Category Archives: gratitude

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

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What Love’s Got to Do With It

08 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by in blessing, gratitude, Love, presence

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On this 49th anniversary of my wedding, I am taking note of how Love looks at this stage of the journey:

  • it is honoring each other’s rhythms of waking and sleeping
  • it is helping the other look for the things that have been lost–glasses, the keys, the list you just had in your hand
  • it is taking the puppy for a walk together almost every morning
  • it is reminding each other that this is the day that the trash goes out, the flowers need watering or the tax bill is due
  • it is taking quick trips to the bakery, bagel store or coffee shop for morning treats
  • it is sharing memes from Facebook with each other
  • it is reading aloud from books that nourish and challenge
  • it allowing the one with the most limber back on that day to unload the bottom shelf of the dishwasher
  • it is laughing aloud at the jokes the other tells, no matter how humorous they are
  • it is reaching those places behind where the other cannot reach to bandage, to scrub, to connect a clasp
  • it is sitting with the other as a silent presence when there is grief too deep for words
  • it is taking naps together in the late afternoon
  • it is making tiny things into the “lark of the week,” like getting new passport pictures taken or discovering the way to get the destination without running into the President’s motorcade
  • it is listening carefully to the words not spoken, that fill up the space
  • it is talking seriously about the unknown ahead without undue fear or anxiety

And so much more. It is a gift,  a gift of Grace and Love. We are having a happy anniversary, and I am very grateful! And with e.e. cummings, as calligraphed by Corita, I am holding it with care.

 

 

Blessed is She Who Believed

02 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in blessing, gratitude, grief, Spirit, spiritual direction, wisdom

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I sit each morning at my window that faces east toward the rising sun. Behind and  sometimes around me is an antique quilt, passed down to me by Betsy, my spiritual director of nearly 25 years, who died suddenly on Good Friday. She had been in a process of recuperation for the past five months, and we had spoken a few times on the phone, but we had scheduled face to face appointments for the next three months. Instead of seeing her in person, I will be sitting with her spirit in  the space she blessed for me with her generous gift.

She embodied the spiritual director as a Quilter in my life, taking ragged, old pieces of experience and belief, and with skill and patience helped me to envision and live into my own ongoing present life with the Holy, a wholeness, a work of art. We came from differing faith traditions. Initially our callings were very different–mine in public ministry, hers in intimate spiritual direction. Our family systems were a contrast in culture, size and sensibility. Yet from the start we were united in our quest for an intentional life of Spirit.

I have been musing these past days over all that I learned in my hours with Betsy. With the gospel writer I could say that if I were to recall everything, the world itself would not be able to contain it. However, as I grieve and remember, I keep assembling “squares”in the quilt that was gathered together in the years of our shared spiritual journey.

  • She expanded my perception of the spiritual to include the visual arts. We began by using the sand tray, a tool from Jungian psychology which helps the seeker choose objects in her own arrangement that reflect the journey of the soul. I did not feel at all adept in this exercise, but I did begin to see that the material world could be an outer image of my interior one. Then as I risked trying to express my soul in collage, she encouraged me enthusiastically often pointing out things that I had not observed about where my heart was.
  • She did not use the word Grace freely, but for me, she embodied it. Her welcoming presence, her compassionate listening, her gentle course correction when I got tangled up in my own frenzy, sadness and despair, were all manifestations of the Grace of the Holy One. After a life full of experienced judging and criticism, I found a place of Spirit where I was my longings for the Holy One were accepted just the way they  were; she offered more compassion for me than I was able to have for myself.
  • She was generous with her time, her space and her resources. Often after we met she would follow up with a notation on something we had pondered about together or readily loaned a book or resource. I never felt hurried or rushed in her presence, except by my own tight agenda.
  • She exemplified for me what a spiritual director actually was, not someone who “directed,” but someone who accompanied me as my life unfolded, and helped my see how the Spirit might be at work in and through me.
  • She trusted the Holy One implicitly and explicitly, and knew that “all will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” When my mother died, she was able to companion me in a way that both acknowledged the loss and gave hope for the days ahead. When I wrestled with the unknowing future, she brought a serenity rooted to the Spirit that allowed me to rest in the unknowing.

She often remarked on the fact that we were two Elizabeths seeking a spiritual path in the Christian tradition together. And in her loss I have peace as I mourn in the words of the Elizabeth in the gospel of Luke, who when entrusted with the momentous event in the life of her cousin Mary who was to be the Christ-bearer, sang with joy: Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of that which was spoken to her by the Lord. (Luke 1:45). Betsy believed that she was in the hands of the Holy One in all parts of her life, and her belief nurtured and nourished my belief. When I sit on my couch each morning, I will believe that Betsy’s life here has been fulfilled, and is still being fulfilled in my own. I am grateful!

 

 

 

Christmastide

28 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in Christmas, gratitude, Hope, paying attention

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Angels, announce with sounds of mirth, Christ who brings new life to earth. Set every peak and valley humming with the word, the Lord is coming. People, look east and sing today: Love, the Lord, is on the way. (Eleanor Farjeon)

My usual Christmas season routine was upended by many unusual things this year. I did not get to the anchoring concerts and gatherings that have lighted my way to the festival as I have had in previous years because of commitments and demands that were necessary for such a time as this. However, I did not lose the thread of the coming of Advent that was carried in the words and deeds of those angels who “set every peak and valley humming with the word, the Lord is coming.”

That humming came in words from the liturgy at the Blue Christmas service:

Lord, it is night. The night is dark. let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you. The night is quiet. let the quietness of your peace enfold us all dear to us, and all who have no peace. Keep us in the truth that night heralds the dawn. Let us look expectantly to a new day, to new joys, to new possibilities.   (New Zealand Prayer Book).

The humming also rose from the bottom of the valley of the shadow in San Bernardino and Redlands when courageous and tenacious police and leaders of faith communities spoke and implemented wise words and actions in the face of overwhelming anguish and sorrow. Those communities were testimony to all of us of the way that new life could begin to come out of tragedy.

The angel humming grew sonorous as I heard the personal reflections of those who had emerged from sadness and doubt into trust and into joy, even though they still faced daunting challenges–personal and systemic. And the chorus swelled as grace and peace were carried in on seasons’ greetings from far and wide–some from hilltops, some from deep trenches, but all following the Star of the Light they knew.

I felt some days as if I were inside of a copper prayer bowl whose rim had been set vibrating by the angelic touches that alighted there. I received some personal touches–an affirmation from a former parishoner whom I had not ever known who still remembered my sermons and prayers, a word of thanks for something I didn’t know that I had done, a fresh introduction to the Art of Advent in a lecture and Powerpoint presentation given by my husband at church, and loud and enthusiastic singing of “Joy to the World” with my seven year old grand-daughter. I celebrated with gratitude the faithful, steady offerings of pastors, leaders, caregivers, service people who did not miss a beat with the increased tempo of the time of year, steadily providing what was needed and more to prepare the hearts of seeking to receive the One who was and is coming.

In many years of my life it has fallen to me and I have chosen to be the leader of the band of angels what “make Christmas happen,” as pastor, wife, mother, grandmother and friend. This year my call was to pay attention–to hear what I heard, see what I saw, feel what I felt–as many other angels set the hills and valleys and humming for the season. In these next days of Christmastide, I am living in the echoes of the melodies and harmonies set out for me in so many forms and media, allowing me to muse on the good news that I have celebrated, by reflecting, praying, pondering and savoring what it means. I know that it is life-giving, vision-casting and hope-replenishing.

God has blessed us–every one!

In Grayness

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in gratitude, Hope, mystery, Uncategorized

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In these days of post-Paris and Bamako trauma, I have only known to be still.

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I have not known how to respond in any meaningful way yet. My heart is broken for all who were directly involved as victim, witness or loved ones. My spirit is outraged at all the words wasted on revenge and fear-mongering. My soul grieves for those who are vulnerable and frightened and marginalized. And as I prepare to take the turn into Advent next week, I am pondering how to practice Hope, to be Hope for myself as one on the Jesus Way, and to bring that Hope to those in my purview.

Only a few things surface in the gray stillness so far. The first is to examine my trust in the Mystery we call God. I believe it is no accident that the clearest articulation of words of Hope arise from the ones who have experienced great darkness. The prophets in Hebrew scripture hold out a vision of the God who loves and never lets humanity go, even in the desperation of slavery, wilderness wandering and exile. Mystics like Lady Julian proclaim that “All will be well” against a back drop of civil wars and the plague. Voices rose up after the the Holocaust that have hope–Anne Frank, Victor Frankl and Elie Wiesel. And the most compelling and winsome words of Hope in the grayness of this past week have been from those who do not give up Hope, who have not let terror win, and who embody the Light that the grayness cannot extinguish. Not all of these voices claim a belief or a connection with the Mystery, yet all of them demonstrate a trust in a reality that there is Something More than the nihilism and cruelty on display by the terrorists or by the capital-making politicians who seek to be our president.

Most of them turn our attention to the here and now. Who is hungry and needs to be fed here? what trash on the block need to be picked up today? who is alone and needs some attention or some help? who needs encouragement around me? and where might I need to speak a word of truth about humans made in the image of the Holy One, in all places and countries and backgrounds and faith traditions? Acting in one or more of these spheres bring Light to the grayness, and gives Hope its due.

I also believe it is providential in my own journey that my attention is being called nationwide to our practice of giving thanks on Thanksgiving. I know that when I become conscious of those things for which I am grateful, Hope begins to flutter, to take wing, even to soar. The Linns, writers of the book Sleeping with Bread, tell about the caregivers in Europe following WWII who gave each frightened orphaned child a fresh baguette as she went to bed at night with the words, “You had bread today; there will be bread tomorrow.” Gratitude nurtures Hope in me and in the world.

It is the custom in our local family as we sit down, three generations of us, before we being to eat, to share what we are thankful for today. Over the years of practice, we have shared gratitude for new toys and dolls, for new computer games, but also for shared experiences, for basic necessities of life, for everything that we have been given that makes us joyful and useful. This moments of sharing give us Hope in the moment and with some halo effect for days afterward.

My prayer is that the Hope generated by gratitude will spur me to be an agent of Hope in all the places I am called to be in the grayness of Advent, in the grayness that follows terrorist attacks, in the grayness that faces our troubled world. Now faith, love and HOPE abide… (I Cor. 13: 13a) I have been given faith, have worked hard on Love; this year I am wanting to BE HOPE in my gratefulness, in my speaking out, in my caring, in my paying attention and in my loving.