Category Archives: earth

Lying Fallow

07 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by in darkness, earth, Hope, rest, Uncategorized

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FirstMushroom“I like projects!” declares my granddaughter. But in this past season for me, I had no compelling projects ahead–no big birthdays or anniversaries coming up, no peak events for which I was responsible, no anticipated shifts in my universe for which to get ready. And August, a time in my personal calendar, it was a time to lie fallow.

What happens in the fallow times? The earth rests. My spirit wander without destination. I can observe what is going by, what is coming in, without needing to leap up and engage it. I have learned, however, that the appearance of inactivity in the earth, and in me, does not mean that there is nothing going on. Underneath all kinds of things are being absorbed, processed, re-imagined and integrated. And so it is with me! In lying fallow I have been aware of the changes in the world that keep swirling, some affecting me directly, others seemingly far away, yet in the web of life still touching me.  While I felt stuck in amber some days, there still have been words, music, images, sensations that have dropped down into my being, beyond consciousness even, that have continued to shape and nourish me.

The fallow season for me is over–all grand-kids are back in school, the church has its homecoming, the scorching heat has abated somewhat, and the regular gathering of my soul friends resumes. It’s time to assess “projects,” to plan holidays. to reconsider commitments for the year ahead. What I am discovering is that from  the fallowness, things are popping up, like the mushroom, unexpected, unplanned, unimagined. New perspectives, new energies, new visions are latent or explicit as the projects of this next season unfold.

I rely on two things from my spiritual journey that sustain me and help me understand this season I have just lived through. One is that in the Providence of the Holy, nothing is wasted. When it looked to me like nothing was going on, the Heart-knower was at work in a subterranean way, creating me energy, imagination and love. Beyond that is my trust that the Holy One never slumbers or sleeps, even in my states of amber or my seasons of lying fallow. For these truth, I am deeply grateful! I am ready to begin my “projects” again!

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Christmas Joy!

25 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in beauty, Christmas, earth, gratitude, joy, Light

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Anne Sexton proclaims that there is Joy in all! What more evidence can there be than the blossoming of five irises, with at least five to come amid the long-desired rainfall that appeared in these last days of Advent! Christmas comes replete with tidings of comfort and Joy in the arrival of the Baby Jesus, who at this celebrated moment is only a hope, a possibility and a dream! And I have done all that I can, both to make my beloved ones comfortable and Joyful, and to enter into the Joy myself, sometimes with mixed success. Yet the signs of Hope throughout Advent have kept pushing me to stay awake to the places and ways which, in the words of C, S. Lewis, “…cheerfulness keeps breaking in!”

The signs and the blooms of Joy on this day are everywhere–children singing loudly, even on key, the old Christmas carols with open hearts and wide eyes; thoughtful and prophetic pastors who don’t settle for the same old/same old messages and routine; caring friends who acknowledge my limitations this year, and come round in message or person anyway; posts from those who are feeding the hungry, expanding their giving on behalf of the vulnerable, writing and marching for both justice and mercy for the little ones.

Yet, many among my acquaintances want to make sure that I know that there are many for whom Joy is not readily accessible, and I am deeply aware of that. Hospitalizations, freak accidents, sudden losses, fractures of personal connections that can’t seem to heal, all make Joy a slippery commodity. And the “weary world!” Good grief! what can we say to the callousness, the arrogance, the brutality and the self-absorption that makes up the Slough of Despond through which we are muddling these days!

I submit once again the Joy–the Joy that is heralded by the angels–is not connected to the era in which we live, the location we inhabit, our status within or without families, even our body’s frailty. It is a gift from the Holy One, reflecting that above, around and through all we are created by God. The write of the Psalms remind us that in Holy Presence is fullness of Joy (Psalm 16:11). Two themes go throughout sacred testament–1) Joy is gift of God, even as it was when Christ was born, and 2) humans have the capacity to choose it, even when they are in dire straits and unhappy. I cannot choose for anyone else, but  I can make it my aim in my quest to keep the Light shining to choose joy. Karl Barth says, ” Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”

And so on this Christmas Day I again commit myself to choosing and practicing Joy–in the healing process my body is in, in the disappointment in what people do and don’t do, among the miasma of doomsday prognosticators–Joy because in Holy Presence is fullness of joy, and Christmas comes to tell me that the Christ will never leave or forsake. That belief and ground in Joy is what keeps me centered when I am called to lobby for mercy for the poor, to protest injustice for the displaced, to advocate for those who do not have the privilege I have as a white, heterosexual person with education. .

Joy to the world…God has come and given me power to share and spread that Joy!

 

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The Green Spirit

15 Sunday May 2016

Posted by in blessing, creation, earth, gratitude, Mystery, reflection, refreshment, renewal, Spirit

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images-4And so Pentecost comes! Traditionally the liturgical colors are red with yellow, reflecting the fire that alighted on the heads of the faithful in Act’s story of that event, signifying the illumination and power of the Holy Spirit. But Maren Tirabassi, contemporary liturgist and prophet, has called our attention to the fact that in some circumstances, this year, for instance, flame and wind are not positive and encouraging symbols; in the case of the horrendous fire in Alberta, Canada, and in other places around our planet, fire is only a force for destruction and devastation. So she in her winsome and provocative blog, Gifts In Open Hands, has lifted up other metaphors for the Holy Spirit. Her musings immediately pointed me to that earlier medieval liturgist and prophet, Hildegard of Bingen.

From one of her visions Hidegard sees God declare:

I am the breeze that nurtures all things green…I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grass to laugh with joy of life…I am the yearning for the good.

It is the greenness of the Spirit I am longing for this year. Dr. Rebecca Button Prichard in her book Sensing the Spirit (Chalice Press, 1999), says:

The Spirit of greenness is visible in a way that transcends metaphor, analogy and imagery. The Creativity that causes leaves to unfold and buds to flower is the Creator Spirit, the One who broods over creation still. (50)

So many people and places in life I encounter need the greening from the Spirit inside to bring life back, to bring healing throughout, to spring back into fruitful encounter with the Holy and the world. And I feel the need of it in places in me. I often pray that poetic voice of T.S. Eliot, “Oh, thou Lord of Life, send my roots rain!”

I am looking at new plantings of a more drought resistant grass in the small patch of lawn in my back yard. They are bright green as they take root, and they need much less water than our previous sward. They remind me of places where I would invite the Spirit to bring her nurture into greenness–my energy for coming alongside others, my patience for sitting still and listening as the Holy One speaks, my perseverance in doing those things that will bring good for others, now and in the future, my openness to hearing, seeing and sensing what is new. I would love my life of prayer to become jade green, shining and gem-like in its consistency and beauty. I would like to wander down forest green paths of Mystery that I have not yet discovered. I pray that my encounters with those I meet be bright kelly green, sparking with mutual compassion and  appreciation. The colors of all life will be brightened with a fresh infusion of the greening of the Spirit.

After this Eastertide past with equal shares of Light and Darkness in our world, I find myself needing to sing this hymn for Easter and beyond:

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain, wheat that in the dark  earth many days has lain; love lives again, that with the dead has been: love is come again like wheat arising green.

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 arising green. (John M.C. Crum, 1928)

Come, Holy Spirit, green my heart!

Image created by Marcy Hall for Abbey of the Arts

Lent 2: Discovering the Goodness of Creation

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by in beauty, creation, discovery, earth, Lent, Mystery

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As I continue to follow the recommendations of the reflections of Joyce Rupp, I am practicing another the emphases of Celtic spirituality this week–discovering the goodness of Creation. She suggests “listening to creation,” pausing to look at what you see, finding something new to you, and letting creation reveal its deeper meaning. This is much more challenging to me than last week’s call to see God’s presence in the ordinary, in my case blessing each of my children morning and night. I seem, either by nature or nurture, to need to work at connecting with creation.

I have been working hard at trying to engage what Calvin calls the “second book of revelation,” the natural world, and so this invitation to a focused practice is welcome, though not easy. However, I have received a gift that has made the practice more central in this past year which is the installation and blossoming of a drought-resistant garden in our front yard. We chose to embark upon this project for practical reasons: the merciless drought in Southern California has frightened and threatened us all. We have been given standards by which we need to decrease our water usage, and have been seeking ways to be good stewards of the water we do have. The garden took longer to install and cost more than we first estimated, despite the rebate that came from the state government. Yet what has developed where our lawn used to be is a constantly unfolding display of wonder and beauty. Under the tutelage of the marvelous Merilee, a garden designer, we were able to create and execute a garden that not only saves water for our parched land, but gives us examples of the ways that God’s mercies are new every morning, much to our surprise.

It begins in the dark. It is full of surprise. I am never sure when I go to bed at night what I will find in the morning that has blossomed. During Advent our purple bearded iris on the south patch kept us entranced with a new bloom almost every day, a continual parade of glory from one violet sentinel to the next. Now in Lent the white iris on the north side sheltered by the salvia has begun the same array, one blossom per day; is it marching us toward Easter?

The variety seems infinite. Just when I think I have noticed each plant and flower, another one emerges in shape and color utterly different than the one next to it. What are those little neon green capsules all in a row? What are those tall drapy red leaves in a bush? What color are those tiny florets hiding behind that prominent plant? Creation, when I focus my attention, has more manifestations of beauty and design than I can count.

I continue to be challenged by beauty. I have long known that I am “buoyed by beauty,” a phrase that I read in a narrative describing my beloved isle and community of Iona in Scotland. But my own little clusters of drought-resistant plants in front of my house keeps expanding my definition of what beauty is–not only vivid color, now only shapely fronds, not only striking succulents–but odd outcroppings, angular leaves and open patches are beautiful too. And how glad it makes me.

This week I am taking care to observe–truly, madly, deeply–the creative array that proliferates in my front yard, and ask myself how this reveals the Holy One to me. Calvin teaches me that there is much about the Mystery that can become known in creation. I am hoping that is discovering the goodness that is there, I will also have a deeper intimation of the goodness of God.

Personal photo from front garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Things Bright and Beautiful

30 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in creation, earth, teaching

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ColoradoAspens2014I am learning slowly slowly, slowly, to let the created world teach me about its revelation of the Holy. Somehow my early experiences and teaching left me without the sensibilities that could easily sense God in Creation. I certainly appreciated glorious sunrises and sunsets, loved any place I could get close to the ocean, and delighted in the parade of dogs that marched through our growing family. However, I don’t seem to have the natural affinity for Nature that comes to others easily that is a part of our faith journey–the understanding of the Holy in the natural world, which Calvin calls the second book of revelation, after the written sacred texts.

Two events have coincided this past year to pique my attention and to ground my intention to seek the Holy in becoming a deeper lover of the beauty of this Earth God made, and to be a more faithful steward of its resources. First, partly in response to California’s desperate drought, we have replaced our front lawn with a drought resistant garden last summer. I am sure we had no idea of the complexities of what we were doing, but with the help of a landscape designer and our long time gardener, my husband brought together an array of native plants and flowers that have become a garden of earth grown delights.Iriswelcom6715 Each morning as I go out the door, I am reminded that God’s mercies are new every morning. And I am often surprised: irises bloom, bees hum, the lavender bush is full of tiny birds–wrens maybe?

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small/all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.                    Hymn words: Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848

The other stream of opening awareness has come from the urgent writings about the care for the Earth by theologians, as well as by scientists, sociologists and other people of faith who are stepping up their banner call to care of the earth as part of the spiritual journey. My own consciousness was raised initially by my former colleague, Dr. Sam Hamilton-Poore, in his lyric book, Earth Gospel, in which he creates a four week set of daily liturgies and reflections, garnered from ancient and modern sources, all focused on caring for Creation in the way humans are intended to do. I found that singing and praying with eyes and ears open to goodness of God expressed in Creation began in me a more organic reflection of my own connection to all of the earth. Sam’s blessing for a Saturday morning has given shape to my own reality: May I see the glory of God in sun and sky; may I hear the Creator’s song in bird and breeze; and may the grace of Christ’s Spirit course though me, body and soul. (Hamilton-Poore, 33)

With my soul primed to learn and practice more stewarding of the earth, I have read the compelling books of Beldon Lane, retired professor and Presbyterian minister, in which he lays out both the this theology and his practice of experiencing the Presence of the Holy in nature. In reading a compilation of the essays of Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson, I was further enlightened and inspired by her clarity on her premise that a person of faith mus embrace caring for Creation, particularly in its present crisis. Then, a colleague referred me to Pope Francis’ new encyclical, Laudate Si’, as a gripping and important perspective of the Church in the 21st Century in relationship to the Earth, a document I am eager to read. My intellectual awareness has become replete with ideas and premises that are beginning to re-shape the lens with which I view the natural world.

So as I went away with my family to a campground last weekend, I chose as my spiritual practice to attend as closely as I was able to what was there in the natural world, to watch it closely, and to trust that the Holy One could speak to me through what I was experiencing. In a canyon that led to the beach in the California sunshine, I saw all kinds of birds–bullying scrub jays, swooping ravens, supersonic hummingbirds; and as evening fell, the was a huge bevy of quail walking across the road, then ascending to the sky as a noise disturbed them. I sat in stillness under a bright half moon, and listened to the quiet. And I also noticed the bright red poison oak, and heard about the distressed sycamore trees, suffering from lack of water. One writer from my reading had posited that each particular created thing brings glory to God by being exactly what it is, nothing more, nothing less. And that was the Word for me, among the  variegated array of God’s ingenuity–I am to be myself–nothing more, nothing less– and by so doing, I am bringing glory to God. I can rest, beloved and grateful, in the Presence of the One who made us all bright and beautiful!

Down to Earth

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in action, body, earth, presence, wisdom

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FirstMushroom15LastIrises15All of my life of the Spirit takes place in my body planted in the physical world where I am rooted. As much as I would love to waft far and away above earth’s lamentations, I find myself often, much like Winnie-the-Pooh floating with his balloon, being thumped along the cold and bumpy ground, because I am a human being in a created body that is made of dust, and to dust I will return.

My intention to be peace is interrupted by an urgent phone call from a neighbor needing assistance. My vision of resting in the Spirit gets cluttered with the trash that the dog has strewn all over the back yard. My song of praise is cut short by the sounds of sandblasting next door. My prayers intended to be incense rising are more often overridden by the stench of garbage spilled on the sidewalk. My words that I crafted to be like apples of gold is a setting of silver are drowned out by the yammering rhetoric of both public and private pundits of politics. How do I keep my attention on the Holy when there is so much that might distract and divert it?

My new drought-resistant garden has been a teacher to me about my earthliness this season. Its variety and its beauty are continual surprises each morning, but not all the surprises are welcome ones. Suddenly one morning, a year after the lawn has been taken out, all the earth in the front yard has been replaced, completely new plantings have taken root, I find a wild invasive mushroom blooming. It is not edible, nor is it useful; it was not what I wanted, but there it is. It needs to be removed. Attention must be paid! The garden is not Eden, it is made from dust, as I am, and not everything that grows there is beautiful or necessary. I turn aside to take care of it before I continue to glory in the beauty of the irises that proliferate.

Maybe this is the next teaching: the same earth that spawned the mushroom also provided the nourishment for the fabulous flowers! The spiritual lesson is to be awake, attentive, and discerning. What is mine to notice? what is mine to act on? what is mine to savor and thank God for? what is mine to prune, to tend and to water? I find I need to be more mindful; I cannot just send up a prayer and hope it all turns out right. My spirit need to act in concert with my hopes and dreams.

In these freshly troubled days of reflection after the murders at Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, SC, I am asking myself what and how do I need to act in order to contribute to a cessation of violence and hatred in this country. Every sound bite I hear, every op-ed piece I read, every pastoral letter I receive offers a different piece of advice. The fabric of this world, this nation, our people is so tattered and torn. I am brokenhearted and baffled. So I am back to the discerning prayer until Wisdom comes.

I also am reminded too that I am earthen–we have this treasure in clay jars (2 Cor.4:7)–and I am limited, fragile and imperfect. So The Solution to the Evils in the World does not rest on me alone. The discerned actions that I will be led to take will be ones that participate in the clarification that it is God who is able to do more than I can believe or imagine to redeem this crisis, both the immediate one in South Carolina and the deeper, more tragic sin and brokenness that springs out of this evil in the world. So we do not lose heart.

As I wend my way though the dusty paths I am called to wander today, I pray for compassion, for wisdom, for courage, trusting the Word of the Holy, that what is required is that I be faithful to the call of Christ to be just and to be merciful, and to be creative, discerning and energetic in living out my earthbound journey of Spirit.