Category Archives: Hope

3 Gifts of Epiphany for the New Year

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Christmas, Epiphany, faith, Hope, Love, Uncategorized

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In these 12 days of Christmas, I have felt very much like the Little Drummer Boy, singing, “I have no gifts to bring…” or Christina Rossetti in the carol, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” “What can I bring him, poor as I am…?” We are heading toward Epiphany where the Wise Ones bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, gifts both mystical and practical, elegant and marvelous. And I feel as if my cupboard is bare after this season of healing and world trauma. However, in the way that the Spirit seems to work with me, I keep encountering at every turn this finale of the Love Hymn in I Corinthians, King James Version: “And now abideth these three–faith, hope and love…” And I am delighted–in spite of my recovering health, in spite of the losses in the past year, in spite of the predictions and prognostications about the state of the world and what will happen next, I do have those three things; they abide–in me and in the world.

I continue to have Faith. I experienced Holy Presence all through my surgical process and the aftermath, in each step of recovery and setback, even or especially in faith-filled folk who come by me, in person or on-line. I can wear with integrity my ring that holds Lady Julian close to my heart, saying, All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

I have Hope, on which I mused in during Advent, not in particular outcomes or even in absence of chaos and terror, but in that Holy Presence who never leaves us or forsakes us, and whom the author of Hebrews tells us, often has a better idea for our future than we can imagine, ask or think.

And I have Love. I have been given so much love in my life–some of it well-intentioned but poorly executed, some of it unable to show up all the time, some of it intuitive and caring from afar–but I am loved, not the least of all by the One who calls me by name, and to Whom I belong. And Love begets Love; out of the love I have been given, I am free to love those I am given–longtime friends falling on hard times, new friends who need some ballast, those who are nearly ever noticed by those they serve, those who seem to be difficult by character–learning how to pray that they will be blessed and have their deepest needs satisfied.

So on this Epiphany I come to the Holy One bringing my gifts, maybe more truly giving back what I have been given–Faith, Hope and Love–with the prayer that they will deployed in the places most useful, healing the places most sore, and giving Life and Love to a world which seems to have a short supply of any of them. I pray that these gifts will enrich us all in the world that God loves!

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Advent IV: Signs of Hope-Little Ones

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in advent, beauty, body, children, compassion, Hope

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My days of hands-on childcare have come and gone, yet this Advent season, I am surrounded by babies and little ones, in the main virtually, but also in person. Next door baby Benjamin was born, a child with a black father and a white mother, adored and adorable. My peers are almost all grandparents, each year adding more to their tribes–Juliet, Asher, Joshua, Henry, Rosie and Alexander, among others. My hearts leaps up with Hope when I see or hear these little ones. I see Hope that something new and unrepeatable has been created, full of promise, untarnished as yet by the cares and pressures to which we as humans are heir.

Little ones give Hope with their eyes. Their watching everything that is shiny and new, without cynicism or boredom, lights up my own eyes.  If I can continue to look at each day, each person, each flower, bird and tree with the Hope that somethings precious is to be found there, I can replenish the Hope that so often threatens to die with the doom-saying media and the prognosticators of cloudiness.

Little ones give Hope with their vulnerability. They are willing to take love and nurture wherever it comes. There will be a time when they need to learn how to defend themselves, and to put their startle reflexes to good use. However, in the beginning they can trust that when food is offered, it is good food; that when warmth is offered, it can be nestled into, and that when smiles are shining, they mean good intentions and love. I would love to nurture a spirit of appropriate openness, one that radiates Hope.

Little ones are always learning, ever Hopeful that there is something new to be discovered–through their mouths, their hands, their skin–their own bodies. When they are moving as they should, they pave their way into becoming all they are meant to be. I want to keep Hopeful by continuing to learn about the world and those in it. I have had to learn much about my body this past six months, through surgery and accident, but on the other side of those challenges, I have deeper knowledge of how I am fearfully and wonderfully made, how the health of the earth contributes to my own health and how I need to participate in its on-going healing. I have also learned, incarnated in my own body, an intimation of what the senses and feelings are of so many who live with constant pain, suffering and challenge, and it has made me more compassionate and prayerful. And it has made me Hopeful that I can be an agent of healing or solace to the pain of others.

It is not accidental that in this Advent season our Hope begins with a little one, a Child, born wide-eyed, vulnerable and growing in favor with humanity and divinity. I see that it is not sentimentality that calls us to celebrate the birth of the Child, but that it is a statement of Hope. What and Who is born comes to give sight to our blindness, openness to our hyper-vigilance, and learned hearts for our own usefulness and capacity to heal in the broken world.

This week as we move into Christmas, I will be seeing and hearing little ones–my own grandchildren, those in the neighborhood, real and virtual, and those around the world. My own little Sadie who looks at me so intently in the photo above is now eight and a half years old, with personality, vision, intelligence and, most of all, love. And her growth gives me Hope–for her own contribution to the world, for her own future.  She and her brother and cousins, my grands, are Hope for me. As are Benjamin, Juliet, Asher, Joshua, Henry, Rosie and Alexander. What God began with the birth of a Child continues to bring Hope, Healing and Things that make for Peace.

May the signs of hope brighten these last days of Advent in you!

 

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Advent III: Signs of Hope-Harmony

11 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in advent, balance, doing good, Hope, joy

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So much of the Great Grayness that we are living through is covered with noise and disconnection. We read of or hear people screaming, horns blasting, helicopters hovering, sirens klaxoning all through our roads and towns. I long for peaceful silence, and yet there is a hopeful lilt in the atmosphere when I hear beautiful harmony. It is in the old carol’s words, “heavenly music (that) floats o’er all the weary world.”

It grounds me in the promise of Hebrew Scripture that there will come a day with a new heaven and a new earth, where the wolf and the lamb shall feed together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox (Isaiah 65: 17, 25). Things will fit together and make beautiful music together. Most Sunday mornings as soon as I wake, I tune into our local classical music station to the offering called “Soul Music.” For three hours I drink in choral music, primarily sacred, sung to ancient texts of Hebrew and Christian Scripture. Some of it is sung in languages other than my own; some of it offers plangent chords and melodies which cover the words. But the bringing together of the voices themselves–four part, madrigal, chant, echoes–all remind me of the promised dream: Peace on earth and good will to all people.

I practice feeding that dream all during Advent and Christmas. This year so far I have heard Eric Whitacre conduct a holiday concert in the downtown Disney Hall, blending old Christmas songs with his modern compositions. I have heard our church choir sing one of Bach’s less known cantatas, “For Unto Us a Child in Born,” expressing words of hope and trust. In our small group of friends who have gathered for 20 years, as we reflected on this past year and anticipated turning into the new year , we sang in the half-light, “O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer  our spirits by thine advent here…” Then we sang, “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel,” words from the 9th C. Latin, hoping, looking, trusting, as we are trying to do. And the harmonies reassure me that it is all true!

In my conversations in these days, which can so readily turn to despair and bleakness, I listen for the harmonies can keep me hopeful. There is a family widely divergent in their politics whose members treat each other with love and respect. There is a man who has given himself to caring for an aging family member, as he volunteers at his church for the jobs that no one else does. There is a church who provides a community dinner every Sunday night all year long for the seasonal workers who come through the town. There is a community of educators who unanimously vote to safeguard its students who are at risk of deportation. There is a church who goes out on a limb to bring justice and mercy for those who are at risk in the neighborhood.

My call as the music in me and around me brings harmony to the world is to be one of the voices that fills in the chords, that supports the ostinato beneath the solo, that helps the chorus swell with joy as the Light appears, or even as the Hope of it soothes my heart. I  sense I want to be one of the angels that the carol sings about and let the Hope  in harmony fill me:

And you beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,/ who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,/ look now for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing:/ O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing. (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Sears.)

 

The illustration is taken from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

 

 

 

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Advent II: Signs of Hope–Lights

04 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in advent, Hope, Light, paying attention

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My Hope continues to need prompts. The scent and blossom of the rose give me cues, and this week the Light in the semi-dark expands my repertoire of signs. I love our Advent Candles, plopped down in the midst of closed blinds, rumpled couch covers, and uncertain plans. The world hovers with great grayness, disheveled-ness and despair. But in Advent someone keeps lighting a Light!

The Gospeller records: What has come into being in him was Life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:3b-5)

How much I am looking for points of Light, as a former president phrases it! And I have noticed and felt them. As I am being treated in physical therapy, my healer tells me a story of Thanksgiving largesse, spontaneous, imaginative and far ranging, with compassion, kindness and long-lasting effect. In hearing about the death of  long-time saint of God, I also hear an outpouring of times and places where her milk of human kindness was served to so many with energy, intelligence, imagination and love. A community observes the anniversary of a horrendous act or terror, and despite the deep wounds that will leave scars forever, as individuals and clusters, they pray, they witness, they improve methods of protection and they support one another.

I am grateful for each voice and pen that shows a way to light the Light in Hope in this Advent season: for each prophetic pastor who speaks the Truth in Love, for each blogger who does not sink into hand-wringing or indulge in diatribes or leap to ad hominem assaults of shame and blame, for each commentator whose voice is that of the turtle-dove rather than the hawk. I receive Hope in each conversation in which the darkness is not denied, but pragmatic steps to turn the Light on are offered–writing letters to people in power; bringing in the trash cans of an elderly neighbor; giving to food programs, blood banks and toy drives. Not any of them alone bring the Light of Hope to full blaze, but each little Light reflects the Light of Life, and gives Hope.

I will keep my eyes open for points of Light this week: in the concert hall, in the shopping center, in the general stores and specialty stores, in the coffee shops, in my living room, in my inbox, on the phone, on Facebook, in the mail. And then I will ask myself where I can bring the Light of Hope–next door? down the block? across the street? to the food bank? to the start-up in service of the frail? to this particular conversation in which I find myself? If the Light is shining, it needs to shine in me, through me, with all my limitations, opportunities, and affections. And I am humming in Hope from the Iona Community, “Kindle a flame to lighten the dark, and take all fear away, ” flexing my Hope muscles in belief that the Light cannot be extinguished

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Advent 1: Signs of Hope-A Rose

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in advent, beauty, Hope, rose, Uncategorized

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I am not very adept at Hope. It has always been ephemeral in my repertoire of spiritual practices, and has seemed to lead to disappointment, were it to be too firmly attached to a particular outcome. So for a long time I gave up Hope as an active spiritual practice in favor of wishing and/or being realistic. Yet in this year of all years I need Hope. An Advent is a season of Hope…Hope that there are no final defeats, Hope that all will be well and all manner of things will be well, Hope that Christ has come and will come again.

However, the elusive nature of Hope still lurks, and I am thrown back to the Psalms where we are advised not to put our trust in human beings and outcomes, but in the Presence of the Holy One. So in this season of Advent I am looking for concrete images that remind  me to Hope. Today it is the rose. Living in Southern California, which has been without rain for many months, we have as a community been replacing most of our greenery with drought resistant plants. Yet I have kept my several roses, a cherished gift to me from a contemplative sister, for all these years, and even though I am not an adept gardener, and leave the care and feeding of the rose to others, I am continually delighted when I see to my surprise– “Lo, how a rose ere blooming…” as it did this week. It’s the end of November, the temperature fluctuates between the 60s and 80s, and suddenly there is a rose in bloom. And it makes me glad, makes me hopeful, that in what seems like unlikely circumstances, beauty and life can blossom forth.

In the Advent season poets and songwriters have used the Rose as a symbol of Hope. From Hebrew Scripture there is the image of the Rose of Sharon. Eleanor Farjeon sings that “Love the Rose is on its way.” Old Friend Ken Medema invites us to “Bring me a rose in the wintertime when its hard to find…”  It is possible to see an icon of hope even in the bleak midwinter of our own discontent, fragility, frustration and temptation to despair, and the rose in my garden reminds me of that. Despite the drought, despite the bleakness, despite the anxiety, a Rose blooms, and will bloom again. In our living room, a sacred space, we have placed this week three rosebuds opening, bringing beauty, perfume, peace to our gatherings and conversations. When the course of the narratives become dismal and hopeless, I look at the Rose, longer lasting than the course of human events, more beautiful than any scenarios being sketched by pundits, evocative of the One who has come and will come again. I am reminded to Hope!

And I will be continue to be reminded if I pay attention to the garden  where the roses grow. Mary Oliver writes, Attention is the beginning of devotion. (Upstream, p. 8)  This season I want to devotedly rejoice in Hope!

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Longing for Light to Follow

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Christmas, Epiphany, Hope, illumination, pilgrimage, wisdom

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Today is Epiphany, the daychihulyTampa when the Church remembers and celebrates the arrival of the wise ones who have been following the Light in the shape of a Star in the East and now have stopped over that place where the Child was. I do not envy them the journey over miles and years, but I do envy the vision and clarity of the Star that took them right to the place where their hearts longed to be.

In reading one of my gifts from Christmas, Alexander McCall Smith’s The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine, I saw myself reflected in Mma Precious Ramotswe’s self-reflection after her colleague suggests she might want a holiday:

Mma Ramotswe looked down at her hands, folded passively on her lap. Was she getting stale? She looked at her shoes. at her faithful brown shoes with their broad soles and their flat heels. Were these the shoes of a stale person?  (21)

My shoes are not broad, brown and flat, but  I am wondering if parts of me are stale. I do know that when I have been musing on this part of the Christmas season, my heart is lightened when I think of this part of the ancient story of Epiphany, of wisdom meeting new life, of coming into new territory, of being filled with joy. And I have a longing for some of that lightness.

I didn’t make New Year’s resolutions this year, I usually don’t. However, I did find myself praying for Light and Hope, but the prayers were nestled in vows I took long ago when I was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament. In those vows I promised each time I recited them at each new call,  that I would seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love. So my prayer this year has become that I will encounter the Star of Light that will burnish my energy, intelligence, imagination and love, so that they more shine more brightly in me and through me to the people I am given to care for. I am aware that after thirty years, each of those intentions might have become stale–or maybe are just in need of re-calibration after an encounter with the Holy One.

In this decade of my life my energy is not the same as when it needed to meet the requirements of the rhythms of life that tried to balance my calling at church or seminary, commuting, raising children, caring for aging parents and keeping loving alive. My brain does not retain new information, nor does it remember familiar facts with the facility it once did. In some ways my imagination is more lithe and fantastic than it used to be, now that I put it to use only with taking flight with grand-children or hoping for outcomes not constricted by by-laws; that one glistens more brightly. And there is love! Always the Word–the greatest of these, always coming to me from Grace. But in some places and times it has felt more taxing. Weariness in well-doing has tarnished some of that first love; or that sense that one has lived long enough to say with the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and it seems that no new thing to savor, to take delight in, no new face to enchant with affection.

And so my prayer on this Epiphany is that the Star will shine in me, for me and through me:

Star of Wonder, shine on and energize my body and spirit so that I can make the treks over mountains and deserts to offer who I am to those who are ready to receive me.

Star of Beauty Bright, enliven my synapses and retrieve my skill sets, so that I can continue to bring ideas and strategies to the tables of conversation and cooperation in the things that make for peace.

Star of Night, shine through my dreams so that my imagination will be further illuminated with things that my eyes have not yet seen or my ears have not heard, but that add beauty and grace to the world around me.

Star of my Heart, keep the fires of Love burning, stoked and warm, brilliant and comforting, as long as my heart will beat.

In the name of that Bright and Morning Star, Amen.

 

 

Personal photo from Dale Chihuly Center, St. Petersburg, FL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.