I am following a Lenten Guide that uses the work of the artist Henri Matisse to point me in a direction of seeing and acting by assigning a color for each week! This week the color is GREEN.
The commentator writes:the green of wilderness, of growth, of new leaves, of new life. (SALT. 2023)
So the Lenten week I am trying to notice what is Green. Some it is obvious:
the nature preserve I visited yesterday is resplendent with every hue and shade of Green possible after rain
in the sanctuary of Sunday Green winked our from chancel flowers, choir stalls, and stained glasss windows
Refrains of songs once loved bubble up:
“Green, Green, it’s Green they say on the far side of the hill”
“Now the Green blade rises…wheat arising green”
and “who but my Lady Greensleeves!”
Hildegard of Bingen says: The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This word manifests itself in every creature.
I have begun noticing what Spirit has Greened in people I love and know:
the one to whom ministry was denied that now has a blossoming, full ministry in a place they never imagined
the grieving one who has found a new community of caring, taking her beyond what seemed to be the due of her grief
the one who has taken a step toward recovery where no steps seemed possible.
Lenten Green is showing itself as life out of loss, growth out of barrenness, beauty in wildness. And my response is to burst forth with praise.
I know there is a shadow to Green. Kermit of Sesame Street has reminded me over and over that “It’s not easy being Green!” In common parlance, Green is often associated with Envy. If I am honest, in this Lenten season, I admit that the presence of envy in my life needs attending, even repentance, something to notice and bring into my Lenten prayer.
As I allow the Spirit to lead, I will stay in the Green, attending to the ways the Spirit brings life–and Surprise!
Valentines Day has always been a favorite of mine. My first date with my husnand was on Valentine’s Day. I still love the buying, making, writing and sending of cards to people who are special. I have been enriched this winter by the book All About Love by bell hooks, challenged to dig deeper, continued to expand my understanding. A journal of art and practice called Love Never Fails, by Hilda St. Clair, Paraclete Press, has pushed me to muse and sketch more widely about loving ones who for me are not natural to love. I hear with clarity the charge from the bookoof Ephesians 5:2: walk in love!
I offer here my musings for this Day of Loving and Walking:
I am walking in love today with memories or persons, place and thing that have brought me joy.
I am walking today is love with all the Big Personalities that make up my family, and the trails. the fields and sea lanes they invite me to explore.
I am walking in love today with new friends and neighbors who come from different places and experiences.
I am walking in love today with people who offer services that help me to function and to thrive–sales clerks, medical experts, especially people whose skill opens tha way to my freedom.
I am walking today in love with those who are are a distance, whose faces I have not seen fro a long time, but who dwell in my heart.
I am walking today in love with those with whom I disagree, my “enemies,” those with whom I disagree, who bring out the worst in me, those who cause me grief…Spirit. help me!
I am walking today in love with those whose need overwhelms me, and I don’t know how be helpful, kind, or to make a difference…Holy One, empower me!
I am walking in love, in gratitude, for myself, for the One who made me just the way I am.
I am grateful for Love shown, Love felt, Love offered! Happy Valentine’s Day!
This fall I entered a new decade of my life. Advent came beginning a new liturgical year, our calendars turned on January 1,2023, and Epiphany declared again the Light dawning for the world in a new way. Then among our Asian/American friends the Year of the Rabbit or the Year of the Cat appeared. All of these offered a chance for reframing, renewing, re-imagining who I am, what I do, and my aspirations.
I have had some surprises.
First, this is a decade in which my body is the leader! For the first time in my life, I have to check in with my body before I make a decision. That part of me so often determines my agenda, my plans, my aspirations. I can make a very good case for regretting that I didn’t do this much sooner, but here I am at this present age, with a cardiologist, a dermatologist, a dentist, an ophthalmologist, a physical therapist, a general practitioner, all at my beck and call, and ready to prescribe for me what I need to do. Yet what my body actually signals to me moment by moment does not always concur or cooperate with said authorities. Is this an invitation to “push through” or is it a warning to do what my body says it wants to?
In the turning of these new years, I am also starkly aware of the principle of “mutability,” all things changing, all the time. On the most obvious level I am aware that all the local stores have changed hands, all the institutions of which I have been a part have morphed into new shapes, that people coming and going keep aging, often disappearing beyond my ken. Familiar landmarks are disappearing or repurposed.
That reality pushes me to beef up my elasticity, and be willing to let go—of things, relationships, even ideals and sureties. How do I discern which are the “eternal” verities and which are only seasonal, dispensable when I am in a new season, our culture, nation and world are in a new season?
These new locations for my present reality lead me to new freedoms, as scary as they may seem. I am not beholden to a boss, an institution, a system, except my inner accountability, my inner Light. I also am free to keep exploring more and more about the wide world that God loves. With my husband we are reading about pilgrimages, marine biology, Black history, Asian-American experience, memoirs of locations utterly different from our own, parts of the world we will never see. There seems to be no limit!
Under and around it all is something that does not change, an awareness and a trust in the Mystery we call God. Sacred text tells us that the Holy does not change, yet through human history the Mystery had been experienced in Presence and Image and Word of many kinds. So is my own experience of the Holy One, entering a new decade, ever changing, ever new, inexhaustible and surprising—but constant, reliable, and compassionate. That reality for me makes the entering into all the change and decay, newness and surprise possible for me to anticipate, even to look forward to. Here I go!
I have been feeling that this is a season for to “weeping with those who weep,” an injunction from Christian scripture. There is so much grief in the world, cosmic and personal. Then, as I got ready to write, an article appeared in a periodical for Christians, from a pastor, exploring just that practice. 20 pastors gathered together to explore what it means to weep with those who weep in their pastoral role in a time so filled with weeping–global, ecclesiastical, national, personal. (Christian Century, August. 10 2022, Mountains of Grief, Plantlnga, p. 12 ). I was touched and challenged by the very courage to gather together to be honest around such a poignant practice, and was further encouraged by the humility that characterized their gathered wisdom: no bromides, no one-size-fits-all answers, no pat solutions, no spiritualized responses that had been of use in another time and place.
So it was with that affirmation that I began to explore what that charge mans to me–a retired clergy person, who is living with great care about COVID, a threat to someone my age, and someone whose family has high risk health issues, yet someone who still has connections to those from a lifetime of accompanying so many on the journey of Spirit. In addition, right now, I am not given to actual liquid tears in the way I was at younger ages–teens, early motherhood, early ministry. How do I weep for the whole suffering world that God love? for the particular ones I have been given to love in my life?
This week we suffered a loss in our extended family. As in many modern middle class families, we were not close, either geographically or emotionally. Yet, along with John Donne, we had to acknowledge that “each…death diminishes me.” And that for those who were much closer, there was weeping–for what was, for what wasn’t, for “things done and undone;” we needed to pay attention. So how am finding ways to weep, metaphorically if not physically?
I begin by acknowledging that this is indeed a time for weeping. There is loss, there is pain, there is guilt, there is grief. I see and honor that–for myself and for the one who weeps, with the knowledge that each one grieves in their own way And I pray! I pray for peace and a comfort, for a sense of Holy Presence, for resources to be available for the weeper’s needs. Then, I pray for discernment as to my next action to that one: should I call. write, send a token? should I make a gift in memory of the loss? who might need or want to hear from me? would it be welcome or intrusive? If the weeping is for a death or great loss, the words and sensibilities that I might share cannot be words of advice or bromides or explanations, maybe rather remembrances of good times, affirmations and graces. Could I listen deeply and do nothing except be there, virtually or in person?
As this era of human life rolls out in these days of unknowing, I see more and more opportunities for me to practice weeping with those who weep. And I pray that I will be one who is able to respond to that need with trust, peace and grace.
The spring is a season of much celebration and delight in our tribe. Between the middle of March and the end of June this year, we recognized and feted 10+ major events–birthdays, a Big One; anniversaries, a Big One; two graduations, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Easter. I love to honor, remember and focus on each family member and his and her particular gifts and features. However, this year, I felt weighted with trying to be imaginative, loving and economical for each event. I am reveling in the fact that I can coast from thinking/shopping/wrapping for occasions, and just live in Ordinary Time.
To begin with, I had to calm down, let my adrenaline levels and my thinking cap adjust themselves to summer’s pace. The days are not so full, save for the regular appointments to keep body and soul moving in the right direction. People come and go out of town, appearing and disappearing, sometimes without notice, so some usual connections are postponed or added on a dime. Then I began to notice whether or not there was indeed a template, an outline by which I live out most of my days. I do have a rhythm, a kind of routine–awaking, feeding the dog, checking communications on computer, reading the Times, making myself eat breakfast (my least favorite meal!), and then staking out time and place for my quiet practices: brief journal of daily events, gratitude list, reflecting on sacred text, commenting and praying. It is here that the rest of the day takes shape. Often my question is “What do you have for me to do today, O Holy One?”
It is at this juncture that I notice the breadth and length of this sacred space. The day can be wide open–to surprise, to a U-Turn, to an unexpected voice, to a knock, to a trajectory of mind and heart that has been prompted by what has gone before. It also invites me to follow my body–what does it need to maintain wholeness at this stage of my life? And to follow my heart–who has come into my remebrance and imagination that would welcome a touch, a note, a prayer?
Most of all, this spacious time is allowing me to reflect and ponder things that have been left behind, forgotten, slipped through the cracks. I have finished reading the powerful book, Joy Unspeakable, by Barbara Holmes, a journey into contemplative practices of the Black Church. Connections were made for me, new insights challenges me, like lights going off! From many sources I am being introduced to the opportunity of gathering up the pieces of me own life, trying to make sense of them, and see what can be passed on to a next generation of loved ones. I was given a weekly subscription to Storyworth online , in which I am asked a question about my growing up sent by me daughter to be shared with the family. I also have enrolled in an online course in writing an ethical will, another chance to remember and articulate what has bee and is important in shaping the choices I made and the faithfulness of God.
More than anything else, however, I can reflect from the time I wake up and throughout the day with gratitude for this life, recognize how deeply privileged I have been and still am, grateful for the people I have been given, the work I have done, the part I have had in helping others find their calling, and learning all along what is beautiful, true and worthy of my attention and love. Savoring as I remember, letting go of awkward failures and ill-conceived moves that were mistakes, I can open up room for the next thing I am invited to do by the Holy One–“what do you have for me to do today?” I ask. And I feel invited to notice more acutely–the unflagging wall of iris in the front yard, the scampering of the squirrels around the perimeter of the yard and house, the incremental steps of growth in each grandchild, the spirit of a new team coming together at the church I attend, the real time/life suffering of those in my ken, the changes in the neighborhood–all of them places where the Holy resides, to be honored, cared and prayed for in this Ordinary Time.
I have long thought of Easter as one time annual celebration, when in fact this year I have clung to the liturgical season, Eastertide, lasting from Easter Day six weeks until the coming of Pentecost, which this year comes next Sunday. This season is also contiguous with a host of our family celebrations–some significant birthdays, an important graduation, Mothers’ Day, and the opening of parade of visitors from out of state, feeling free to move around the country again.
This year the season has also coincided with a string of tragic and poignant events in the world and out country: war in Ukraine, an early start to hurricane season, long lasting fires, the continuing trajectories, up and down, of COVID, mass shootings, and personal losses, hurts and slights. So to be “eastering,” for me has been to keep learning to look for signs of new life, to dare to risk new life in my own dailiness, to celebrate them, while at the same time grieving for the individuals and communities and states and environment of the world that God made.
My “eastering” observations became the noticing over the whole six weeks of Eastertide of the slow, sweet ways in which life, new life, was emerging in dailiness and usual experiences of those I met (primarily on-line or in written communiques). I saw the process of mourning become one of resolution and deep gratitude. I watched hope deepen, windows of the soul open, new identities claimed, in spite of the grief and horror all around. There was slow healing in body and Spirit taking place. And there was a letting go of “old stories” that no longer were useful. I was amazed to see energy given to finding community, working for justice and peace. I loved the witness of those who are persisting in hope, reaching out to and for those who are ill-treated, neglected, oppressed and excluded. And it all happened right along side the terrible things!
I will honor the celebration of the coming of the Spirit this weekend, but recognize that She has been at work all along, teaching, healing, encouraging, giving wisdom and power. For my part in this turn into this extraordinary, Ordinary Time, I am brought back to this word of wisdom from Marvin Hiles that I have carried with me for many years:
To live sweetly in the bitter day,
toshape beauty among the grotesque,
to exult in the littles and to declare in the midst of brokenness a wholeness that comes now and ultimately!
May the Spirit descend on me and all of us to empower the quiet work of “eastering!”
All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. Flannery O’Connor
I have been looking for evidence of Grace this Lent, finding it tucked away in many of my quotidian tasks, but I never getting too far away from the grief and pain of the world as we are living it now. I have been deeply grateful for the Grace that keeps pouring out, even as I grieve for the places where Grace has not seemed to break through.
Here is my Lenten Lament:
I grieve for the many in this world, in my world, who are suffering with so many wounds, hurts and slights–for the lonely, for the unchosen, for the hungry and cold, for the disillusioned, for the betrayed…and I realize that the list of sufferings in this world are endless. I grieve that this is so!
I grieve for the deep rooted fear, and hate and cruelty that seem so public, so persistent, so pernicious, and I wonder how it gets so deep hardwired a person, in a culture, and pray that it be taken away.
I grieve for the persons so uprooted, displaced and undone by war, by lies, by collapse, by disease.
I grieve for the uneven allocation of resources in this world, where so few have so much, and so many have so little; I lament my participation in systems that perpetuate this inequity.
I grieve for the pain that persists–in body, in mind, in soul, in relationships, and lament the diminishment of spirit that accompanies that pain.
I lament the sins of ancestors–my own and others–who have perpetuated racism, sexism, elitism, exceptionalism, and all other forms of exclusion, dehumanization and oppression, and I pray that I will call out, repent, change my own attitude and behaviors to be more Christlike–healing, including, compassionate, and far reaching.
As I write and pray, I realize that this prayer could go on without end, and maybe it should become a constant part of my prayer practice. Walter Brueggemann calls me to what he calls ‘this prophetic task” to counter our denial and to acknowledge our real losses, both for our connection to God’s world, and to clear the way for Hope to come again. In this second half of Lent, Anne Lamott reminds me that “Grace bats last!” but it does come again. Thanks be to God!
This Lent, on overload once again, I have chosen as my Lenten practice to notice and be grateful for the ways and times that Grace gets in and is enough for me to give thanks and bear the freight of the day. Certainly the world is giving us too much to bear it seems, when war has broken our with grim prognostications, the governmental systems are not only frayed but mired in standoffs, the environment has gone beyond groaning to wailing as it suffers, our institutions seem be coming apart at the seams, and the specter of COVID still looms over all.
So my attention has been pulled back to a favorite grounding text, in which the apostle Paul recounts his own misery, and then concludes that “God’s Grace is sufficient for me.” (2 Corinthians 12: 9).My intention this Lent is to look for, take note, savor and give thanks each day for the way the Grace has been sufficient. It has been more challenging than I imagined, not because the Grace is absent or hiding, but because my own perception, imagination and attentiveness are often underdeveloped. Nevertheless, in this first full week of Lent this is where Grace has appeared:
a first rose has blossomed in my garden
a Mother Hummingbird has reoccupied a nest tucked up under the eaves, and tends her eggs vigilantly
a grandchild moved into real adolescence, with a good bill of health and much joie de vivre
plans changed on a dime, and Spirit brought to me a peaceable flexibility and welcome
my prayer for deep listening and patience to understand another’s point of view were delivered when I needed them
a loved one came though a surgery with ease
a Zoom gathering brought celebration and laughter across both Pacific and Atlantic Ocean
my imagination was sparked as I filled bags of books for those who need them, while letting go of things which once gave me joy and I no longer need
My list could go on for ages. And I was reminded by so many Wise Ones of the ways that my faith continues to hold me in the arms of the Holy One of Grace, whose love never ceases, as I am taught how to love with Grace. Professor Kate Bowler brought me this reminder in her new book Good Enough with Jessica Richie; she quotes Thomas Merton here:
To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us–and he has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes the difference.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
I am choosing to notice, to name, to savor Grace this Lent–and to be grateful!
I am delighted and blessed to read so widely in the faith community that Epiphany it celebrated by some as a season, not just one day! The story of the Adventuresome Wise Ones feels so apt in these days of unknowing, grayness and uncertainty.
It is such a season on unknowing, even though we had hoped for the holiday and turning the year be an actual marker of something healing, healthy and new. Instead. the Omicron phase of COVID has been invasive, disruptive and unnerving. Daily plans are upset, promises are having to be revisited, hopes deferred. And I am imagining the post-visit to the Christ child was much the same, going out without not knowing where they were going, the Wise Ones went home by a different route–did they know where they were going? what would meet them on the way? what fresh hell they would encounter? Or was it for them, as it is for us, a daily step forward, in vigilance and trust with flexibility to see how, when and if they would find their way home?
I am trying to be a Wise Wanderer this season, wondering if, at least for the duration of COVID, this is The Season–appointments written in pencil, events canceled, protocols observed, directions re-routed, expectations rearranged. As someone who likes to plan and anticipate fun and joy for the future, this is a big stretch. My grounding in sacred text is more and more deeply: THIS is the day that the Holy has made, I WILL rejoice and be glad in it!”
So today if an appointment is late in arriving, if an invitation is turned down, if yet another appliance breakdown, or another tree in the neighborhood falls over without hurting anyone, or a long awaited connecting venue is canceled, my deep call is to once again see how the Holy One is here is the surprise, and to be one who is open to the possibility off something beautiful appearing, even as it did this last week–a friendly conversation, a bank of birds of paradise guiding my way to a medical appointment, slow, but constant healing in a loved one, celebration of a great accomplishment by a grandchild, a musical arrangement that transported me in amazing grace, a faithful blogger who “gets it,” but still carries on. God’s mercies are new every morning is this season, despite politics, despite the pandemic, despite all the gloomy doom-saying pundits!
And so I invoke and inhale the Spirit of Epiphany, looking for Light, surprised by the road on which the Star led them, and flexible, more and more so, to take another road where the Hoy One leads, the invitation opening up! I am grateful to be on the surprising road! Thanks be to God!
All my senses are invited to join in as this part of the season crescendos…the culmination of Advent, Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day, beginning twelve days comfort and joy to savor. And for me in my rose garden, small but reminding me of the giver so long ago, a confluence of scent, color, softness, awakening to the possibiity of the Light that has come, will come and is here!
The Church calendar this final week of Advent lights the way with Love. Although the promise and vision of Light is increasing each week, I am all too aware of the opaqueness and miasma that surrounds us daily–rising COVID numbers with its Greek variants, standoffs and vitriol in the world’s capital cities, floods and tornados, with destruction and cutoffs shriek from the headlines. Yet, all though this season, and I believe, beyond, I can sense Love lighting up the world, Love wafting through the air, Love softening some of the hurts and slights, Love sweetening the bitterness. Indeed, Love wins!
On Christmas I celebrate with Christian communities the coming of Jesus, the Christ, Love in person. The Love that I have sensed throughout these days of bafflement and confusion comes from that Love. In my small world it has looked like generosity, goods, service and presence given to so many in such places of need, grand and small, in the name of that Love. It has touched folk with gentleness in response to ranting, impatience and grief. It has filled the room with the aroma of patience, deep listening, even to the oft repeated stories, more than twice-told. It has been a taste of the goodness of the Holy One, who has downloaded the Grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
I am as unclear as everyone else about what a new year might bring, to me and to my beloved ones, to my community and my city, to the nation and the nations of the world. But in the lighting the Advent wreath I can see as much as I am able that Love is the only way to navigate the unknown–Love when I deliver coffee bread to the neighbor, Love when I make that phone or e-mail connection to the lonely or limited one, Love when I encounter the service people who come or to whom I go, Love to the agencies and organizations that are on the front lines of distributing resources for shelter and sustenance, Love to my dearest and nearest amid frustrations of changed plans, snafus and hoped denied. And I can reach down into that Love, because I am Beloved myself–by the Holy One in Jesus.
Heedless of the pouring rain this Christmas Eve morning, I am letting myself be filled, in my body, mind and spirit with God’s Love for the world, for me, and am trusting that in recycling that Love, I can participate in the ongoing healing of the world this season and on the days to come. Love Wins!
A Musing Amma 