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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: friendship

Tonic

17 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in blessing, family, friendship, grace, taste, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

community, connection, gifts of God

JEMIslasMujeres

TONIC: a substance taken to give a feeling of vigor or well-being!

In these days in the turning of the season, when so much is raging and swirling–from the weather to the headlines to the principalities and powers, I often wonder where my energy will be replenished, refilled, kept alive. Much come comes from many of my spiritual practices, all being reformed, in my life. However, I am am increasingly aware of how much tonic –energy, renewal, healing–comes from my encounters–face to face, phone to phone, e-mail to e-mail–with people whom I have been given.

Having lived through a cascade of sorrows among my family, friends and the world in this past season, I am buoyed up by these tastes of tonic through the duration:

  • a piano concert by a friend celebrating her jubilee year
  • a recommendation of a book I haven’t read or a series on Netflix
  • a memory shared about my high school or college days
  • a phone call out of the blue
  • laughing out loud with someone whose sense of humor is as off-center as mine
  • an insight into ways to carry the Light in the midst of a darkness
  • an honest reflection about how things are from another point of view
  • an adventure trying something that seemed a little scary
  • prompts from recollections of things past that gave nourishment and hope–old hymns, former spiritual practices

These sips of tonic bring grace and beauty to the living of days that are so easily cluttered with deeds of greed, dishonesty and stories of pain. They bring hope–“Tis Grace that brought me safe this far, and Grace will lead me home.” They are concrete reminders that the Holy One that I follow and trust never slumbers and never sleeps. and that there are no final defeats.

And so I  take a turn into a new year of life for me in a week, my intention will be to seek tonic wherever it appears, and to savor it, swirl it around in my mouth before I swallow it, and continue to discover the many ways the God is good..to me, to those I love, and to the worlds God created!

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Sanctuary: A Place to Be Heard With Kindness

04 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in community, compassion, friendship, listening, sanctuary

≈ 1 Comment

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Kris Haig, listening, sanctuary

images-1After the marches around the country and world last Saturday, I heard a common theme from those who participated: they had found a safe place to tell their stories and were heard with kindness, even amid packed subways, crowded plazas, and inconvenient travel. Those who marched felt as if their voices mattered in a way that will make a difference. They felt safe, and even in the teeming crowds there as sanctuary.

This past week I retreated with my beloved soul friends who study and pray together the rest of the year. We felt safe enough in the historic and beautiful retreat center to wrestle with Jesus’ instruction to pray for friends and enemies. As we sank into the comfort and safety of that familiar place, as we allowed the wearying and harsh realities of our personal journeys and of the chaotic world to surface, we told stories–of childhood, of early years of mothering, of Grace given and of grief of rejection.

As I contemplate my Word for this year, SANCTUARY, I am recognizing that the sanctuary that I seek and that I provide needs to be a place in which truth can be told and listened to. Year ago my friend Ken Medema wrote these words to a song about the Church: If this is not a place where tears are understood, where can I go to cry? So I seek sanctuary in Holy Presence, in silence, in prayer, and then in words too deep for sighs. But I need it also in friendship–one who will listen without interrupting, one who hears without judging, one can sit in silence while I struggle for words. I hope for someone who can hold my reaction of the day in confidence without needing to analyze, diagnose and prescribe. I long for someone who can welcome my story, even if they come from another perspective completely.

I am called to practice being that safe and compassionate listener, especially this year. Every tragic event is made up of personal stories; every piece of draconian legislation threatens particular persons with livelihoods and loving to maintain. Every wave of change or upheaval affects the arc of someone–in person. I have a small amount of agency by which I can make a political or social difference, and I must exercise that. But I have more power by which I can lend and ear, savor a tale, cherish a memory of someone who needs to tell it and hold it as sacred.

These days I am wearing an ornamental safety pin designed by my friend Kris Haig to signify to someone, “You are safe with me!” I begin with being a safe and sheltered place to listen to stories–simple or convoluted, sweet or horrific, fantastic or dreary. The story of the Holy One who comes in love and compassion to humanity, never to let go, grounds me and gives me ballast when the whirlwind sagas of those needing shelter come my way. We can be safe. sanctuary for each other.

 

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When Two or Three Gather

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in Discernment, friendship, listening, open heart

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

community, Susan Phillips

AlbuquerqueBenchThere is always a gathering of some kind. Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there.” Centuries later some wag wrote a book called “Where Two or Three Are Gathered Together, Someone Spills the Milk.” The truth about living our journey of Spirit is that it is always done in the company of others, and sometimes it feels holy, and other times it feels anything but.

This week where I was gathered with two or three:

  • someone forgot to show up
  • someone attacked another guest who had a different opinion
  • someone interrupted the conversation, over and over again
  • someone was absolutely silent because she could not get a word in
  • someone made an insensitive judgement about a person close to the heart of another

Yet in those and other gatherings there were some sacred moments as well:

  • a friend went out of her way to make sure that the one who could not hear so well was sitting close enough so she would not miss out on the fascinating conversation
  • someone kept his eye out so that he could welcome one who was least familiar with the group practice
  • a generous heart brought the conversation around to shared memories in which everyone could make a contribution
  • someone took care to listen to stories from the old days that had been repeated often but seemed to need to be told again
  • one with an keen eye and a a steady gait came alongside one whose balance was becoming frail

I am musing these days on my journey of Spirit on the ground, which is to say, in my friendships and in my attempts at community. Susan Phillips in her book, The Cultivated Life, (IVP Press, 2015) lists attending to friendship as one of the essential practices that nourishes that journey. The actions that incarnate that practice are : Receiving, self-disclosure and empathy, cultivating insight, calling by name, accompanying through thick and thin, and celebration. As I read them, I think “how hard can that be?” until I look at the ways that I either invite, neglect or reject friendship in my life. Then, I am stunned with how quickly the lists of the hurts and slight arise, as if to warn me off of further risks in friendship. With too much ease I can recall being dropped from a friendship, being slighted in a conversation, feeling wounded at a cavalier remark. And I confess that forgiving generically is much easier than forgiving in particular.

Where to start! I think I need to begin (again!) with some tough realities:

  • distance and time do affect the way I can tend my friendships and that friends can attend to me
  • not every friendship is for a lifetime
  • friendships can morph and change with circumstance and time
  • people are not always mutually drawn to one another
  • signing up for friendship makes me vulnerable to disappointment and hurt, as well as great joy and satisfaction.

With those truths before me, I muse on where I am being called to tend my friendship garden right now. Some of the actions that Phillips lists are habitual with me already. However, I can become more attentive to “Receiving,” less wary, less defended and skeptical. I  addition I can risk expanding my “trusting self-disclosure” to my well-developed empathy. In this time in our world and in our Church, the biggest call may be to cultivate insights into the multi-layered worlds of another–to listen to another’s tales of beginnings and roads of discovery. What I hear will also lead me, with my cooperation, to greater compassion and greater celebration.

Where two or three are gathered together, the Holy One is present. I am cultivating sensibilities to see and to hear that every time I gather with others.

 

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