schizophrenic, if you will.

My stay was short and squeezed in between two sessions of working with kids.  I thought I was being an idiot; I usually can't handle a schedule that loaded, but of course I was instead refreshed and renewed by the time and by Billie's hospitality.  Thank you again, Billie, for the physical and spiritual space and the teaching that you give!

"contemplatives in action"

http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/16166/contemplatives-in-action/

I like a lot of what Ignatian Spirituality has to say.  This morning, the computer tech guy at work was helping me with a problem.  When I logged on, a blank, black window popped up.  He's been trying to get that to go away for several days.  I told him not to bother, because I used it as a reminder to slow down, stay aware, and not get bogged down in my work.  I actually enjoy seeing that window now.

little boys are crammed with energy...and greatness

The other day I took my group boys (ages 6-8) to a play place at a fast-food restaurant; these places are their favorite places to go. 

Unfortunately, whether due to spring or the fact that they were tired from an extra group session the day before or who knows what, they were very hyper and could only follow my directions for a few seconds before they broke our group rules for the use of that space.  After several minutes and numerous prompts, I told the boys that I would have to take them somewhere else because they were not respecting the rules, the site, and the other children playing.  "Let's go to a park!" one boy said.  My first thought was, "There's no way I'm taking you to a park right now; it will seem like a reward for your bad behavior."

Fortunately, I reflected on my decision.  The boys were not acting hyper or breaking the rules in order to be defiant; they simply were too wound up for an enclosed space.  At a park, they could run and yell and, hopefully, use up some energy.

 

 

So we went to the park.  The boys asked if they could visit the lake first and throw stones in it as they had done before.  I said yes, just don't go IN the lake.  I prepared myself for wet boys, or, at the very least, sopping wet shoes.  But they followed my direction.  They worked with each other to lift and throw the biggest rocks they could find to make ever-bigger splashes.  As I learned in my special education training, heavy work is a great way to help excited kids calm down.  When I said it was time to go to the playground area, the boys ran the 50+ yards to the equipment, joined a few other kids in their games, and played their hearts out.  They were fine.  When I said it was time to go home, they ran to the car.

 

I was reminded of something God taught me with these boys a few weeks earlier.  I'd taken them to a labyrinth at a local convent.  I thought the boys would enjoy walking the winding path.

 

 

But the boys did not want to walk the path, they wanted to run it and race each other to the center and out again.  At first I tried to stop them and make them walk without racing.  Then I sensed God's response:  "They're 6-year-old boys, not octogenarian nuns.  Let them experience the path in their own way."  I feared at least one of those nuns would come out and yell at us to stop, but that fear was as unfounded as my fear of having to deal with sopping wet boys.

 

We had a bit of extra time when we left the park the other day, and one of the boys asked if we could go to "that place that winds around and around and you have to stay on the path and not step in the hot lava (outside the path)."  Once I figured out what he meant, we went.  As we were approaching the site, the boy called out excitedly, "I see it!  There it is!"  This time I gave the boys no directions and watched to see what they would do.  I was amazed.  The boys ran, but they ran silently, without speaking or racing.  For several minutes all I heard was the thump, thump, thump of their shoes hitting the bricks.  Their approach to the labyrinth had changed, without me ever telling them that I use it as a time for reflection and communion with God.

 

When we let others be who they are, rather than who we want to mold them to be, true life bursts forth and wonderful things can happen.  I am so thankful God shut me up that day.

 

 



and I received...

Several minutes after writing the last post I found this in a book of collected prayers*:

"I don't know who - or what - put the question, I don't know when it was put.  I don't even remember answering.  But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone - or Something - and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender had a goal.  From that moment I have known what it means 'not to look back,' and 'to take no thought for the morrow.'"

Dag Hammarskjold



* The Oxford Book of Prayer, George Appleton, Ed., 1985

are we there yet?

My friend Pam at radical ramblings and thoughts of a southern girl wrote a post today on surrender.  As I envisioned myself walking beside her on that particular path, giving and receiving encouragement, I suddenly burst out, "Are we there yet?!"  I mean, my God, how much more can you ask?  My job, my home, my dogs, my ability to think clearly, my relationships, my very sanity sometimes...what next?  Oh, I know, I prayed with St. Ignatius that you take everything, even my memory, understanding, and liberty, if you see fit, and I meant it, but I didn't realize those things ran so deep.  Now I'm tempted to say, "Just try to take anything more.  I dare you."  And yet I do pray it.  I'm a mess, a bitter, proud, resentful mess.  I offer up my very life, but when you take it I fight to get it back.  Teach me what all this loss is for, what it really means.  Or don't.  But please teach me to love.

waterfowl in my life: july synchroblog

I was delighted to discover the existence of the Wild Goose Festival last month!  It also amuses and intrigues me to think of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose.  I'd never heard of that symbolism.  This month's Synchroblog asks participants to write about their experiences of the Festival or, if they did not attend, to share how the "wild goose" has made herself known in their lives.  I was unable to attend the Festival this year, but I really want to do so someday!  I do have some experience with the impact of ducks and swans on my life, however.  Swan symbolism has some Celtic roots as does that of the goose, so I'm expanding this month's topic to waterfowl for my purposes.  :)  I'm sensing the Goose doesn't mind...

A counselor once told me that I needed to "find my ducks."  "Huh?" I said.  She explained that participating in some sort of community with like-minded and like-spirited people would help with my depression.  "You know," she said, "like the ugly duckling story.  I guess I should say you need to find your swans."  Either way, her phrase stuck with me.  Just as the "duckling" in Hans Christian Andersen's tale discovers that he is not ugly, he just isn't a duck, I needed to figure out the ways in which the religious beliefs I'd grown up with were and were not true to the person I am.  And I needed to find my swans.

After that conversation I was more attuned to ducks and swans and enjoyed watching how they popped up in my life.

I enjoyed the silliness ducks sometimes seem to have, and that helped me enjoy my own silliness.  I watched ducks live in community, and I reflected on swans' fierce loyalty to each other.  On my one-day retreat last December, I learned more about the symbolism of swans and their representation of transformation, intuition, and dreams.  A few days after that retreat, while driving in town, I saw a swan sitting by the side of the road, in the grass between the curb and the sidewalk.  She was just sitting there serenely, as swans seem to do, all alone, as if swans always sat in urban areas with no water immediately nearby.  I took that as a totem, a symbol of the liminal space in which I've been living for several years.  A sign and a promise that transformation is taking place.  Perhaps a community is on the threshold.

And now I've been goosed.  Canadian geese live with the ducks in the river which flows through the center of our city.  When I watched the ducks I watched the geese as well and enjoyed how they also followed their leader everywhere, honk honk honking, waddling, gliding.  Geese live by the motto "Leave no goose behind."  When they migrate, if one goose becomes injured or ill, another stays with the first until he/she either heals or dies.  I love that.  What has the Wild Goose said to you lately?

 

More Synchroblog posts, including some from people who were at the festival:

Anna Snoeyenbos – Wild Goose Festival – A Spirit of Life Revival

Lee Smith - Goose Bumps: Opportunities Everywhere for Offense. A Fair and Objective Review

Ryan Hines – 30 Years Later – “Controversy” at Wild Goose

Karyn Wiseman – Flying With the Goose

Kyla Cofer – I went to the Wild Goose Fest and came back in love

Brian Gerald Murphy – Born Again (Again) at Wild Goose

Chris Lenshyn – Chasing the Wild Goose

Cherie at Renaissance Garden – Wild Goose Return

Deborah Wise – Wild Goose Chasing

Custodianseed – “every day they eat boiled goose”

Will Norman – Back from the Wild Goose Fest

Martin at Exiles in NY – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose

Kerri at Practicing Contemplative – Waterfowl in My Life

Allison Leigh Lilley – Chasing the Wild Goose and Catching the Wild Goose: Thanks and First Thoughts

Abbie Waters – Jessica: A Fable

Steve Knight – Why Wild Goose Festival Was So Magical

Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying

Michelle Thorburg Hammond – I heart Jay Bakker and Peter Rollins

Matthew Bolz-Weber – Remembering Wild Goose

Paul Fromberg – Celebrating Interdependence Day

David Zimmerman – Wild Goose Festival: A Recap

Dan Brennan – U2, the Wild Goose, and Deep Freedom

Mike Croghan – The Wild Goose is Not Safe

John Martinez – The Table

Callid Keefe-Perry – Gatekeeping the Goose

Eric Elnes – The Inaugural Wild Goose Festival: Recovering Something Lost

Shay Kearns – The Power of a T-Shirt, Apologizing to Over the Rhine, and Public vs. Private (Part One)

Glen Reteif – Duck Duck Goose

Peterson Toscano – I’ve Been Goosed, What I Carried Into Wild Goose, and What I Blurted Out at Wild Goose

Seth Donovan – About More than “The Gays”

Exiles in New York – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose

Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying

TSmith – What I’ll Take From Wild Goose

Dale Lature – Wild Goose Reflection

Steve Hayes – Wild Goose Chase?

Minnow – Grace Response

Christine Sine – Encounters With A Thin Space

Jeremy Myers – Giving Up the Wild Goose Chase

Robert – Thoughts On the Inaugural Wild Goose

Anna Woofenden – Slippery Slope Reflections

Wendy McCaig – Loosing The Goose

Joey Wahoo – Into The Wild

Rachel Swan – goosed

Patricia Burlison – I Called Life

Jason Hess – While At the Goose

The Bec Cranford – Wild Goose

Anthony Ehrhardt – Chasing The Wild Goose on Independence Day

Unfinished Symphony – #5 – The Last Post … for a while

transformation: june synchroblog

In the early morning of June 3 I had a dream:

I am walking in a church yard.  The large yard and white church have an "episcopal" feel to me.  I am in a wedding dress, carrying a long-stemmed bouquet.  I delight in the yard's many trees full of their white, yellow-green, and pink spring blooms.  An image of a curly, gnarly tree limb flashes in my mind as an appropriate bouquet, but I think, "A dead twig?  That wouldn't work."  I look down the slope behind the church; in a small grove of cherry trees several young men and women are playing together like children, throwing blooms at each other, laughing, roughhousing.  They are my bridesmaids and groomsmen, and are also dressed for the wedding.  I smile, enjoying their merriment, and look up the slope and further into the distance.  I watch the wind blow showers of pink blossoms down the slope, trees in the midst of their spring-to-summer transformation, the death of the blossoms and the birth of the fruit, the leaves...it is the end of the season, after all...death and life, dying and living...I am happy, deeply content, complete.  I feel the wind and listen to it throwing blooms along with the others.  I have a quiet smile on my face; I feel peaceful and happy.  At rest.  It is complete.  It is finished?  Where is my groom?  I walk with the bridal party back to another church, the church where my wedding will take place.  I enjoy the sound and the feel of the blooms and grass crunching softly under my feet.  I look down; my dress is a faint rose color, my shoes are black - this strikes me as a very appropriate choice.  When I enter the church, I learn that my husband-to-be is dead.  I receive the news as right, appropriate, not macabre.  He is dead, but he is still with me, in a new way.  My smile, my faith, and my contentment do not waiver.  I understand.

Passover celebrates the Israelites' freedom from enslavement in Egypt.  Shavuot, the Jewish Pentecost, celebrates Yahweh's giving of the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai not long after their release from Egypt.  The Jewish Virtual Library says, "Passover freed us physically from bondage, but the giving of the Torah on Shavuot redeemed us spiritually from our bondage to idolatry and immorality."  From these events emerged Christian Pentecost, which celebrates the giving of the Holy Spirit to the followers of Christ and marks the beginning of a new way to know and worship God.  These holidays might be seen as:

     Passover:  freedom to worship Yahweh
     Shavuot:  how to worship Yahweh
     Christian Pentecost:  freedom to know and worship God in a new way,
            life from death, new communion with God


Does my dream foreshadow a transformation in my own communion with God?  Regarding Shavuot, the Jewish Virtual Library says:  "It is noteworthy that the holiday is called the time of the giving of the Torah, rather than the time of the receiving of the Torah. The sages point out that we are constantly in the process of receiving the Torah, that we receive it every day, but it was first given at this time."  My knowledge of God, not only cognitive understanding but also the ways I experience him in my bones, in my soul, in my senses - and the ways in which I sense only his absence - is continuously evolving, always in creation.  It looks like we have entered a new season of life together.  It is time to celebrate.



This month's Synchroblog topic is "FAITH, FEASTS AND FORESHADOWING:

"The Jewish festival of Shavuot (or Pentecost) is a celebration of the giving of Torah....The Christian feast of Pentecost celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the book of Acts, ushering in the beginning of the church....For the June synchroblog we invite you to reflect on the foreshadowing that the Jewish celebration of Shavuot brings to the Christian feast of Pentecost.   How does the Torah foreshadow the Holy Spirit?   What can we learn from our forefathers that will enrich our faith?   What are the parallels?   What are the differences?   These are some (but definitely not all) of the questions that might be explored in this synchroblog."

Here are the other participants' responses. Please consider joining us in July!
Kerri at Earth’s Crammed With Heaven… – Transformation
Sarita Brown at Gypsy Queen Journals – Pentecost: A Poem
Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes - The Incarnation of the Temple, Torah, and Land
Tammy Carter at Blessing the Beloved - Random Biblical Calendar Thoughts, Unity & Love
K. W. Leslie at More Christ – Pentecost
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – We Cannot Capture The Wind
Emma Nadine at Life by List - An Outpouring of the Spirit
Marta Layton at Marta’s Mathoms - Shadow of Things to Come?
Abbie Waters at No Longer “Not Your Grandfather’s CPA” - Spiritual Gifts
Bill Sahlman at Creative Reflections - A “Wild Goose” Festival at Pentecost

Earth, Wind and Fire

Karen Scovill

my god, my god...

One night last week I couldn't sleep and decided to skip around the net to see what I could see.  I discovered the Indie Ink Writing Challenge.  "Hmm," I thought, "This looks interesting.  Participants pass around writing prompts and use the prompt they receive in a blog post that week.  That sounds like fun."  (Yes, that is how clearly I think in the middle of the night; why do you ask?)  And, as I often do at that time of day, I signed up first and read more about the challenge second.  "Oh crap.  These people don't fool around.  There's some really good stuff here."  And so I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and prayed my prompt would be something like, "Once upon a time...."  Instead, I got this from Random Girl: 

"You lost your faith.  How is life different now?"

Wow.  So much for splashing around in the shallow end!

A loss of faith would be a loss of Love more than a loss of belief for me.  Or a loss of the ability to sense that Love in any way.  Without my faith I would have an indescribable ache, a terrible longing for God.  Fear, confusion, and anger would be present at different times.  But in the midst of this dark night of the senses or the soul I would choose to believe regardless of how I felt or what I understood.  I have made that choice a number of times in the midst of depression.  That choice does not make living a life without Love, or a sense of Love, any easier, though.  Life would often be hell.  But, when I had the strength, I would pursue God as relentlessly as he pursues me.

"Woman Weeping"

Vincent Van Gogh

I've been writing notes and thinking about this for 24 hours, and I can already tell you it won't be done by the deadline Thursday evening. There is something more going on here.

In Clinging: The Experience of Prayer, Emilie Griffin writes:  "C. S. Lewis wrote of a practice...that he called festooning.   Festooning, Lewis explained, was taking a familiar prayer, such as the Lord's prayer, and elaborating it, adding one's own intentions on at various points in the prayer until this elaboration became a ritual unto itself."

I wrote and scrapped a few rough drafts before it dawned on me that a song I've been drawn to recently fits well with my evolving response to this prompt.  As I read the lyrics of this song, several related things come to me:  a book mentioned by a friend last week, a book that friend recommended to me 20 years ago, Psalm 22, The Song of Songs, the gospels, a book titled Clinging, a favorite book since childhood, and "Christmas Canon" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO).  I am in the midst of weaving all of these things together before festooning it with my own thoughts, which I'm not fully aware of yet.  And I will probably choose not to share those thoughts here.  There are some things revealed in secret that are meant to be kept secret.  But here is what I've processed to this point:


"Wuthering Heights"  Kate Bush
Out on the wiley, windy moors
we'd roll and fall in green (your love is more delightful than wine)
You had a temper, like my jealousy
too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me (I looked for him but did not find him)
When I needed to possess you? (He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.)
I hated you, I loved you too (my God, I call by day but you do not answer,)

Bad dreams in the night (I call at night but I find no respite)
They told me I was going to lose the fight (all who see me jeer at me)
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering (the Spirit blows where it pleases;)
Wuthering Heights (you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going)

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home (my God, my God)
I'm so cold, let me in your window (do not remain aloof!)
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home (my God, my God)
I'm so cold, let me in your window (do not remain aloof!)

Oh it gets dark, it gets lonely (my God! my God!)
On the other side from you (why have you forsaken me?)
I pine a lot, I find the lot (All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves)
Falls through without you (I looked for him but did not find him)
I'm coming back love, cruel Heathcliff (before I knew it, my desire had hurled me at the chariots)
My one dream, my only master (in him I live and move and have my being)

Too long I roam in the night (all night long...I looked for the one my heart loves)
I'm coming back to his side to put it right (I shall seek my love)
I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering (Awake, north wind,)
Wuthering Heights (and come, south wind!)

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window

Oh let me have it, let me grab your soul away (I held him fast, nor would I let him go)
Oh let me have it, let me grab your soul away
You know it's me, Cathy


From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.  And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice..."My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

"Three Crosses"

Rembrandt

Jesus, why have you forsaken me?

Vincent Van Gogh:
"'The Roots' shows some tree roots on sandy ground....I tried to put sentiment into the landscape...the convulsive, passionate clinging to the earth, and yet being half torn up by the storm, I wanted to express something of the struggle for life...in the black, gnarled and knotty roots."


Madeleine L'Engle, The Weather of the Heart:
You're supposed to do the knocking.  Why do you burst my heart?...

     Dear God
     is it too much to ask you
     to bother to be?

"We are waiting; we have not forgotten..." 

"Christmas Canon," TSO

"Reach"

Robert Hodgell

(How it ends):

And suddenly, the veil of the Sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, the rocks were split...(Jesus' body was taken to a tomb). Meanwhile the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus were following behind. They took note of the tomb and how the body had been laid. Then they returned...and on the Sabbath day (the next day) they rested, as the Law required.

I slept but my heart was awake...

"Three Trees"

Rembrandt

...he has fulfilled it.

wishing you a blessed Easter

http://media.loyolapress.com/assets/easter-reflection.swf

Today

Today is Holy Saturday.  Hush...

http://www.24-7prayer.com/podcasts/category/spaces
(scroll down the 24-7 page to see videos)

"God's fingerprints"

http://www.blog.therustedchain.com/  has begun a...group blog topic?  "Linky" post?  Anyway, she's having people write how they see God's presence in the world - check out her site for the responses.  Obviously, I love this topic, and the way I have been discovering God in the world the last week or so is online.  I know, it's not very naturey, but I've discovered a variety of communities online and have begun interacting with them and am delighted by the response.  So far I've enjoyed:  http://www.other6.com/home.aspx
http://www.sparkpeople.com/
http://theblogfrog.com/Welcome.aspx

These sites have less interaction among members, but still have a community:
http://picturinggod.ignatianspirituality.com/
http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/
http://www.gbod.org/site/c.nhLRJ2PMKsG/b.6174501/k.9236/Sight_Psalms.htm - this one fits this theme well!

What have you found?

a meditation on fear - and faith

I was surprised to find this insight in an online article on the recent protests in the Middle East, and specifically in Bahrain:  "The willingness to resort to violence against largely peaceful demonstrators was a sign of how deeply the monarchy fears the repercussions of a prolonged wave of protests."  Take that statement out of its cultural and political contexts; does that kind of fear sound familiar?  I was very familiar with it during the years I taught special education.  If anyone made the slightest critical comment, or even a neutral comment that I interpreted as critical, about my students or my teaching, "Mama Bear" roared up within me.  Fire burned in my chest and lit my eyes, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my claws came out.  Do you know that fear?  This fear may have first been born in us out of a need for safety, in response to protestors or mother nature or drunk drivers or something else.  Our world is shaken and we get a glimpse of a possibility that we may not have as much control over our lives as we pretend to.  But when we react to that realization with even greater fear and greater attempts at control, the fear evolves into something much more deadly and self-serving, doing violence to ourselves and others.

This morning as I prayed about this a small voice within me, a train of thought, caught my attention:  "But we have to fear."  What?  What was that?  Where did that come from?  I decided to follow it and see where it led.  "We have to fear, we must be diligent in defending and protecting ourselves because if we don't, we'll lose everything - the relationships, jobs, activities, etc. we've built our lives into, as well as the foundation of beliefs, values, and worldviews we've built them upon.  If that happens, then we will no longer exist.  We will have no way in which to define who we are.  We have to fear, we must have enemies, because we rely upon them to tell us who we are, that we do exist, and that we have worth."  And so we build a fence, direct a conversation, buy shoes, post a comment, or write a blog sometimes for perfectly healthy reasons and sometimes because we need to check and make sure that we are here, that others notice us, and we are okay.

Since I quit teaching full-time I've been led bit-by-bit to discover the myriad of ways in which I give life to this kind of fear within myself and ways to let it go and place my faith in something greater.  Of course I mean in God, who means so many different things to different people.  For me, God is the source of authentic life, the goal of life, and the primary, ultimate keeper of everything in between.

This is a blog post, not a thesis, so I'll let you take whatever you want from here and run with it.  Faith in God is not a blind faith, unless you've never dared to truly look.

"When we were children, we used to think that when we grew up, we would no longer be vulnerable.  But to grow up is to accept vulnerability.  To be alive is to be vulnerable."  Madeleine L'Engle

"After the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable darkness of realizing Who He is."  Oswald Chambers

Rom. 8:35-39:  "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?...I am convinced that neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord...." who is Life.



If all else fails:

retreat in the flint hills - Dec. '10

Well, I'm still not ready to write about my personal experience of my 12/15/10 retreat, but kind folks have asked about it so I'll share what we did.  It really was a great time and I was/am deeply affected by it.

I went to the Tallgrass Spiritual Retreat Center: http://www.tallgrassretreats.com/.  It offers a wonderful variety of retreats, presentations, and space to make your own retreat.  Part of the appeal of this center is its location.  The Flint Hills in east-central Kansas are truly beautiful; rolling hills and valleys filled with fields, cows, streams, and a windmill here and there.  I wish my pictures did them justice.  But I was running a bit late, and my camera's coloring is off somehow, and I am a very amateur photographer, so all you can see here is a flat area going by at 60 mph.  (Are you starting to see a pattern in my photography?).  As a friend of mine from LA once said about western Kansas, "I've never seen so much...and so little!"

Now here's the backside of a great picture.  I'd foolishly just turned the camera off when I drove down a small slope dotted with trees and under a bridge with a bright orange train engine just passing overhead.  I mean, I could've won prizes with that picture.  Instead, I passed the bridge, pulled over, turned the camera back on, and captured this.  See what I mean?  Prizes, I tell you.

Anyway, the retreat was titled, "Marking a Passage" and had to do with recognizing and giving attention to any changes we've had in life recently.  We began with a ritual that reminds me of yoga's sun salutation; retreat facilitator (and center director) Billie Blair credits Joyce Rupp:

1.  Stand up and stretch your arms to the sky - giving thanks

2.  Reach your arms out to your sides and twist at the waist - acknowledging our brothers and sisters throughout the world

3.  Reach arms straight in front of you, palms up - giving of yourself

4.  Bring arms in and cup your hands together, holding them against your body - receiving

5.  Bend down and touch the floor - blessing and giving thanks for the earth

6.  Stand up and put hands flat, palm in, against your heart - I didn't write anything down after this step, but I bet you get the point.

Then Billie had us write down and answer the following questions:  "Why am I here?" and "How do I feel about my answer?"  Then she had us do it again.  Then she had us do it a third time.  It's interesting to see how your answers change as you go deeper.

Then she had us write the answer to the question, "How would I describe myself before (the passage/changes I'm marking today)?"

After lunch, Billie had us answer the following questions:  "What brought me here?"  "What do I want to acknowledge?" and "What is changing in my life that I've not been willing to see?"

To answer these questions, we could write in our journals or make a collage using pics pre-cut from magazines.  We probably could've also done an interpretive dance or written a song or painted a fence - whatever way worked best for us.  I chose to make a collage rather than write because it would be a different way to express my experience of the recent passages I'd traveled through.  I don't do much in the visual arts, and I thought it would be interesting to see what I ended up with:

The picture at the top left of the collage is a (fake) duck's rear end and legs - it was one of a set of three mounted on a board; it looked like a coat rack.  Anyway, I am fond of the image of ducks' rear ends - I'll share why another time.  (How's that for getting you hooked?  Or repulsed?)

We shared our answers to the questions with each other, then began a new activity.  With our dominant hand (hand we usually write with) Billie had us write down, "How have I been changed or am changing by this passage?" and "Is there a gift to be claimed?"  We had brought items to symbolize the passages we were marking, and we addressed each item with each question.  (I'd brought Chester and Oliver's name tags and my school/teacher ID from when I quit teaching special education in 2007.)  We wrote our responses to the questions using our non-dominant hand.  The changing of hands was very interesting to me; it is like walking a labyrinth: so simple, yet so powerful.  You turn off your autopilot and the automatic responses you might give to the question, and you access a different part of you - the whole you that God made - that you may not listen to very often.  Try it sometime.

(Now, if you grew up with a spiritual background similar to mine - protestant, evangelical - this activity would be akin to voodoo.  But the unusual methods in which the questions were asked and answered did not open me up to demons from hell, so don't worry.  It just gets you thinking, reflecting, praying, and listening outside of the box of your ordinary state of being.)

After further discussion and reflection, we ended the retreat by sharing what we had gained from it (that we were aware of at that point) and prayers for our continuing beyond the passage(s) we had marked.

I can't wait to go back.

Other6

Just found a neat online community at http://www.other6.com/home.aspx  Where did you find or need to find God today?  Per the Sacred Space website, "This site is based on 'examination of consciousness'—a prayerful review of the day intended to help people recognise God in their daily lives."  

advent 2010

I've enjoyed the gift of a growing appreciation of and participation in the season of Advent over the past few years.  There are a number of books, websites, and other resources to use as we celebrate this time of year.  Currently I'm enjoying:

http://www.sacredspace.ie/
The Jesuit Communication Centre in Ireland puts out a booklet of daily readings and considerations for Advent.  They also have guided retreats for Advent that you can download and follow.  Also scroll down the page and take a look at their online prayers and "Living Space," commentaries on the daily scripture readings from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP); I was pleasantly surprised by the level of thought (or prayer, I should say) they put into the entries.

Simply Wait:  Cultivating Stillness in the Season of Advent by Pamela C. Hawkins
Hawkins gives a theme for each week of Advent:  anticipation, hope, patience, and obedience.  Each section is divided into "Responding to the Word," "Readings," and prayers.  I have been looking forward to using this book all year.  I was captivated by the first page:  "ANTICIPATION...Wait with this word for awhile before you turn the page.  Let Anticipation settle into your thoughts.  Let this word soak into your life.  Let it spread across your imagination as you look toward Christmas.  Do not hurry.  Wait.  And when you have taken some time with this word, turn the page."

In previous years I've also enjoyed the book Watch for the Light:  Readings for Advent and Christmas, a collection of daily writings from various authors.  I love the diversity of the authors and the selections, from Meister Eckhart to Sylvia Plath, Bernard of Clairvaux to Annie Dillard, etc. etc. etc.  Readings go from Nov. 24 to Jan. 7, the day after Epiphany.

You might also enjoy this website:  http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/ which offers a variety of readings from the diverse body of Christ.  The Advent reading includes the scriptures for the week from the BCP. 

You can find the BCP online at http://www.bcponline.org/ - scriptures are under "The Lectionary" - we began Year A on Nov. 28, the first Sunday of Advent 2010.

May we all be able to pay attention, wait, listen, and receive what God has for us in this time.

quotes I like

I don't mean to quote you to death, but I really like them, and this is good for me to do right now.  These quotes are in a collection by Jan Karon.

God ministers to us so gently, so stolenly, as it were, with such a quiet, tender, loving absence of display, that men often drink of His wine, as those wedding guests drank, without knowing whence it comes - without thinking that the giver is beside them, yea, in their very hearts.    -George MacDonald

How to keep a healthy level of sanity:
As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
Sing along at the opera.
When the money comes out of the ATM, yell "I won! I won!"
Page yourself over the intercom - don't disguise your voice.
Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with it.
Specify that your drive-through order is "to go."
-Gary Barnes

Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
-Franklin P. Jones

The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence.  To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.
-Thomas Merton

Day by day we are given not what we want but what we need.  Sometimes it is a feast and sometimes...swept crumbs, but by faith we believe it's enough.    -Barbara Brown Taylor

I haven't failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
-Thomas Edison

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.
-Willa Cather

The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness.  God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly.
-Oswald Chambers

Our tendency is to run from the painful realities or try to change them as soon as possible.  But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators.
-Henri Nouwen

Life is this simple; we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through all the time.  This is not just a fable or a nice story.  It is true.  If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently.  God shows Himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events...we cannot be without Him.  It's impossible.  The only thing is, we don't see it.
-Thomas Merton

The process of being made broken bread and poured out wine means that you have to be nourishment for other souls until they learn to feed on God....Be careful that you get your supply, or before long you will be utterly exhausted....Be exhausted for God, but remember your supply comes from Him.  "All my fresh springs shall be in Thee."
-Oswald Chambers

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility on him and let him know that you trust him.    -Booker T. Washington

Sometimes you've got to jump off cliffs and grow wings on the way down.
-Ray Bradbury

Grant us daily some moments living on tiptoe, lured by the eternal city....
-Anonymous

a must-see/read

Thanks to my brother for sharing this with me.  This man changed my life when he assured me and sang to me (on TV), "You'll never go down the drain."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/movies/commentaries/2010/mynewhero.html?start=1

http://www.pittsburghinwords.org/tom_junod.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upm9LnuCBUM

the retreat - day 6 - Jan. 13, 2008 - reflection on my call

From journal:

Interesting to see God's love and respect for these men and who they were - God reveals himself and communicates with them accordingly.

God to me:  stop questioning whether or not it is my voice that you hear when I speak to you, and start writing out, expressing, living out my words.

It's okay.

I love you.

Do not be afraid.  I am with you.

"All shall be well,
all shall be well,
all manner of things shall be well."

my response:  Oh God, the God of my life, I love you.  I am awed by you - your holiness, your integrity, your love for yourself/selves and for your creation.

the retreat - day 6 - Jan. 13, 2008 - Jeremiah's call

From journal:

Jeremiah 1:4-9 - the call of Jeremiah
Who he was:  priest, would remain unwed and without children at God's command/warning, introspective, honest and comfortable/familiar with God to an extent, later:  sad, insecure

Nature of the call:  loving, tender, that of a caregiver - Ps. 139 - I knew you and I set you apart before you even existed, before you even became aware of yourself - be a prophet to the nations

Jeremiah's response:  "Ah, Sovereign Lord...."  You can almost hear the wheels turning in J's mind, backpedalling, whoa whoa whoa, I know what happens to prophets around here, I should have checked caller ID - I don't know how, I'm too young

God:  dismisses J's age objection as if with a wave of his hand - "Don't say..." - you must go to everyone I send you and say everything I command you - simple, broad instructions, as if to a child? - do not be afraid of them, I am with you, and I will rescue you - then touched J's mouth - I have put my words in your mouth and I appoint you...

God responds to Jeremiah's unspoken fear for his safety as well.

Portrait of Jeremiah by Rembrandt

the retreat - day 6 - Jan. 13, 2008 - Isaiah's call

From journal:

Isaiah 6:1-8 - the call of Isaiah:
Who he was:  ? - not sure, but a son is mentioned in 7:3 and he conceives a son in 8:1-3

Nature of call:  HOLINESS!  vision of God on throne, his robe filled the temple, seraphim calling God holy, doorposts and thresholds shook, temple filled with smoke

Isaiah's response:  Woe is me, for I have seen God, and I (my lips) am unclean and live among unclean people!

God:  sent a seraphim to touch Isaiah's lips with a burning coal - now your guilt is gone, your sin is atoned for - whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?  ("us" instead of "me" - trinity)

Isaiah:  "Here am I.  Send me!"  (Isaiah doesn't even know what he's volunteering for yet.)

God:  says with irony - go tell (your own) people, the people you live among, to repent and be healed (they won't)

Isaiah:  "For how long?"  No hesitation to obey.

God:  until this land is utterly forsaken

in this passage, Isaiah is overcome with awe and eagerness