Receiving

 This year during Lent  I returned to the practice of reading a daily entry from Sister Joan Chittister's book, The Rule of Benedict, and I have continued the practice. I am grateful for her ability to interpret Benedict's sixth century Rule for us today.  Like much of the book, part of this morning's passage seems worth pondering before the busyness of the day takes over.    

"Benedict makes two points clearly: First we are capable of choosing for God in life. We are not trapped by an essential weakness that makes God knowable but not possible. Second, we are more than the body. Choosing God means having to concentrate on nourishing the soul rather than on sating the flesh, not because the flesh is bad but because the flesh is not enough to make the human fully human. To give ourselves entirely to the pleasures of the body may close us to beauties known only to the soul. 

Humility lies in knowing who we are and what our lives are meant to garner. The irony of humility is that, if we have it, we know we are made for greatness, we are made for God (Chapter 7, Humility).   

Yesterday afternoon Tyler and I went to the South Bay to have an early dinner with friends. When we left their home, it was not quite dark, but we could see the moon. As I drove up 880, I was struck by the clouds, the moon, and the golden light that seemed to linger. It was as if the inevitable movement into darkness had been paused just a little longer to give us mortals a chance to look up and savor the light. I admit that finding peace and awe on 880 is a rare thing for me. Yet, this morning when I think of those minutes, I believe I was given a gift. I cannot recreate those moments because I did not create them to begin with. However, I can learn to pay attention to the nudge to look up and around, knowing that there are times when the heavens are revealed in flowers, moon, clouds, and stars. They, and we, are more.     

  

image: San Leandro, May 2023 

Stability

I woke this morning thinking of stability, and how easy it might be to lose one's sense of it as this pandemic disease moves through.  Things have dramatically changed for most of us.  These thoughts again bring me back to the Rule of St. Benedict.  Benedictines take a vow of stability - that they will remain in community.  Esther de Waal in Seeking God, The Way of St. Benedict writes of this vow:  "Stability, from the Latin word meaning to stand, means staying still, remaining firm, not necessarily in a geographic sense, but in the fundamental sense of the interior holding firm, refusing to run away, recognizing that we are in the for the long haul and that we will stick it out to the end."   The fascinating, and yes, frustrating element of Covid 19 is that is pretty much leaves us no where to go.  We must be where we are.   

As I continue to practice yoga, I am still having difficulty balancing on one leg.  One evening in class, a fellow student, a former judo instructor, mentioned that she found that most people over-correct when they find they cannot maintain balance. She contends that over-correction contributes to an even greater imbalance. Her suggestion is to just to make a subtle shift in the standling ankle. I believe that to be true, and even though I am still having trouble maintaining the pose, I am wobbling less. 

I think this is a good suggestion for all of us to keep in mind.  If we find ourselves losing our sense of balance and composure, let us not pancic, but first try making some simple changes and shifts.  Stay in relationship with yourself and those you love.  Practice trust.  A friend and I have decided to meet for tea when people can gather once again.  I suggested that we placed that image "on our horizon".  That image, while still distant, helps me to trust that my waiting is indeed holy for it is waiting in God.  I am grateful.  

   

Wait for God, 

Be strong and take heart 

and wait for God.  

Psalm 27:14   

Landmarks

We woke this morning to learn that the refrigerator that we bought a year ago year had stopped working.  It is under warranty, and the warranty company, who seems to take pride in their "24/7 service", has been responsive.  But today is Saturday and the repair company is off for the weekend.   Fortunately, we have a second refrigerator in the garage.  It is much older and probably not particularly energy efficient, but we have had to completely rely on it more than once.  I will say that to lose your refrigerator just as a pandemic takes hold can be disconcerting.  However, we got most of our food shifted with the exception of a nice homemade chicken stock that I just completed yesterday. There were also some pot stickers in the freezer that were still cold but almost thawed.  After boiling the stock for several minutes, as a "just in case"  measure, I  added soy sauce, fish sauce, some lemon grass, and some vinegar (Unfortunately, we had no ginger.) to the stock and then added the pot stickers.  Quite a tasty breakfast, especially when paired with the thawing "potato puffs" that also needed to be roasted immediately.    

   

In times of confusion, I find comfort, as I have since I was in seminary, in a small book entitled Always We Begin Again,The Benedictine Way of Living by John McQuiston II.  It is based on the author's understanding of The Rule of St. Benedict. I have always appreciated McQuiston's straight forwardness, and I find strength in the knowledge that St. Benedict created his monastic rule in a tumultuous time.  Rome fell in A.D. 410, just forty years before St. Benedict's birth. Esther de Waal describes the time as "a world without landmarks" (Seeking God, the Way of St. Benedict, 2001, page 15).  I share the following with you today in case you, too, need a dose of practical reinforcement in our own tumultuous times.  I would suggest keeping ginger root on hand.  You just never know, and it does make a wonderful tea.  

The First Rule   

Attend to these instructions, 

Listen with the heart and the mind; 

They are provided in a spirit of goodwill. 

These words are addressed to anyone 

who is willing to renounce the delusion 

that the meaning of life can be learned;

whoever is ready 

to take up the greater weapon of fidelity 

to a way of living that transcends understanding. 

  

The first rule is simply this:  

 live this life 

and do whatever is done, 

in a spirit of Thanksgiving. 

Abandon attempts to achieve security, 

they are futile.  

  

Give up the search for wealth, 

it is demeaning, 

quit the search for salvation, 

it is selfish, 

   

and come to comfortable rest  

in the certainty that those who 

participate in this life 

with an attitude of Thanksgiving 

will receive its full promise.

      

Photograph was taken in San Leandro today, March 28, as  I paused in front of a house that I have walked by for over two decades.  I have never once seen anyone go in or come out of it.  It appears to be moderately well kept, and this is the rare weed that has shown up in the yard that knows no fence. There are still mysteries.   

   

   

Faithfully Related

Some of you may remember that last year I wrote that I believed that to become part of a faith community required a "conversion to vulnerability." What this conversion is the risking of being known in an ongoing relationship with others. My belief in this conversion has only deepened. We are indeed faithfully related. We come to find our common ground in God. This is how we grow into Christ.

"Faith is about relationship. You talk about having faith in someone, how powerful it is when you feel that someone has faith in you, and how important it is to a relationship, and what a gift it is when you put your faith in someone. It is different from being able to define them or control them. So faith is about relationship in this way. It is about being faithful, faithfully related to someone. That means making a commitment, growing in that commitment over time, going through good times and bad times, staying with it as much as you humanly can, or starting again if you stopped. It means eventually realising that the relationship is taking you beyond yourself, beyond the ego, beyond the ego’s attachment to good times rather than bad times, beyond the ego that says, when it runs into a difficult period, ‘I don’t want this; I don’t need this; this isn’t what I signed up for’."

Father Laurence Freeman, World Community for Christian Meditation, November 4, 2018 

photograph: San Leandro, October 2018   

   

Table Manners

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the the endless immensity of the sea." 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery    

  

I so love this quote that came to me via a curious cookbook entitled, "An Everlasting Meal, Cooking with Economy and Grace'" written by Tamar Adler. A less elegant title might be "How to Look in Your Refrigerator and Pantry and create something Tasty and Nutritious," or even simpler, "Have Courage. You Probably Have Enough."  Many people, of course, do not have enough even though we Americans send billions of dollars worth of food to landfill in any given year.  Therefore, we who do have enough, need to learn to cook and savor that enough.     

  

I did not have a picture that showed the immensity of the sea, but a sunflower in the wind seems to express this idea just fine.   

  

At the Heart of It All

I think I am finally beginning to understand mandalas.  And maybe a bit more about Christ (if that is possible). I am reminded that I really am not photographing flowers, but rather the sacred beauty that is within us all.  

 

Blessings to the fathers, and those who have or have had fathers. May our nation be gentle today. The children need us to be love.   ​

"​

We find this stillness at the centre of the wheel of the prayer, but if we were to try to describe that stillness more specifically every one of our traditions would have different terms. As a Christian it seems to me that at the centre of this wheel of the prayer we find the mind of Christ. We find the person of Christ praying at the centre. His prayer is not words or thoughts. His prayer is pure worship, what he calls worship “in spirit and in truth”. It is pure worship of God his Father. It is this prayer of the Spirit in the Christian understanding that pours out of Him into the human heart, into every human heart. The Spirit of Christ universally has entered and touched the human heart in a non-sectarian way.

​"​

​"​

 The Contemplative Dimension of Faith, Meditatio Series 2012B

​,"  Father Laurence Freeman, OSB  

  

   

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, Part 2

I have written of David and his anger before, and my struggles with trying to be present with him even in the midst of his aggravation. Conversations with him about prayer has indeed opened a way to less hostile ground, and he is even accepting Communion now.  When I saw him this week he had just returned from the hospital, and it seemed to mean something to him that our Communion meal was his first after his hospital stay.  

I think David realizes that he has been starving himself on his steady diet of anger. He is more approachable now, and perhaps he even understands that his complicated disease is not the fault of the staff who are trying to tend to him. I am sure he worries that his symptoms may become even more debilitating, leaving him even more dependent on the mere mortals around him. It is a rough journey that he is on, but I believe he is being healed into the life he has today which to me is true healing. Such a journey takes a courageous amount of acceptance, but I sense Jesus' presence as David takes up that cross.  He is undergoing a mighty conversion to vulnerability.  I pray that he can continue to find the sustenance he needs in a bland diet of a Communion wafer dipped in water as those around him do their best to stand with him in the storm.     

Most of us have very little practice in being appropriately vulnerable. When we do open up a little to God and to one another, relationship that is real and resilient starts to take shape. We don't invest so much energy in keeping the proverbial 'still upper lip.' Honesty, tenderness, and vulnerability go hand in hand - three qualities that are much needed in living with illness.    

   

Mary C. Earle 

Beginning Again, Benedictine Wisdom for Living with Illness  

   

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 ​   

   

Singing the Story

Yesterday when I arrived at the skilled nursing community, the worship team was already in full voice. I was not surprised for they are not shy in expressing their love of the Lord, and of worship and the pianist has a style that is quite lively. This month we have been singing of Jesus, and the frail in particular have been responding with enthusiasm.   

While this particular dining/activity room is really too small for the size of this community (not uncommon now as most skilled nursing communities are dedicating more and more space to rehab), I always give thanks for the floor to ceiling windows along two walls, even if one window does overlook a parking lot. However, the other provides a view of the street so one can see all sorts of comings and goings as the seasons change.  I am convinced that natural light and a view beyond the walls is good for the eyes, including the eyes of heart.  As I joined in the singing (who could resist?), the shy activity assistant who must wear a mask because she did not get a flu shot, did a modest little dance as she moved through the room tending to the patients. One of the old old, raised her thin arms, smiled a beautiful toothless smile, and waved.  The momentum of love could not be stopped even if we had wanted that; it simply swooped in and carried us all.  Ten years into the ministry, I am still deeply moved by how much some residents and patients yearn for and respond to stories and hymns that tell of Jesus' love. In those moments, I believe people are reminded that love is for them, and we come often enough to keep that message alive in their hearts and ours.  I do love to tell that "old, old story of Jesus and his love."*  

   

Above Everything

I wished for death often
but now that I am at its door
I have changed my mind about the world.
It should go on; it is beautiful,
even as a dream, filled with water and seed,
plants and animals, others like myself,
ships and buildings and messages
filling the air -- a beauty,
if ever I have seen one.
In the next world, should I remember
this one, I will praise it
above everything.

~ David Ignatow ~  

* "I Love to Tell the Story," words by Katherine Hankey (1868) and music by William G. Fischer, 1869. According to Wikepedia, this hymn came about while Ms. Hankey was convalescing from a serious illness she contracted in Africa.