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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: letting go

Lent: Giving Up and Letting Go

06 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in giving up, Lent, letting go, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Lent, letting go, taking delight





I have really wrestled with discerning a Lenten practice this year. I had thought that I would “give up” certain things in my eating habits this Lent, although in other Lents, I more often have added things–works of charity and love, connections, extra giving. However, as today got nearer and nearer, I was increasingly uneasy about that the “giving up” choice, since what I long for in a practice is a window to connecting with the Holy One, not a obligatory box to check off to demonstrate my piety. Through night prayers and tossing and turning, I asked myself what right now seems to be blocking my spirit and freedom to receive and enfold the gifts of God. I had to own that what gets in my way many mornings and nights is my habit of hanging on to the negative, judgemental and toxic, and not allow the good, the hopeful and affirming to enrich my life. Therefore, even though it will be healthy to make dietary changes, that action does not point me to the Mystery we call God. So, back to the Lenten sketch pad!

In the wee hours of the morning these old familiar words from Psalm 37 bubbled up out of my darkness. Take delight in the Lord, and God will give you the desires of your heart.” (V. 4) The challenge to TAKE DELIGHT struck a deep chord in my heart. Instead of prying my hand open to let go of an unhealthy habit, I was being invited to turn my hand upward to receive the delights that the Holy has for me, even the love and affirmation that God has for who I am, just the way I am. I checked with my favorite paraphrase of the Psalm from Swallow’s Nest by Marchienne Vroon Rienstra, and see that she expands that thought even more generously: If you delight yourself in God/ She will give you the desires of your heart…She will make your integrity shine like the daylight/, your beauty glow like the moon and the sun.

So I begin this Lenten season. these 40 days, with a lighter and more open heart, with the question: where do I experience the delight of God–in me. in my location, even in the world? And noticing it, let my heart praise what I see, and then share that good news with those around me? In the words of Mary Oliver: Pay attention, Be astonished, Tell about it. I understand this invitation to be not one of passivity, but of an energy that takes me from sharpened awareness to deep heart praise, to active sharing of goodness with a world that is desperate for hope, healing and grace.

My heart is grateful for the Midnight Caller, the Spirit that brings illumination even in my darkness. May the Lenten journey be one of deepening, widening, opening and trusting for me and all of us!

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Giving the Right Gifts

01 Monday May 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in blessing, celebrations, doing good, gifts, letting go, open heart

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

blessing, children, gifts, Open my heart

for John, Dalton, Sean, Erica Lee, Ezra, Erica Brooke,  (and the March and Fall Celebrants too!)

This Eastertide season (slightly extended) this year is the most intense season of celebrations in our family: 3 anniversaries, three birthdays, a graduation, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, all in a matter of a few weeks. This year there are several banner occasions: 75th birthday and 20th anniversary and high school graduation, not to be taken lightly. And I, as the Cheerleader of Celebrations, get twisted up in giving just the right gift to each one for each occasion, the Perfect Thing!

Of course, out of my wrestling comes the realization that there is no “Perfect Thing” that can be given to each and every beloved one each and every time. Sacred text tells me that the only perfect gifts are given by God. Nevertheless, I keep trolling magazines and websites for ideas that suit the recipient, the stage of life, the need and my checkbook. There is not shortage of wonderful ideas and possibilities out there. It is not for lack of possibilities that I get stuck.

It is my ego-need where I get bogged down; I want my gifts to make the person I love respond with glee, gratitude and to be overwhelmed with this memorable and grace-filled present. No wonder I get jammed up! So it is with relief that I encounter and begin to appropriate the Jewish concept of mitzvah, giving a gift, according to some sources, for the good of someone else without expectation of reciprocity, notice or thanks. WELL! That re-frame the entire endeavor!

I have recalled many of the gifts given in Hebrew and Christian scripture: Joseph’s coat of many colors, the Queen of Sheba’s contributions to Solomon’s coffers, the expensive perfume with which Mary Magdalene anointed the feet of Jesus, the apostle Peter confronting the man who was lame from birth with these words: “Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give you,” and he lifts the man up to full standing mobility. All of them are gifts that have complications in relationships, so I am not the first giver to be bemused in my giving.

What I am am being invited to do in this season of celebration and remembering is to open myself to each honoree–to see him as he really is, to listen to her conversation that gives me clues as to what she longs for, to be willing to share part of my own spirit of love and hope for him, to do what I can, and to let the results and reactions be whatever they are, no harm, no foul, no expectations—just open heart and open hand from me.

I read in 2 Corinthians that “God loves a cheerful giver,” and the corollary to that is the Holy One is able to provide me, the giver with “every blessing in abundance, so that I may always have enough of everything…” So I can go about the business of gift giving without anxiety, knowing that I will have what I need to celebrate my loved one–and others–with joy, with freedom, with trust and delight, despite the price tag, the competition with the other grandparents, the fear of rejection. It’s how I give, not what I give that makes the difference. And my heart is full of love for each and very one, with gratitude for what he and she have brought to me and our family, and with hope that what I offer will be a token of that love and gratitude for each one.

And I can give each gift with a blessing. My late friend Rabbi Sheryl Lewart in her book Blessings for Life’s Journey, gives me some words:

May you feel embraced, enfolded anew by the miracle of your being. May you find the deep purpose of your soul loved and cherished into becoming who you are meant to be… May you be a source of holiness for others, May you treasure and develop your uniqueness and be a blessing to all you meet. Amen.

 

 

 

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Seeing What’s New–through Mystery

26 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in Easter, letting go, mystery

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Tags

Easter, mystery, pilgrimage, signs

StaveChruch

                      for Carol and Dennis who asked…

I am profoundly aware in Eastertide that so much of a faith journey is Mystery. We often recite the Mystery of Faith when we gather at the table for communion: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ is coming again! Yet I am surrounded by a mystery-intolerant culture, both public discourse and in personal conversation. I am very apt to leap to ask the questions of proof, of evidence, or reason before I can be still with the unknowing or Mystery. Yet over and over again, I am faced with intimations of the “Mystery we call God,” and Easter illuminates and poses the challenge all over again. I am comforted when I read from spiritual teacher Esther DeWaal, when she says in her book Lost in Wonder, I try to walk in reverence, taking off my shoes, remembering that this is holy ground, and having to accept that there is much I shall never fully know. (122)

I don’t see myself as a Mystic, especially when I read Julian or Mechtild, yet I have had enough encounters with the Mystery to recognize it when I encounter it. Neither am I a relaxed traveler, although I really savor and delight in the gifts I encounter when I am on a trip. Yet, one day close to the end of a trip to Norway, I was particularly anxious and fretful. We had spent the days afloat on a beautiful fjord, and were headed to a lovely hotel, but the road signs were unclear, and one of our party had a longing to follow a trail to a stave church in Urnes on Sogn og Fjordne that we had not seen yet, a UNESCO World heritage site. Our detour took small side roads, and required waiting for a small ferry that carried only a few cars at a time and seemed to move on its own schedule. Although the day has been full of sunshine and light, it seemed to darken while we waited for the ferry. At last we crossed to the hill and up to the stave church, centuries old, adorned with carvings on its side, honoring its pride of place at the top of the fjord. As we waited for the guided tour to begin, I looked back down the fjord to see an impressive storm gathering and coming our way. Although our guide was winsome and articulate, the Celtic carvings on the exterior wall intricate and mysterious, and the narrative of the people here new to me, my anxiety was focused on the looming storm. The group filed into the pews of the small dark church, and just as we did, the storm hit the building: lightning lit up the gloom, winds pushed the simple chandelier until it was horizontal with the floor, rain teemed down with an intensity that I had never experienced, and we could see and feel the tall staves rocking the building. My own interior distress became gargantuan–because of my newly implanted artificial lenses, I could not transition from light to dark very well, so could not see clearly; the woman in front of me was translating the guide’s lecture from English to Norwegian, so i could not hear. I was sitting in the middle of the pew, so could not get out. I felt frightened and alone. I was terrified.

It was at that moment, realizing my utter inability to save myself, that I gave up, and in an experience for which I have no adequate words, I dropped into God. As I have tried to use words subsequently to relate what happened, I might say that I surrendered to the Mystery we call God. Or that I “let go and let God.” But I had no other resources, and something primal is me propelled and/or allowed me to relax into the familiar Hands of the Holy that would not let me go. I heard no words, no familiar Scripture or image came to mind, but I knew that I was safe and that I would be all right. The Presence was as strong and palpable to me as the wind, the storm and the shaking church.

In a matter of minutes the tour was over, the storm subsided, and we walked out into a sunshiny afternoon on the hill overlooking the fjord. None of my traveling companions knew of my terror, my sense of helplessness, nor that I had encountered the Holy in a riveting way that could be a touchstone for me when I encountered moment of great fear and and certainty. I could not speak of it for a long time. Yet I was changed.

As I go back to that moment, I recall how often I had recited these words from Psalm 139:

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light round me become night,even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, and darkness as is light to you.” (9-12).

That reality had been alive in my body and spirit in those dark and light moments in the stave church at the end of the fjord. And I still can’t explain it adequately, or understand it. Yet I know what I know about what happened to and in me. It is a mystery, and it is Mystery. I pray to keep staying open to the possibility.

What Will I Take With Me?

30 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in letting go, pilgrimage

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

angels, letting go, pilgrimage

images-4What do I need for this journey of Spirit? Stories of pilgrimage dance in my head: Wise Ones bringing precious gifts, slaves leaving Egypt in the dead of night with just what they could carry, Jesus’ disciples taking nothing with them. I remember the old adage, “You can’t take it with you.” But I live in an time and ethos of acquisition, where more is better and one always needs to be be prepared. There is a gizmo for everything and every gadget has its place.

Part of the call of the Spirit Road is the call to leave behind things that might seem to be essential for me when I am snug in my dwelling place, not so useful as I journey. Airplanes are making sure that we observe the limits of overload as we take flight from here to there. So they push me to travel lightly, with just what is necessary. On this leg of the journey of Spirit I am pondering what that is.

This week I am getting ready to go on retreat; I am leading the retreat and the pull of habit on me is to add just one more thing—to my basket of books, to my bag of surprises, to my words of inspiration. My shelves are lined with such wisdom, and my closets are overflowing with images and sounds I have saved for just the right time. And I have been sure that I need to shop for one more perfect thing. Yet, as the day of leaving gets closer, I am being directed to leaving some of those “darlings” behind, and to carry just what is necessary.

For this retreat only one thing is necessary: that I trust the movement of the Spirit in me and in the other retreatants. We have read the same book, are at home in sacred Hebrew and Christian scripture. Over 8 years of retreating together and meeting monthly for 10, we bring listening ears, perceptive eyes and open hearts. We bring memories of where we have been and the ways that the Spirit has met us.We also bring hope for what will be done in us and through us. We tote gentle songs in our voices, images in our imaginations and acute sensory awareness for all that will await us. This is the work of the Spirit!

So, I can travel lightly, unencumbered by the anxiety of needing to have thought of everything, free from the worry of covering every base, open to what the wind of the Spirit will blow into our midst. I will still have a few bags in my car, carrying a few things that remind me of the ways that Spirit Grace has brought me safely thus far. And I will bring a Word that has been blossoming me over these weeks of preparation.

However, I can travel with freedom–knowing Who goes with me and with whom I will celebrate and worship. G. K. Chesterton has said, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”  Toward this retreat I would be one who flies…taking myself lightly and presuming on the mercy of the Spirit who lets me fly!

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