Conversing with a Neighbor

Today I saw a neighbor walking his dog.  

I do not see him often; usually his wife 

is out with the beloved creature.  

She and I will wave and say hello.  

However, when I greet 

the husband, as I did today, 

he looks at me and keeps walking.  

Just like he did today.   

Next time I see him, probably not very soon,

I will simply pause and 

look at him.  Perhaps then when 

he walks away, he will think, 

"Ah, now that was a good conversation."   

   

photograph:  

San Leandro, Feb. 29, 2020   

  

A Lenten Primer

I love the phrase, "beautiful boundaries."  Too often, our boundaries frustrate us because we misunderstand the deep meaning of freedom.  The freedom that God offers us is the freedom to simply be.  Our quest to do everything is not freedom, but rather the opposite.  Ultimately, we find ourselves bound too tightly by our ego's hunger, with no room for love.  Lent allows us to practice releasing what is keeping us from a fuller life in God, and hopefully this is not just a once a year project.  God calls us to be who we are, where we are.  A potter cannot create something beautiful and meaningful when the clay keeps jumping around the room.  The vessel will never hold.     

"We can't do everything. In our fast-paced, technology-driven, hyper-connected times, it's increasingly apparent that we can't do everything that comes our way, even if it appeals to us. There is simply too much. We must become 'masters of determination' who skillfully wield the inner sword of discernment to cut away non-essentials in order to focus on essentials. As we live full lives, it's easy to say yes to too many opportunities and not make appropriate boundaries.  Pretty soon our lives are full, but not necessarily full of what truly matters to us. Truly fulfilled living requires us to continually and clearly discern our 'yes' and our 'no' - the beautiful boundaries that support focusing on what is ours to do and letting go of what is not."   

Ellen Grace O'Brian, The Jewel of Abundance, Finding Prosperity through the Ancient Wisdom of Yoga

  

"Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no."    

Jesus, Matthew 5:37

  

photograph:  San Leandro, February 2020   

 

M.'s Miracle

I said good morning to M. and asked if he would like a song sheet.  He gently answered, "No thank you. I no longer read. My eyesight is too poor."  His appearance is of a quiet, composed man.  I asked him if he liked hymns, and he replied that yes, he did find some of them quite beautiful.  I told him that he would probably be familiar with what we would be singing and that I was glad he was with us.  

Afterwards, as I was collecting the sheets and talking with some of those gathered around us, I asked M. if he knew the hymns we sang.  He replied that yes, he knew most.  He looked at me and asked, "Do you believe in miracles?"  I love that question because it opens the gate to what is usually an intriguing conversation.  

"On, yes," I answered.  "Do you?"   

He quietly asked if he could tell me a story.  When he was a young man he spent three years stationed in the Arctic.  "This was back in the time of the Cold War and we were wary of what the Russians might be up to. One day I went out to check on some equipment.  I made the mistake of turning off the vehicle which we were not supposed to do.  When I returned to it, it would not start, so I needed to walk back to where we were staying.  As I walked, I looked behind me to my left. I saw a wolf.  I then looked behind me to the right, and saw two more.  Well, there was nothing to do but to keep walking.  Running seemed foolish and there was no place to hide.  I walked on, convinced that my life was over.  Yet, to my surprise, I arrived safely at my door.  I looked around again, and there was not a wolf in sight. I believe that was a miracle.  God was with me."      

If I could paint, I would paint an image of a man walking through snow and ice accompanied by curious wolves.  Our interpretations of miracles vary.  Yet, anytime we learn to calmly walk with our fears seems to me to be the biggest miracle of all.  When we completely accept where we are, then there is room for God.  Even in the vastness of the Arctic, we must make room.  

 

I look forward to hearing more of M.'s miracles. 

  

photograph:  San Leandro, February 2020

Here We Are

In her book, The Jewel of Abundance, Ellen Grace O'Brian tells this story of being delayed in an airport.  She was, of course, weary.  She said aloud to her teacher who was travelling with her,  "I hate waiting in airports."  Her teacher responded, "The way I see it, we always have to be somewhere."    

   

May we sense Christ with us today, wherever we may be. Let us open our hearts to that healing presence. 

    

    

photograph:  San Leandro, January 2020

--

A Good Long Walk with the Dog

Spring is announcing, "I am again sending my little ones to remind you that if they have the courage to live, so should you.  Bloom in this time."   

   

   

       

  

   

photographs: San Leandro, February 2020     

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