Losing Weight

 

I have been leaving pieces of myself

around for awhile now.

Down by the lake where the old oak is,  

part of me sits quietly among the leaves.  

 

When the sun set that evening last year,

and the ocean and the air

we were breathing turned gold,

the gulls joined us.

They, too, grew quiet.

We all stood there, swapping parts of our  

selves for glistening light.   

Why, once in an art gallery, a whole chunk of me fell off

as the Goddesses of Pink and Purple moved in.  

 

Sometimes, when I feel the flowers singing,

I know God, so quiet, does not hunger,  

But simply waits for our laughter.  

I wonder why we are so stingy.

Let’s give it all away.

Good-byes are happening all the time now.

The heavy dock is wearing out; that is good.

Even a jittery kite can grow

daring like a bird.

Nothing to pack.

We have light enough

Because our hearts are already home.

  

say

January 2019

The Everywhere Temple

​"​For a number of reasons it takes time to come to the level of trust and stillness. First, it is just because it is an unfamiliar state to be in. We may feel intuitively drawn to it but also a little scared of it, as we do when we find ourselves in a new country without the local language and without bearings. The Cloud warns us that beginners in meditation easily mistake the spatial metaphors of ‘in’ or ‘up’ or ‘deep’. It insists that the spiritual work is not done in any particular place. “But to this you say, ‘Where then shall I be? By your reckoning I am to be nowhere!’ Exactly. In fact you have expressed it rather well, for I would indeed have you to be nowhere. Why? Because nowhere physically is everywhere spiritually.” (Chapter 68).

​  

​Father Laurence Freeman, OSB​

 

 

I ​am always grateful for Father Laurence's accessible meditations of the "The Cloud of Unknowing," written by an anonymous 14th century mystic. I have never been able to find my way into the book. I am also grateful for this post because it reminds me of an experience I had in a grocery store this week.  Tyler and I were anticipating having some friends over for dinner, so I stopped at a supermarket to pick the proverbial few things one always seems to need when cooking.  While there, I spotted some yellow spider mums, and their bright cheeriness found their way into my heart and shopping cart.  When I arrived at the check out counter, the young female cashier picked them up to check their price, but then she simply paused and gazed at them.  She spoke softly: "They are beautiful, aren't they?" She then handed them to another young woman who was kindly bagging my purchases.  She enthusiastically added, "Thank you for bringing these to us!"  We then had a sweet conversation about the color yellow.    

 

I found this brief interchange both enjoyable and interesting. These two young women work in close proximity to where the cut flowers are kept.  Yet, in the busyness of checking and bagging groceries, their inherently free ranging senses are held captive by the routine and expectations of customers, co-workers, management, and daily living. I wish I could say I never experience this short tether, but I do, and often. Fortunately, we are given these moments when our boundaries suddenly disappear and we are nowhere and everywhere. Color and light break through, and eternity is revealed once more. 

   

   

Fixation

"(...) to pay attention to someone is to be with them, to be present to them as you are to a friend when they come to you with a problem and you just listen. You might say, I wish I could do something for you, but I can’t. I don’t know how to solve your problem, but I am here for you. I am present for you. That is compassion. It’s not just problem-solving, it’s not just counselling, but it is compassion in action. Meditation certainly develops this capacity for compassion. Stillness is at the heart of meditation in all traditions. “Be still and know that I am God,” it says in the Psalms."
Contemplative Dimension of Faith, Laurence Freeman, OSB

I received this post from the World Community of Christian Meditation this morning. Reminds me of my spiritual direction supervisor of whom I think with much gratitude. She would periodically caution against trying to "get under the hood and fix things." However, this morning we have a refrigerator that is not cooling enough, and we await the repair person who can indeed fix things. All have a place, and we belong. This I experience as the Christ among us.

The temperature is rising in so many ways. Reading Psalm 46 in its entirety seems appropriate this morning. May the peace of Christ be with you all.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.”

The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

NRSV   

Christ Within

This is the essential mystery or the essential challenge too of Christian faith, that the historical person of Jesus, the universal teacher of wisdom, is also present in a way, in a form, within or with us. St Paul says the secret, the mystery, is Christ within you. 

 Father Laurence Freeman, World Community of Christian Meditation

Conversion to Vulnerability

Obedience is one of the vows one who is trying to walk a Benedictine path must be willing to take. The word can be intimidating until we realize that the root of the word is obaudiens, to listen with intention.  Such listening is a practice that is often not done well in our noisy competitive society.  Yet, if our families and communities are going to healthy, we must indeed listen and hear how God is speaking to us, and how God may be speaking through others. That brings up another scary word - submission.   

 

Submission, in a healthy environment (where the intent is cooperation, not domination) means to yield, accept, or make room for other's opinions.  In one of the essays included in Called to Community (edited by Charles E. Moore),  John F. Alexander offers the following explanation: 

Submission means knowing you don't know everything. It means knowing that the people of God gathered know more than you do by yourself. It means being willing to listen with an open heart when the body has the audacity to differ with your views. It means being willing pretty often to try out others' views for a while to see if maybe you're the one that's confused...   

 

That's all submission is - rejoicing that someone is wiser than us, that there are others whom we can respect. That frees us to rejoice that we don't have to know everything ourselves - betting that others know something too.  It's a spirit, an attitude. Out of which grow unity and wisdom...   

 

​When we submit an application, we fill out the appropriate forms, and we release those forms to another. When the send button is pressed, when the envelope is mailed, when the phone call is ended, there is a period of waiting.  Things are usually at that point completely out of our hands.   This is what I am now calling "the conversion to vulnerability" - those times when we actually begin to live into the realization that we must let God be God, and no amount of cajoling or pleading our cause can change things.  Hopefully, in those times, we can tune our ears and hearts, and simply wait. 

​   

For I know this that I shall see your goodness in a living land. 

The path you set me on leads to a place alive with you. 

So whether here or there I shall remain in readiness for you. 

I shall await your every mo​ve. 

​Take courage in God's presence, O my soul, 

wait patiently, yes, wait for God.    

 

​Psalm 27:16-17  

Ancient Songs Sung Anew 

Lynn C. Bauman ​   

   

The Gift

A friend loaned me a book of poetry. I am enjoying the experience of picking up the book, perusing its pages, pausing when a beckoning phrase surfaces, feeling a smile come to my lips, or the release of a sigh in my chest.  While I am grateful for the poems that come to me in email, the tactual experience of holding a slim volume of poetry is surprising me with its rich abundance of sensations.    

I keep coming back to this poem about taking a day off from the "voodoos of ambition."  I also keep thinking that in order to be authentic, I should share it when I actually take one of those days.  Yet, that misses the point. We need to take these moments with us, and share them with our fellow harried travelers.  

The book?  A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver. My friend received it from her friend who lives in Argentina.  Fascinating and beautiful that she would send it from so far away.  She evidently wants to stay very close. 

    

Today 

Today I am flying low and I'm 

not saying a word. 

I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. 

The world goes on as it must, 

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. 

And so forth. 

But I'm taking the day off. 

Quiet as a feather. 

I hardly move though really I am traveling 

a terrific distance. 

  

Stillness. One of the doors 

into the temple.