Keeping America Good

I have often thought that the name of this project might be disconcerting to some as it seems to imply that there is nothing wrong with how America has been going about the business of being America.  This is not the case, and I am not that naive.  However, I do believe that at the core of us all is goodness.   We are not, and cannot be separate from God. I also recognize that I live in the Americas (yes, plural) , and that covers a vast terrain and several nations.  However, I do want to take a stand against the catchy phrase, "Make America Great Again."  That phrase has done far more harm than good.  It has set up and bolstered the idea that there are those who are keeping America from being great and they must be kept out at the border and at the polls.  How can great be defined?  Greatness is an illusion that the ego will tenaciously cling to even in the midst of destruction.  We need to be a nation of good. We are not a nation of equality, and I do not think we have been since the arrival of the European American.  However, I do believe that in every generation there have been those who have been working to establish equilibrium.  Thank goodness the work continues.     

In  Ellen Grace O'Brian's book, The Jewel of Abundance, She writes: 

We live in an awakening world, in a time of individual and global awakening to the great truth that life is One, and that life is God. As life is God in expression, it is whole, complete, abundant, and lacks nothing.  Awakening to this wholeness brings the experience of radical prosperity, or sufficiency, and with it, a new way of living. There is enough for all in God's economy. It is time for us to shed the idea that one person's good is another's loss and to rise to the truth that all can, and must, prosper. It is time to free ourselves and our world - our children and our grandchildren - from the specter of scarcity....

 

We are awakening to our potential to create a prospering world that works for everyone - evolving from an egocentric model of life to a spiritually based one. As long as we remain in the egocentric system, and unaware of wholeness, there will be lack, fear, and scarcity arising from the collective consciousness.  That unawakened consciousness cannot see that we are connected to one another, to the earth and nature, and to God (38-39).     

Mark Nepo in his book, The Book of Awakening, reminds us of the story of Odysseus, who was yearning to "return to his glory days at sea." He experiences a dream where a soothsayer tells him to "Take your favorite oar and go inland until no one has heard of you, and then go farther until no one has heard of an oar or the sea. Plant your oar there and start a garden (335)."  

   

It is time to plant our glory day oars and begin the work of becoming a nation, not of conquest and hoarding, but a land awakening to the call to care for all beings.          

   

#keepingamericagood  

If you are on Facebook, please go to the Keeping America Good Facebook page and click like.  Thank you.  We are a movement.   And please, do not vote for any candidate who claims that climate change is a hoax and that gun regulation will bring about our demise.   

   

    

The Less Efficient Road

I was in a meeting most of yesterday and when it concluded I decided to take the longer way home down 680.  Traffic on that corridor can be quite heavy, but that was not the case yesterday, and I enjoyed the light that shone upon both astonishingly green hills and the southeast mountain peaks that had a dusting of snow.  While I am relying on Google Maps more and more, I do not want to give up following a yearning to go another way that may reveal something new.  God stirs our hearts and speaks to us through yearnings and interruptions.  These should not be glossed over with perpetual routine and strict adherence to plans that may be no longer serving us.    

January is often not an easy month for me, but I think part of the reason is that I am forgetting to leave myself open to the new life that we celebrate every Christmas.  I try to go back rather than exploring a new way of being.  I try to be efficient when in truth, I am not in an efficient time of my life, and I think this is true of many of us who are in the last third of our lives.  I recently came across a lovely post on Facebook, attributed to author Victoria Erickson that helped me to understand where I was going awry:  "We are really not made to rocket straight through winter, ablaze with energy."    This morning as I perused the book, Fragments Of Your Ancient Name by Joyce Rupp, I received this message again. While we in the Bay Area usually have to travel to experience heavy snowflakes, we certainly do know both the inconvenience and the beauty of a wintry season that calls us to pause at the window as the unrelenting rain falls.   

May we not fear neither contentment nor the season we are in.  

The untamed winds of frosted winter 

Cough their way into penetrating coldness. 

Heavy snowflakes swirl wildly everywhere. 

You invite us to witness this fresh beauty, 

To lessen complaint about its inconvenience. 

You speak to grumbling hearts this season: 

"Celebrate the wonder of what is before you. 

Abandon your schedules and organized plans.  

Settle into the long wintry evenings of quiet 

and sip the [cup] of my contentment."    

  

Edward Hays as quoted in 

Fragments of Your Ancient Name   

by Joyce Rupp   

Just a Moment

Having the GPS turned on as I motor home on 880 actually helps.  Not that I do not know the way, but the device continually reminds me that forward progress is being made.  I fret less.  Not exactly a church, but certainly reality.  And sometimes I do remember to pray.      

I love the line, "the minds cession of its kingdom".  I wonder what it was like to have R.S. Thomas as one's priest. 

   

The Moor

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.

Source: Collected Poems: R. S. Thomas  

Plough

   

photograph:  Half Moon Bay, 2018 

May be as close as I get to Wales.  Still, it is a place where I can look and be grateful that the highway could take me to such a place.  

     

    

 

Look Closely

"I look as far as I can into future days, weeks, months, 

Desiring to see what is ahead and waiting for me. 

But my vision is limited and clouded with desire. 

I return to seeing only what is in this present moment. 

I do not need to know that which is far beyond. 

I have only to trust you to direct me, All-Seeing One. 

The gradual disclosure of what is best for my life 

Will reveal itself when the appropriate time comes. 

It is enough for me to relly on your endless affection 

And to listen carefully to your wisdom within me."      

  

Fragments of Your Ancient Name 

Joyce Rupp 

      

I woke from a dream this morning with a message akin to this. In the dream I am being told that  I was trying to look too far ahead and that was causing me some trouble.  There was a female in the dream who put her index finger to her lips as if to say, "Quiet."      

 

The photograph was taken at Half Moon Bay on January 1.    

  

Joyce Rupp also included this quote from Job 28:23-24 

   

God understands the way to it

  and he alone knows where it dwells,

 for he views the ends of the earth
  and sees everything under the heavens.

   

Border Lands

When I arrived at the community, I did not see Josephine.  The staff person replied to my inquiry with, "She is in her room."  I explained that I sit and talk with her every month, and that I would like to see her.  Looking slightly perturbed, she agreed to go see if she wanted to see me.  I prayed that J. would remember my name for her dementia continues to encroach on the territory where her alertness and memory reside.  

She soon walked out, laden with a large Pendleton pillow and a family sized Bible.  She said, rather matter of factly, "They are going to burn my room."   Yes, I was caught off guard, causing me to wonder what the staff person actually said (maybe clean her room?).  I replied, "They did not mention that to me, so I think we are okay. Let's find a place to sit and you can tell me about the beautiful things you have brought with you." I asked her if she wanted to sit on the couch or at a table.  We settled in on the couch.   I was not surprised. It seems to be one of her favorite spots. 

   

Her Bible, published in 1956, was written in Spanish and is entitled Sagrada Biblia.  J. grew up on on the south Texas/Mexico border and I understand she lived in both Texas and Mexico.  She said her mother never really learned English, but J. wanted to at an early age, and she went on to have a very good career in Los Angeles. When I asked about the pillow, she told me it belonged to her husband.  We perused the Bible (one of those wonderful older Bibles that has pictures of the Holy Land, Jesus, Mary, and others) and talked until I was hearing the same stories for a third time.  Fortunately, her room never caught fire.   

   

As I think about it, I am wondering if she saw some footage of the horrific fires in Australia on CNN.  For some reason the tv in one of the main rooms was tuned to that station.  I remember a few years ago walking into a community for advanced memory care, and one of the residents was sobbing, saying something about "the children".  I really could not make sense of it until later when I heard of a school shooting that happened earlier that day.  She probably saw footage of it on the television.  Many elders watch a lot of CNN, claiming the need to stay abreast of what is going on. Too often, I think watching the news is really an attempt to abate loneliness, but it is seldom a useful tool for that. To tune the television to the news in a memory care community just seems thoughtless. Too many of the images are disturbing and often, residents cannot simply stand up and walk away.     

  

J. and I hugged one another as I was leaving, and she said, "You always listen to me."  Alas, not entirely true.  It is not always easy, but always, all of us have to try.  

 Sagrada. To sit with her is a sacred call.  I have spent enough time ministering on these borders to know that much.