Traveling

Yesterday evening, on the ten mile drive I make to attend a yoga class, I sensed I was witnessing more aggressive driving than usual. This drive does not take me on a freeway, but rather close to our small downtown area, which can be congested at certain times. I wondered if some of this driving was a by-product of "lotto fever" - the anticipation of great wealth, and the promise of being able to leave the mundaneness of others behind.  Then, on my way home, I paused as a light was turning yellow because I was not certain I was in the correct lane. There has been a lot of construction and temporary lane changes at this corner, and I was approaching it from a different direction and at night.  The driver behind me sounded his or her horn, letting me know that I was in the way.  This driver was not at all in favor of pausing, and I can imagine the frustration that was experienced during the wait for that great beacon of freedom, the green light, to shine once more. 

  

During my retreat last week, I was given a copy of "Welcoming Prayer, Consent on the Go" compiled by the The Contemplative Life Program.  It is described as a "40 day companion for learning, refreshing or deepening a Welcoming Prayer practice, an embodied practice of YES for everyday life."  I am enjoying this devotional, and am grateful to be reminded of the beautiful practice of being open to God's presence, regardless of what is going on (including red lights and slow drivers).  Day 3 happens to be about "afflictive emotions," those overreactions that really are not appropriate for the current situation. When these emotions flare, we can be sure that  our egos are demanding their due.       

 

We often get in one another's way.  Yet, what may be more important is to recognize is that we get in our own way.  We stumble on our habitual thinking, get frustrated, and look for someone or something to blame. Then it is just a short step to begin seeing ourselves as somehow separate from the life around us.  Yesterday when I offered an elder Communion, she started to cry, saying that lately she had been a poor Christian. Somehow, she felt separate from the rest of us who were faltering just as much as she was. I gently reminded her she was loved, and yes, the invitation was indeed for her. She eventually accepted the gift of reconciliation being offered.  Her acceptance was a gift for us all. We could heal together.     

 

 Holy One, give us the courage to think of ourselves neither as good Christians nor poor ones.  Help us to simply take one more breath, one more step, and continue the journey in love.      

 

Let us travel gently today.   

      

   

Journeying On

I received this post this morning from Rabbi Yael Levy.  I have been on retreat this week with some longtime friends, and much of what we have discussed is letting go and being willing to change so that we can be who God is calling us to be today. These discussions are certainly at the heart of what it is to travel deeper into the third part of our lives. It is a blessing to be with people I love as we explore.  

I am leaving the retreat a day early due to a cold.  Not something I readily do, but what I feel I should do, both for me and certainly those around me.   Tyler has been ill as well and could probably use some company.  The days here have been sunny, but this morning the sky is overcast and the air is cooler.   How I love to be in this place called Villa Maria del Mar and to be in the care of the Sisters of the Holy Names.  I also love that God beckons us in so many ways, through many cultures and traditions, through every bit of life, love, and loss. We journey in the  heart of God.      

Go.
Be willing to leave what you know.
Be willing to leave who you have been.

 Take your strength, your support and what inspires your love.
 Leave behind the expectations that have constricted your life.
 
The way forward is unclear,
But as you take your steps the path will appear.
 
And the goal of this journey?
The reason to leap,
To struggle, to let go, to risk?
The reason to rise and fall
And rise again and again?
 
Is to be a blessing.
 
To discover anew the good that we are.
To discover anew
The shape of our blessings
And the ways the Divine can come through us into the world.
 
Go deep,
Reach high,
Because the ways we live matters,
Not just to us
But to all those who will call us ancestor.
 
The path awaits our willingness.
The world awaits our blessings.
Go.

--Rabbi Yael Levy   

  

Now, Please

The following post is from the World Community of Christian Meditation and is something I deeply believe.  I do hope we can learn to love while we still have some remaining days and nights to live out that love.  No need to wait until the last second.  Let's be easy on one another and this beautiful, beleaguered planet.   Have a beautful, loved filled week.

St Augustine said that we can only love what is beautiful. This means that love reveals the beautiful even in things or people that don’t strike us as beautiful at first. How often do we find that as our first impression of someone fades, based as it was on superficial appearances or prejudices, a deeper insight comes to the fore and our response to this person is wholly changed. We feel bad about our misjudgement and shed it. Their true nature is now more visible and we resonate with it from a simpler, truer part of our self. Perhaps this is what awaits us all at the end of life, regardless of how mistakenly we have chosen to live. All our ways of seeing and knowing will fuse in a great healing simplicity as we see God. In that instant of pure perception – of the beauty ever ancient, ever new – we will not be able to resist falling in love, with the love that has always surrounded us. And so we will be saved.
( Meditatio Newsletter, October 2012 ) 
   

Photograph is the front of one of our Little Free Libraries here in San Leandro.  September, 2018

Today's Interruptions Have Been Brought to You by...

I am tempted to say the interruptions were brought by a printer not printing and no hot water.  One by one those were addressed, and yet I still have a sense of unease.  Therefore, I think the interruptions are rooted in  the prayer/poem that I received this morning from Panhala.  As you know, I love Wendell Berry's writing, but this post seemed to strike an ever deeper chord with me.  Perhaps because I love porches.  Perhaps it is the word forbearance which I almost never hear used, and lately it seems so seldom exercised that I had to look up the meaning.  Merriam Webster defines forbearance as "patient self-control; restraint and tolerance."  Oh, for the day...

However, I think my sense of disorientation lies in the first lines, "To care for what we know requires care for what we don't..."  This is where my sense of stirring lies because to me it speaks of that mystery that is worship - that experience we understand, but then again, we cannot. 

This week, I led a simple service in a skilled nursing community. Rita was there, taking time off from work as she always does to spend time in worship with her mother.  Her steadfastness moves me because her mother does not acknowledge what is going on around her, and has not for years. Our rhythm after worship was as it often is: first I greet her mother, and then Rita and I talk.  Both of us regularly spend time in private morning devotionals, yet, we both acknowledge that coming together in community deepens our time spent in community as well as in our solitude with God. This week we talked about how meaningful it would surely be if a community could come together every morning and every evening for worship and prayer.  I have experienced that rhythm in seminary, particularly in my time spent in the spiritual direction program.  For three years, we came together for three weeks every January to study and to practice listening to one another and how we are experiencing God in our hearts and lives. We also came together to pray and sing every morning and every evening.  Once that rhythm settles into your bones, and it does not take long, you are never the same.  You will long for it; just as many of those we serve in long term care long to worship at least once a week.   

 

Interruptions are important to pay attention to for they are often tangible moments of knowing that Spirit is up to something, and that something is generally a response to a yearning deep within us, a yearning that we might not have yet acknowledged.   At this altar, aka a porch in the wilderness (or in the activity room), our hearts kneel and pray at the knowing.  

A SMALL PORCH IN THE WOODS

9.

To care for what we know requires
care for what we don't, the world's lives
dark in the soil, dark in the dark.
Forbearance is the first care we give
to what we do not know. We live
by lives we don't intend, lives
that exceed our thoughts and needs, outlast
our designs, staying by passing through,
surviving again and again the risky passages
from ice to warmth, dark to light.
Rightness of scale is our second care:
the willingness to think and work
within the limits of our competence
to do no permanent wrong to anything
of permanent worth to the earth's life,
known or unknown, now or ever, never
destroying by knowledge, unknowingly,
what we do not know, so that the world
in its mystery, the known unknown world,
will live and thrive while we live.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(A Small Porch - Sabbath Poems 2014-2015)   

   

Sweetness

As we began our first hymn yesterday, I looked around and noticed that almost no one was singing.  I also realized that I had made my way through heavy traffic for over an hour to get there.  So, I made that announcement. I also added that my birthday was tomorrow, and I will be turning 66.  "You better sing with me now. Who knows how much longer I will be able to do this?"  There was laughter and applause (I have been visiting this skilled nursing community for almost eleven years), and a little more engagement after that, probably on my part as well.

   

After the service I began collecting song sheets, and I approached one man who had tears in his eyes.  He asked, "Where does this sweet music come from?"  I immediately had a vision of a human chest with a fountain flowing from it, but opted instead to tell him a little bit about the ministry.  He had mentioned before that he had attended a beautiful seminary on a hill (I think he mentioned Jerusalem the last time I saw him, but I might be getting carried away with images from the psalms), and yesterday I again sensed a deep yearning to return.  He then shrugged his shoulders and said, "But that was 50 years ago. I also went to Aleppo.  Such a beautiful city it was, such wonderful food."  He grew silent and he looked away. I knew he was  seeing a vision that was not mine to see.   

This conversation left me wondering again about the people of faith who are stranded in skilled nursing and other long-term care communities with no day to day spiritual support.  That question is certainly at the heart of why SpiritCare was founded, and I believe we do make a difference in the lives of the frail and those who care for them professionally.  However, I, too have a yearning, and that is to drive less and to be present more. I know this to also be true for those who are employed in the communities, many of whom face long daily drives as they work two or three jobs just to patch together something close to a living wage.      

  

Here I must pause and thank the pianist who joins me at this community. Her music holds us together with a tender thread as she plays before, during, and after the services.  All of our pianists have unique voices, and Spirit always brings them to the community where their particular gifts are needed.  I am humbled by their willingness to share so generously.    

  

I start my 66th year with gratitude for SpiritCare, for the San Lorenzo church, for Tyler and my home, for my yoga teacher, for all of those who have assisted me in the past and for those who are journeying with me now. I give thanks to Jesus who sits with me and listens to my prayers, and then gently lets me know when it is time to go.  I am also grateful for Holy Mother's starry mantel that holds us all in peace even in the midst of storms.   

 

I am grateful for all of you. Come sing with us when you can.       

   

Keep the song in my soul, 

Let it not lose its music. 

Keep the holy in my soul, 

Let it not ignore its source. 

Keep the love in my soul, 

Let it not close in on self. 

Keep the light in my soul, 

Let it not forget to shine. 

Keep the vision in my soul, 

Let it not lose sight of you. 

  

Fragments of Your Ancient Name, 

Joyce Rupp 

   

Surfacing

I have much respect for Teresa.  When I see her patiently sitting in her wheelchair in a community where most of the residents are much older and frailer than she, I sense an admirable resiliency. When I first met her, she told me that when she first arrived in the community she realized she had dreamt about it while she was in the hospital.  Because of the dream, she felt, at a deep level, that she was safe.  This sense of belonging does seem to ground her. 

   

When I saw her yesterday, I offered her a song sheet, but she replied, as do many, "I do not sing."  I expected her to wheel out the door, but she stayed in the room, but kept in the back, away from the group.  However, eventually she moved closer. Then, a few minutes later, she signaled that she wanted a song sheet. 

 

After the service, I walked over to meet a woman who was sitting close to Teresa. Teresa said that Carol was her friend. I was delighted to hear this introduction and told them that.  Then Teresa said to me, "You have been coming here for awhile now."  That is true; I have been visiting that community for several years. Then she said, "I am going to try to sing more." I think some of her willingness to give singing a go was because of the presence of Carol, a woman she calls friend.  Trust, always a welcomed participant, had entered the room and found a place to settle in. 

I periodically share with the people who gather with me my story of almost not accepting the call to SpiritCare when I realized I would be leading the singing. I was convinced that I was not up to that leadership role, but Jesus would simply not let me go. Yesterday, I told those with me that had I insisted on holding on to my reluctance rather than listening to that deep voice within, I would have missed the rich experience that SpiritCare has been for me. I would have missed knowing them.  

My voice is profoundly ordinary. I can read music, but only at a rudimentary level.  I have never been able to sight read.  I know I test our pianists' patience because I seldom think to count. Yet, I am grateful for my common voice.  If my voice was beautiful and skilled, I think people would be even less likely to join their voice with mine.  One of my deepest desires is that the frail and ill use their voice and sing their praises.  Our voices and our faith must be exercised or they get buried by ennui and a sense that our lives simply don't matter anymore.  Once the voice is no longer engaged, isolation, and even despair, can quickly take hold.  These  are forces to take seriously for they are not easily banished.   

    

Teresa's slow movement into the group was wonderful to witness.  The quiet voices that surfaced that day were beautiful to hear. I never tire of hearing rough, shaky voices come to life because I know what I am hearing is courage rising.  I hear Jesus listening, and I know love.        

  

Your ear, beloved Listener, opened wide, 

Pressed to each portion of my heart, my life. 

Attuned to the slightest vibration of my being, 

Attentive to the constant rhythms of my soul. 

You hear the cry in the throat of my heart. 

My troubles do not cease with your awareness

But they soften, loosen some of their grip, 

Become bearable, touchable, endurable. 

If your attentive solicitude blesses so fully, 

Surely I, too, can listen that closely to others.   

 

Fragments of Your Ancient Name, 

Joyce Rupp  

   

As August Draws to a Close

The past few days have been so enjoyable.  It is not that I have done anything special, but the cool weather has been such a pleasant traveling companion.  When I spotted these asters, I knew for certain that September and autumn were on their way. I am grateful.  

 

Today will find me moving some dirt from one area of the front yard to various pots and planters.  A neighbor loaned me his wheelbarrow, a nice old rusty thing that makes me smile every time I look at it.  I have learned that I am not a very good gardener, at least at this time of my life, so I am simplifying things.  Perhaps this is what it means to let nature take its course.  I must let mine do the same.  

  

Have a beautiful last day of August. May we all enjoy our tasks at hand.  

Give Thy blessing, we pray Thee, to our daily work, 
that we may do it in faith, and heartily. 

-- Thomas Arnold (1795-1842) 

 from Spirituality and Practice, 

August 30, 2018