Language

Moving into Divine Unity is the highest prayer,

and it reaches down to your deepest needs. 

it brings your soul to life, 

it brings you more of life's fullness, 

and your life expands with grace and strength. 

This attitude of prayer

aligns most easily with your nature, 

and it requires the least effort to achieve,  

for it is simply what your soul already craves, 

and what it shall always crave 

until you truly understand 

that you are wrapped in Divine Unity: 

the goodness of God.     

 

Hazelnuts from Julian of Norwich 

Meditations on Divne Love , page 100

Ellyn Sanna     

  

photograph:  San Leandro, May 2019     

    

God speaks to us gently and lovingly.  Let us tune our hearts to hear that voice which speaks not the language of harsh criticism and judgement, but only of love.  This is a time of learning the language of the soul.  Let us practice such soul-speak.  Let us practice love.  Gratitude is a fine starting place as we learn to utter these new sounds rising gently from our depths. 

 

Love to you today, and always.     

The Radiant Mission

A couple of days ago, I discovered that I had a Kindle credit. As I explored what options might be available, I came across the book, "Dancing with Elephants, Mindfulness Training For Those Living With Dementia, Chronic Illness or an Aging Brain," written by Jarem Sawatsky. In this book, he writes about his journey with Huntington's disease and how he began to face the inevitable decline that this degenerative, hereditary and terminal illness ushers in. I have not finished the book, but I am finding it thought provoking. He faces his illness with faith, honesty, humor, and a willingness to ask for support from his family and friends.

I was originally drawn to the book because of the author's research into communities dedicated to peace (such as Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village) and I do want to read more about his work in this area. He was also led to spend some time with the medical doctor, Patch Adams (subject of a 1998 movie that starred Robin Williams as Patch). At the time of their meeting, Sawatsky had heard that Patch Adams had probably been present at about 10,000 death beds, usually dressed like a clown. When the author asked Patch about these experiences, Patch replied: “They are not deathbeds. They are living beds. The fact that you are ‘dying’… well, I see you as living. So where is the fun?”

This is very much at the heart of SpiritCare Ministry. No, we do not dress up like clowns, and I am a poor teller of jokes. However, there is much laughter as we tend to the lives that gather with us. Because we are a Christ centered ministry, the board, the pastors, and the volunteers know we are tending to the sacred. We do our best to instill the message that all are held fast in God's love, and that is true regardless of one's health, one's ability to communicate, one's particular faith journey, or whatever mistakes someone might have made or perhaps are making now. We do not come in judgement; we come in love.

Sawatsky said that after his time with Patch Adams, he began to reflect on this question: "What if the answer to most of our problems is to make the 
other radiant?" * There are challenges now, of course, because we cannot meet in person. However, one day we will be able to again. There is still much life to be lived. Let us go forth, pondering how we can bring out the light and love in all we meet. That mission can start today, with the next phone call, the next video conference, the next visit to the corner store. In fact, let's go ahead and start right now with ourselves.

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

Isaiah 58:10 NIV

*page 86

photograph: San Leandro, April 2020

Learning to Pray

"We become what we contemplate."

Roy Eugene Davis, The Bhagavad-Gita, God's Revealing Word       

 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Matthew 6:21, NIV

 

photograph: San Leandro, April 2020    

    

Good Company

I am enjoying my morning walks with Jack.  The streets, while not completely empty are much calmer, and it is though I am hearing birds for the first time.  This poem makes me smile.  As does this photograph.  Just before I took it, I was thinking that I was probably done with photographing flowers.  

Then the light sang. 

 Have faith. Light will always beckon. 

  

    

Just As I Suspected   

  

In a vision I heard this clearly whispered: 

Study those who sing the most, but are free

of criticism or praise.  

   

Following that advice, things tuned out 

just I suspected:  

 

I started spending more time with birds.  

 

A Year with Hafiz 

Daniel Ladinsky        

  

 photograph:  San Leandro, April 2020

Point of View

I am sitting on the living room couch, but if I tilt my head just a little to the left I can look  our dining room window.  I  see green, grey, red, and gold.   The resolution is not clear because generally I have my reading glasses on when I sit here.   It is a view that I have come to love, especially at sunrise and sunset.  It is actually a new view for me. When the floors were redone, we let the curtains go because we discovered the light was so beautiful.  Also, a neighbor removed a large bay tree which also obstructed the view.  

  

I woke this morning from a dream where a friend suggests that I read the letter of James.  In the dream, I asked her about 1 Peter. "Not yet. Start with James."  She was right. I did hear the word I needed to hear.  I will thank her.   

It is Holy Monday and we are in Eastertide.  May the light of Christ shine in your hearts, your homes, your dreams, your world.      

   

   

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.    

James 1:2-8   
        

Bluing

In this morning's meditation, I remembered a dream I had very early this morning.  In the dream is a beautiful dark haired young woman.  She has broken up with her now former boyfriend because someone new has come into her life.  The new suitor has given her a beautiful bracelet.  The thin cuff of the bracelet is sliver, and curves around a singular large, dark blue stone. The stone is oval shaped and is the color of a deep cloudless twilight.  The piece is simple, balanced, and stunning.  However, the former boyfriend decides he wants the bracelet. He seems convinced that he deserves it and he has another he can give her. His piece is far inferior, and really could not even be considered a piece of jewelry - more of a trinket or a souvenir.  In the dream I speak up:  "That bracelet was never yours. You have no claim to it nor can you offer any exchange for it."  I cannot remember if the young woman says anything, but I have a sense she is concerned, but seems to be having some difficulty taking a stand with the former boyfriend.  I feel committed to making sure he does not end up with this beautiful piece that in my mind, he neither deserves nor has any claim to.  

 

Humanity is in a time of deep transition.  The temptation to wish for being able to return to the way things were is strong, but that is illusionary thinking.  I believe we are being called into a new time. Despite the disease that is moving through the world, we are seeing that the earth is healing.  Let us not be deceived by old thinking that views the earth and all of life as only a resource to be plundered and hoarded.  I came across an interesting phrase today:  "hie homeward".  Hie is an archaic word that means quickly.  This phrase speaks to me not of trying to rush back into our former lives, but rather returning home to our essence with haste. For those of us who are sheltering in place, we are being called to prayer, to envisioning, to holding hope.  We each take on this task in our own way, but however we are called, we are being summoned to help roll the stone of fear and old thinking away.  

The Easter season is close and is eternal.  Let us begin our journey to move out of the tomb of deadening fear as we hear those ancient words, "Be not afraid."  Let us go forward into this new time.       

 

May your beauty shine today.    

   

Look, there was a great earthquake, for an angel from the Lord came down from heaven. Coming to the stone, he rolled it away and sat on it. Now his face was like lightening and his clothes white as snow. 

Matthew 28:2-3

Mush!

Yesterday, I had on hand a bunch of Swiss chard and as well as some fresh spinach that needed to be cooked.  I began to saute them in my usual manner - that is will lots of olive oil, salt, pepper, and some granulated garlic and thyme.  There was some leftover canned tomato in the fridge so I added that, along with the last squirt from the tube of tomato paste.  I thought that this would surely go well with some polenta.  Of course, I had no polenta and I was not about to dash off to Safeway in search of some.  I did have some good quality cornmeal, but it was not coarse ground.  I thought, "Well, corn meal mush it is."  I checked Marion Cunningham's The Fannie Farmer Cookbook as I often do when pondering a traditional dish such as corn meal mush. I wanted to  make certain that the water to corn meal ratio was the same.  It is, although she recommended pouring one cup of the water over the meal to keep it from clumping.  I gave it a go, and added the last tablespoon of sour cream at the end of cooking.  Quite delicious.  A different texture, certainly, but very good.  

I cannot remember my mother ever making corn meal mush, although she would periodically make hush puppies, a food I have never understood.  I don't think she ever even made tamale pie.  I also don't remember her ever cooking grits (which if I had had some of those on hand, I certainly would have cooked them), but her corn bread recipe was very precise.  She loved tacos but most of the time she would not bother with taco shells or tortillas.  When she would cook what she called, "tacca meat", it would be served over Fritos or Doritos. No mush needed.  She would top our bowl of taccas with iceberg lettuce (which I still have a fondness for)  and with a cheese that we lovingly called rat cheese, a good all purpose cheddar that would actually be cut from a wheel.  This we we would buy at the Kent Mercantile, a small store about nine miles from our house. That was where the post office was, as well as a gas station.  I actually started school in Kent, under the guidance of Mrs. Parks.  Yes, a one room school house.     

Tyler ate the last of the chard and spinach with eggs this morning.  When I lifted the lid to the pot, there was still some flavorful oil left there.  I laughed; Tyler knows me all too well, and he always hesitates to wash a pot or pan too soon.  I am now sauteing some potatoes and onions in that pot.  That famous teacher who goes by the name of Hindsight tells me I  should have sliced the potatoes thinly, or parboiled them, but with the addition of some lemon juice, I think they should be tasty for our supper tonight.   

The story of our kitchen refrigerator continues.  Finally, the warranty company was able to send a second repair team to take a look. They plugged it in and heard the unnatural sound it makes.  They quickly unplugged it, and then opened the door and smelled the same smell I have been trying to describe to the warranty customer service staff.  They immediately shut the door and said, "Don't open this."  Getting this far has not been easy in this time of a pandemic, but we are making some progress. Who knows, maybe by summer we will have a new refrigerator.  The garage fridge, for now, while limited in space, seems to be working just fine. Ice cubes, however, are a distant memory, a luxury from a another age.  

Tyler and I still refer to tacca meat and rat cheese when discussing shopping or cooking dinner, and when we do, we know exactly what the other is talking about.  That is the legacy of a mother who was a good cook. I wish I could say she loved cooking, but I don't think she did.  However, she took that role seriously, and I am grateful.  

 

 

Photographs  are from a driveway down the street, taken today.  They make me smile.     

   

Tending To the Temple

Last week I gathered, via Zoom, with some friends with whom I studied spiritual direction in seminary.  We have continued our journey together with email and Zoom, and we meet in person once a year for a five day retreat.  Our ages vary from about 60 to 80.  All of us are sheltering in place, recognizing, with varying degrees of humility, that the world does not need us to be out and about.  We recognize that we are fortunate to have homes, friends, and family.  We have enough food, and any health issues are being tended to. As we shared where we are finding meaning now, I again realized the sacredness of the third part of life. Here, we learn to surrender to the life that we have, knowing that God resides in the temple that is our soul.  I am still learning how to tend to this temple with love.

Holy Week has begun.  This year, there will be far less public drama of the vivid story of the journey to the cross.  This just might result in the Jesus within being able to breathe a little more easily.  Surely this will help him and us tend to the Christ among us who still hungers and thirsts.  

    

When the Meadows on the Body Turn Gray 

When the meadows on the body begin to turn 

gray, let your eye soften toward yourself, and those 

who are close. 

 

Let anyone, anything, inside who has driven you, 

let them retire or move at an easier pace. 

 

And where you were once firm, and might have

even said to someone, feel my muscle, or admired it 

yourself, 

 

yes, now look at the way you have become, or will

someday if you live as long as you may want. 

 

Many do all they can to not have to face the candle

going out.  

 

The wonder of my body aging, dying, is finding 

another flame within, a holy eternal 

 

sphere, that will never go out and is more beautiful

than all the form you have known - put together.  

 

When the fields on the body begin to turn gray 

let your hand's touch upon all, soften. 

  

A Year with Hafiz, Daily Contemplations, Daniel Ladinksky (Penguin Books, 2011, page 206)

  

photograph:  San Leandro, April 2020    

    

 

  

    

A Happy Day

This morning Tyler was eyeing the two darkening bananas on our counter.  I said, "I can bake banana bread if you like."  Since the end of last year, as the kitchen was dismantled and re-mantled, I have not quite gotten back into the baking mode.   Yet, there is a big difference between just eating a banana and using the fruit for a bread, so this afternoon I baked.  Such a glorious feeling to chop the pecans.  As I moved the bread knife with its handy serrated blade through the pecans, I remembered a neighborhood friend of my parents whom Tyler and I got to get to know when my parents moved to Odessa.  She had a pecan tree in her backyard, and I can still hear her saying, "If I have pecans in the freezer, I do not worry."  I did indeed have pecans in the freezer.   I am not sure how someone who grew up in West Texas in the 50's and 60's who did not like pecans survived.  They appeared in everything.  Except, at least for my mother anyway, in the dressing for the turkey.  Honestly, I love them in dressing, but I do still feel my mother wince.   

 

Our kitchen refrigerator is still not repaired, so our cold food is being kept in our old garage refrigerator.  As we were shifting food, we discovered some leftover homemade buttered rum mix (sans rum) leftover from Christmas.  I was going to throw it out as our upstairs refrigerator had developed an unappetizing odor, but Tyler tasted the mix and announced it as still delicious.  I decided to use it in the banana bread today.  There are spices that are usually not in the bread, but they are quite compatible (cloves, allspice, and cinnamon).  We had just enough of the butter/spice mixture to both coat the pan and add to the flour, baking soda, eggs, milk, and yes, chopped pecans.  No extra salt was needed as that, too, was in the butter  mixture.  I just tasted the results:  I can taste the banana and the pecans, and also the spices.  The texture is good.  The bread is not too sweet. This will sustain for a couple of days.  Certainly longer than simply eating a banana while standing over the sink, although sometimes that is quite appropriate, especially when being pressured by the dog for the morning walk.     

 

This is the cooking that I was taught and that I love.  How to make the ingredients on hand stretch.   How to substitute when running to the grocery store is not feasible. Now that I think about it, this is what we are doing in our churches.  How to make use of what and who we have on hand.  How to mix all of that together to make it substantial enough to sustain us through these times.  How to taste for the new spice being offered right in our own midst.      

  

Love and blessings to you all,  

Sue Ann   

The Consistency of Love

There are quite a few photographs of Gandhi in Easwaran's book, Gandhi The Man, How One Man Changed Himself To Change the World.  With the exception of some pictures taken early in his life when he was trying to fit into European culture, he always dressed and looked the same.  Just about the only difference was whether or not his torso was clothed.  His attire was of the Indian poor regardless of whatever world leader he was meeting with at the time.  Gandhi renounced the world's so-called values,  so he could more fully love the world. I think this letting go will be one of our great lessons of this pandemic disease. We may need to surrender much, but in that renunciation, we hopefully can discover our core of love.  More importantly, we just might learn to live and reach out from that core.  We are part of God's mandala.      

While we associate Gandhi with non-violence, Easwaren's work has shown me that at the root of Gandhi's non-violent movement was an  ever-expanding love.  Gandhi himself said that it takes practice.  He recommended that we start with our families and then let that love spread. I am reminded of the Loving Kindness prayer (which is rooted in Buddhism) that begins with our own hearts, then to those we love, and then to those who are causing us discomfort, whether we personally know them or not. He and his wife had some stormy times, but he eventually understood that it was she who was teaching him to love through her consistency.  

  

In Gandhi's life and work, I do hear Jesus' teachings, although Gandhi's personal sacred text was The Bhagavad-Gita.  Love is universal; Christ is universal, and God speaks through all traditions and cultures.  Therefore, most traditions have much more in common than they have ways of differing. The journey is the same.  It is a journey to love because there is only love. Everything else is a reaction, usually coming from fear, which is rooted in ego. This morning I am struck by Paul's wisdom in Ephesians 3:14-18: 

  

This is why I kneel before the Father. Every ethnic group in heaven or on earth is recognized by him. I ask that he will strengthen you in your inner selves from the glory through the Spirit. I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, I ask that you'll have the power to grasp love's width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you'll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God (Common English Bible).    

 

Be at peace, dear friends. We are all a part of God's ever expanding love.  I give thanks that your soul is in this world.   

 

 

 

photograph: San Leandro, March 2020