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

synchroblog

This post is for the May synchroblog, Life Unfurling.  This month bloggers write about what they've learned and gained by letting go of something they once held tightly.  Last fall I went through a process of loss and grace that I wrote about in choosing a sometimes extravagant and ridiculous life, grief and gratitude, and saying goodbye.  Rather than rewriting all of this, I hope referencing these posts will be okay.  I love the synchroblog idea!  As a result of these losses I've experienced how faithful and loving God is.  In my greatest time of need, as in my not-so-great, God cares for and takes care of me, even when I cannot sense it.  Being given a greater understanding of God's care and faithfulness is a richness that cannot be put into words, so I encourage you to let go of something which you may be holding too tightly and see for yourself how high and deep God's love is, from which we are never separated.

Take a gander at the other entries!

John Martinez at Indie Faith – Letting Go of the Holy Me

Beth Patterson at Finding Ground – What is Passed Over is Not Love

Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – Help, I’m Lost and Can’t Find Myself

Ellen Haroutunian – Life Unfurling

Marta Layton – On Burdens, Blessings, Babies and Bathwater

Alan Knox at The Assembling of Church – Where Did I Go?

Crystal Lewis – What Happened When I Let Go

Pam Hogeweide at How God Messed Up My Religion – Letting Go of a Church-Centered Me

K.W. Leslie at the Evening of Kent – Legalism, Anti-Legalism, and Anti-Anti-Legalism

Ryan Harrison at How We Spend Our Days – Scraping the Barnacles

Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head - Letting God Off the Hook

Christine Sine at Godspace – Giving Up For God, What Does it Cost?

Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – What Do You Do When You Are Not Sure

Dan Brennan at Faith Dance – Letting Go for a Greater Good

Elaine Hansen – Recovering Control Freak – Let Go?

Wendy McCaig at View From the Bridge - Embracing the Grey

Chris at The Amplified Life - Seasons of Life

Kerri at Practicing Contemplative - Synchroblog

Jeff Goins - What You Get From Giving: The Paradox of Generosity

Jules Kennedy – Letting Go…Watching the Rope Come Apart