Graduation

 I woke this morning from a dream where I am standing in the back of the Kent Mercantile store in Kent, TX. Yes, this is a real place, although it may not exist anymore ( I love that sentence. ) In the dream, I am standing in the back of the store, at the end of the horizontal cooler where cheese, cold cuts, and probably other items were kept. The man who worked there when I was riding the school bus, came up to me, handed me an envelope, and said, "Congratulations. You have graduated from seminary." Interesting. I wish I could remember his name. He introduced me to English muffins. Very exotic fare at the time. I liked them, and him very much.

image: San Leandro, January 2021. I came across this rose shortly after I muttered to myself, "I am so tired of photographing roses."

Gentle Guidance

 "The journey is never dull if we make it in faith. The stillness is never static. And over it all, the open-armed, all-accepting embrace of Christ presides. He is the gate, the goal and the whole way. Our lives are soaked in Christ. There is nowhere he is not." 

This morning, at least for now, I finished reading Web of Silence by Laurence Freeman. I want to share these concluding words of the book for in them I find a universal truth. By all means, if you want to substitute another word for Christ, do so. If the pronouns bother you, change them. I think sometimes we get too wrapped up in such details. Fortunately, meditation moves us beyond words and concepts, leading us to understand that our words are meant to reveal a path. They are merely  an invitation to travel together for a while.  Let us go gently, grateful that our compass is Love.   

 

Blessings on your journey. 

   

image:  Villa Maria del Mar, October 2021 . This is certainly not a perfect photograph, but it always makes me smile. 

 

The Generous Gardner

 My neighbor closed her Chinese restaurant a few years ago. When she was running the restaurant, I would generally see her when one or both of us were in our cars. Now, I often see her either on my morning walks or in her garden. The garden is a new endeavor, and she has done a lovely job. Because of this sighting yesterday, I now think  of her as a generous gardener; one who leaves a little something for the bees in January.   

May we all be so generous with the life that is all around us.    

Today is Epiphany. Let us watch for the wise ones as they pass through. If we pay attention, Wisdom will always share her gifts.   

        

"It is very difficult to try to determine what it is that makes a person want to meditate. It has puzzled me over the years. There seem to be so many reasons why people start to meditate. But I think there is only one reason that keeps people meditating. That I think we could describe as a growing commitment to reality."  

Father John Main, OSB   

     

 

  

image: San Leandro, January 2022. I had to lean over my neighbor's fence to take this picture so it is not perfectly composed. The bee would not be still, and neither would the dog.  

Epiphany Blessings

 This fine writing is a reminder that we will always create havoc as long as we think that this world is for the taking. Life is not for plundering. We know all too well the disastrous results of such primitive thinking. Let us be like the Magi, and simply accept the invitation to make this journey. May we not plant flags, but leave only generous gifts in our wake.  Let us travel with dignity and reverence, trusting our dreams and the beckoning stars. God calls us ever on.  I am grateful to travel with you for awhile. 

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage,
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
Is the same moment the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
Climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

~ Margaret Atwood      

       

  

image: I cannot find the name of this painting, but it is attributed to the illustrator, Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951).  It came to me via the FaceBook page, Sacred Christmas.   

Celebrating that Christ Cannot Be Boxed and Sold at a Discount

"It's not over this birthing. 

There are always newer skies

into which 

God can throw stars. 

When we begin to think 

that we can predict the Advent of God,

that we can box the Christ 

in a stable in Bethlehem, 

that's just the time

that God will be born 

in a place we can't imagine and won't believe. 

Those who wait for God  

watch with their hearts and not their eyes, 

listening 

always listening 

for angel words."   

    

Kneeling in Bethlehem

Ann Weems      

  

photograph: "Emerging" 

San Leandro, December 2021   

 

Not sure what caused the formatting schism. 

Middling Along

 Tyler and I simply do not agree on Christmas trees. He feels uncomfortable with the idea of chopping them down. He does not go in for artificial trees either. I, however, love buying and putting up a Christmas tree, and I have no issues with recycling them in January.  I have been collecting ornaments since I was two years old. That was when my mother decided I needed my own little tree with non-breakable ornaments so I could at will decorate, un-decorate, and decorate again rather than experimenting with the family tree. While I don't feel the need to put up a tree every year, I do not want to abandon the practice altogether. Tyler and I  compromise as best we can, and he is always willing to string the lights. 

While I enjoy going to a Christmas tree lot, this year I spotted some small trees in front of the grocery store. Not perfect trees, certainly. However, I thought that perhaps a small tree might be easier to manage this year.  I lifted one up for closer inspection. 

"Not that one," came a voice from behind me. I turned to see a man, probably close to my age, sitting by the front door. I see him fairly often, and we always say hello to one another. I smiled, set that tree down, and lifted the one next to it and turned to him. 

"Yes, better, although it is still a Charlie Brown tree." I laughed and replied, "Well, this is a bit of a Charlie Brown Christmas." I turned to walk into the store to purchase it. He quietly asked if I could buy him a sandwich. 

I did not buy him lunch, but I gave him $5 on my way out. "This is for your interior design consultation." We both laughed and he then said, "Give my love to the family." I assured him I would. That is what I am doing now. 

I fear the story of the tree is better than the tree itself. I am not at all confident that it will last until Epiphany, and I am hoping it will not lose all its needles before Christmas. Also, I have learned that decorating a small tree is not easy. I am trying not to open every box of ornaments, but that does take some of the fun out of it. However, this morning I realized that I was not letting the tree speak to me, a step that my mother believed to be critical. I shall try again later today. 

 I decided to put my small terracotta creche on the desk in the dining room, just behind where I sit for my Zoom meetings.  This is the first year that I have not simply set up the whole nativity scene right out of the box. At the moment, there are only two sheep present. I don't know why I decided to leave the manger empty, but I am surprised how much comfort I feel when I gaze into that small, almost empty space. I think I am feeling gratitude that it looks like there just might be room for us all.  

A couple of years ago a friend sent me some lines from what she thought was an old carol. She wondered if I knew the source. I have not been able to find anything other than they appear in a book entitled,  A Way to the Heart of Christmas, edited by Brian Linard. The book has no further elaboration about these few lines:    

   

The middle of the night 

is the beginning of the day. 

The middle of need 

is the beginning of the light.  

      

Advent really is about learning to quietly find our way to Christmas. It is about making room for the Christ who sits by the door. It is about accepting that it is we, not Christ, who have not yet arrived. In a recent post, Sister Joan Chittister wrote, "And now, we all wait, not for the coming of Christ—God took care of that—but for the coming of the Gospel, which we are delaying in the name of God."  Those words are staying with me. I think that for some of us, it takes a long time to learn to live the Gospel. That is why both empty places and community are important. We need empty places to pray, and we need community to help us journey on. 

 

Let us boldly light the candle of love this Sunday and give thanks that we have a place.    

     

The Hermitage

"Every human heart is a hermitage, if we care to enter and find ourselves there in union with all. In solitude friend, foe and stranger are equally known in love."  

Web of Silence, Laurence Freeman, OSB  

 

Learning to meditate is learning to love. Father Freeman also writes, "In that stillness we learn the language of silence, the 'language of cosmic adoration' as Gandhi called it. Like all languages it is best learned by total immersion." 

 It is time to re-learn how to speak in our mother tongue.

Blessings on your journey.     

  

Meditation in the Christian Tradition is held on Zoom every Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time.  Contact me if you would like the link.  

 image:  San Leandro, June, 2021