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A Musing Amma

~ Gathering the pieces of our lives together under the eyes of the Holy

A Musing Amma

Category Archives: dryness

Mighty Clouds of Joy

28 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in darkness, dryness, grace, joy, soul friends, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

joy, pandemic

I hit a wall with this pandemic. I observed the end of Lent, the services of Holy Week and Easter Day on-line with my church community, but I was stuck in my own internal musings. I could give a tacit affirmation to the holy events we were acknowledging, grateful for familiar words and rubrics, music, but could not get in touch with my own heart–there was numbness, blankness, opaqueness. Rather than try to parse it, exegete it, power through it, I decided to let it be and to see what and how it would unfold if I continued my daily practices–those that could feed my own longings and those that could reach out to others, whose apparent immediate needs were so much greater than my own.

For the first two weeks of Eastertide, my soul felt static or gray, yet I felt compelled to start and keep a gratitude list in a brand new journal, open-ended, without lines, with a whimsical cover by Brian Andreas that says, “Grateful today for the Sun & the earth & the memories of what it is to love everything life has brought me.” Some days my lists are mundane, sometimes repetitive. Some days they are short lists, other days quite ample. The practice, which I have done often in the past, was not a magic door-opener to my heart, with all my feelings becoming hopeful and joyful. In listening a friend, I heard her say that she allowed that for her right now, Thursday is just a bad day, no matter what; I resonated with that kind of sentiment.

Yet I noticed toward the end of this last week, that my sights were being lifted, that there were some breaks in the clouds, that the words I was reading were beginning to penetrate, have some meaning. Not every word, but some. I am finding that I have days when I rise with hope and ambition, prayerful and energetic, and then others when I am stuck in amber the whole day. What I do know to do is to observe the practices that daily open a way for Grace to get in–and some days I recognize it when it comes.

This is a time for discovery for me. I have not set out on a quest to learn more about myself and my spirit, but I am noticing things about myself that I would not have recognized. I am tranquil and unflappable much of the time, but in these days when I hear singing of all kinds, I feel my eyes fill with tears of longing, of memory, or wistfulness, of need. I discovered a group of gospel singers a while ago called the Might Clouds of Joy. In researching I found that most of them are gone now, but their legacy remains in recording and video, and they sing and praise and lament in a way that gives expression to my own heart: “”I’ve Been in the Storm Too Long,” “Heavy Load” and “”Pray for Me.” And as I join my heart to their song, I feel some more of the blankness and numbness dissipate even as I weep. There is no denial in their song that trauma in our world exists and has sorrowful effects, but there is also joy and hope and trust in the Holy One as well.

The days of sheltering in place, and rules and regulations continue. There is no date of expiration, which is in itself wearying. But there are also Mighty Clouds of Joy, there are gifts of Grace every day, there are communities of faithful folk who are doing everything they can to protect and care for those who are at risk, and the Holy One who hold us does not slumber or sleep or let us go. I am resting and practicing in that place on Good Days, Bad Days…even Thursdays!

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Points of Sorrow: Valleys and Shadows

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in compassion, dryness, grief, Lent, sanctuary, Spirit

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

grief, Lent, Spirit, suffering

I have been comforted on my Lenten journey to encounter Holy Presence in signs and detours and delight. However, I am deeply aware that I am also daily faced with other phenomena: valleys–of the shadow of death, of dry bones, of tears; and of depths–sorrow, fears and despair. I am of that era in my life where news of death, of troubling diagnoses, of unbearable losses are so regular that they are almost routine. Not a day goes by without another request for prayer–for the world, for the nation, for the Church, and for people who are loved and cherished. And so I travel the Lenten way on a road of mourning as well as rejoicing.

The “valley of the shadow of death” becomes more real to me each year. I have been helped greatly by reading the two volumes by Marilyn Chandler McEntryre for those traveling in that valley, those who are facing death themselves, A Faithful Farewell,
and for those losing someone they love, A Long Letting Go. The author herself, no stranger to grief, gives some perspective, some comfort and some practical helps is the process of mourning:

To mourn is to open ourselves to comfort, which is a unique dimension of love. To mourn is to make our sorrow hospitable to those who are willing to enter into it…Our work is to accept the sorrow, to live it, to suffer it, and finally in humility to let it be drenched in the healing waters of love that come to us from as many sources as we allow–great wells of it, great waves of it, and daily infusions from old friends and from strangers who may be angels sent to walk us through the valley of the shadow. (A Long Letting Go,pp. 84-85)

Part of my Lenten journey is to do this work of mourning, on behalf of those whom I have lost, and on behalf of those who are in the valley of the shadow themselves right now. Yesterday I heard of two more friends who have lost parents, always a turning point in each person’s life. I now know that grieving is holy work, an important piece of giving sanctuary to those I am given in the world.

Others within my ken can only see a Valley of Dry Bones when they look at our world–few life givers, few Spirit breathers, few points of Light. I resonate with that. If I only read headlines, banners and listen to sound bites, I know that dry bones might be all that I could see also. But I feel strongly that even as I look at the Truth, with as much clarity as I can, I must point to and witness to a bigger reality than the current state of things in the universe, the nations, the Church, even in the microcosms of deadness in our personal lives. I believe that in God’s providence, there are no final defeats. Therefore, I plant myself in that reality as a starting place on my Lenten journey, and then pray, as I weep over the Valley of Dry Bones, that the Spirit will breathe Life back into them. I ask also what my part will be in that; to whom do I speak? to whom do I give? am I invited to bear witness in a way that is public and noticeable?

And with those whose losses can seem less tangible, less noticeable, less dramatic, but who like the Psalmist have experienced that “tears have been my food day and night, while people say continually, ‘Where is your God?'”, I am to be a friend listening to their truth with respect and without judgement, and without letting their sorrow become my sorrow, only holding them with compassion and hope.

These valleys and shadows are not the easiest part of the Lenten journey. And once again I turn to a British hymn set to a French carol:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,/your touch can call us back to life again;/fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:/Love is come again like wheat that riseth green.                                               (John Crum, 1928)

I hold this as I continue on my Lenten way, for those I have lost, for those I love, and for myself.

 

 

Personal photo of street art in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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