Category Archives: open heart

Giving the Right Gifts

01 Monday May 2017

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

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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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A Tune for All Seasons

25 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by in action, listening, open heart, peace, singing

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Some tunes seem to thread through my life. “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius is one of them. I first knew it as a personal, contemplative song:

Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side./Bear patiently the cross of grief and pain,/in all thy ways, God faithful will remain.

It comforted me, resourced and filled me when I felt very alone.

I then learned the tune as a rousing hymn to action:

We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender/ we go not forth alone against the foe./Strong in Thy strength and in Thy keeping tender/ we rest on Thee and in Thy name we go.

A call action in a military mode, in which my part of the community saw a need to defend ourselves and our beliefs against the enemies, waiting to attack us.

But we are in a different time, a more connected world, with much more expressed pain and rage, a much closer view of what is human behavior at its worst, and a continual call to imagining and being Christ’s peace in the world. So these words by Lloyd Stone and Georgia Harkness fill the tune today, my birthday, when I am in the process of recuperating from surgery, when I am given more confinement–but also more space–to actively and contemplatively give myself to the healing of this world in which I live, in which my children and grandchildren more and have their being, the world that God created, redeems and loves.

..hear my prayer, O God of all the nations, myself, I give thee, let thy will be done. 

When Two or Three Gather

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by in Discernment, friendship, listening, open heart

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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.

 

Advent III: Love, the Rose

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in advent, listening, open heart, waiting

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I flew to the east this past week. I didn’t encounter “weather” the likes of which I hear about in the news, but it was definitely winter where I was. There was no snow or rain, but there were bare trees and gray branches. In my own yard back at home, there were no roses left, no camellias out, not many blooms anywhere.

Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare, one more seed is planted there. Give up your strength this seed to nourish, that in course the flower may flourish. People, look east: and sing today: Love, the Rose, is on the way (Eleanor Farjeon).

This Advent it has been a challenge to see much besides “bare furrows” in the field–loved ones suffer, old acquaintances square off, tribes stake out exclusive claims, and so many just weep in loneliness, frustration and pain. Yet on this third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, the Church offers a rose colored candle to be lighted, both to honor Mary, the mother-to-be, and in an older time, to give respite to the darkness of Advent, by lifting some of the practices of austerity, in hope that there is a “seed” left to nourish. We are asked to give up our strength to support the tiny seed of hope nestled in the ground which seems unforgiving and barren, even when the darkness does not allow us to see what might be about to blossom.

In the twelve days left before Christmas I am turning my attention to the “littles,” the small things that might have a seed to hope in them, that need nourishment from me in order to become what they can be. I am remembering the last days of my own pregnancies, when all the big items had been taken care of–nursery ready, supplies on hand, arrangements made for getting to the hospital. What was left was the waiting and internal preparation. Was I ready to be a mother? what would encourage me, nurture my hope? would there be companions on the way? and was I paying enough attention to positioning myself to access that strength?

This Advent the “littles” I need to which I need to pay attention this year are inner ones primarily.  I have had a long run of attending to “seeds” around me in the wider world, people who have needed care, situations that have needed mending. However, the “seed” in my own heart feels buried and thirsty. So in these last two weeks of Advent I want to give up my strength primarily to that soul work. The sacred text that came to me at the beginning of Advent was this one from James 5:8–Do not lose heart…God is kind and compassionate. But these past weeks I have been moving at warp speed (for me), and I have not slowed down enough to wait with patience to notice the kindness and compassion of the Holy One. Mary was known for pondering things in our heart: I have much to ponder this week. I will do that with silence, with music and reading, with walking the labyrinth–do not lose heart! Mary was known for going to soul friends for protection, comfort and wisdom: I will reach out to beloved ones who keep bearing flames of hope by example and insight–do not lose heart! Mary was willing to receive what the Holy One wanted to give her: I am offering the little seed that is my heart to receive whatever it is that I am being given–do not lose heart, the Holy One comes to you!

Love, the Rose, in on the way–in the little seeds of my life this Advent.

 

 

Open Heart–Holy Week

29 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in compassion, Lent, open heart

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IMG_0422Open my heart! In all the opening to God that I have sought to practice in these days of Lent, the most important one is to open my heart. I feel as if I have an open heart, have invited its blossoming and strengthened it for years, but as I take the turn in to Holy Week, I see the true exemplar of an open heart in Jesus.

Each gospel tells a unique story of good news in its version of the Jesus story; I am most drawn to John, whose storytelling I have been reading this Lent. I have been struck again by the number of unlikely people and systems to whom Jesus opened his heart: someone of another ethnicity; someone of another theological point of view; an insignificant housekeeper, Peter’s mother-in-law. In his encounter with the young man called a rich ruler he wasn’t taken with his money of his intellect, but looking at him, he loved him. With little children, he didn’t find them a nuisance, but invited them to come up and engage him. He had a capacity to see beyond the initial impression of each one and beyond what the projections of the culture was into the soul of a person, made in the image of the Holy One. Even in his own extremity of death from the cross, he opened his heart to the thief executed next to him, to his mother–entrusting her to John, and to all those who conspired and acted to kill him, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they are doing”

As I have been attending to my own openings, I see how what can seem to be appropriate boundary setting is often a closing of my heart to the God-shaped soul of the persons I encounter if I am not mindful and attentive. Each person that I ask to be of use to me–to cut my hair, to help me find something in a store, to show me how to use a new gadget–is someone made in the image of God, who has a story to tell, who is worthy of love. My call is open my heart to that soul for the time I am with them with attentiveness, love, and non-judgement. I too often don’t remember that call to an opening of my heart.

I watched a movie called “Nebraska” this week on Netflix, highly acclaimed from two years ago. The spine of the story was a son’s open-heartedness toward his aging, alcoholic and confused father. On the surface there was very little that was winsome or even tolerable about that father, but the son kept opening his heart and his action to his dad because he saw his heart and soul. It was breath-taking! Later in the week I saw an interview with the father of one of the victims of the Germanwings flight in France. He was grieving for his own son, but his deeper concern was for the parents of the co-pilot who apparently has deliberately killed the entire airplane; again, I witnessed his compassion for them and for their journey of grief which was astonishing and full of grace.

As I travel this week which we as Christians call holy, I am looking again at Jesus and those he encountered even as his went toward his own death, and at the way his heart never closed–even toward those who denied and betrayed him. I am looking at the exemplars in this world whose heart stay open against all odds int he face of unbearable oppression, cruelty and injustice. And I ask the Spirit for the courage and the Grace to be one of the open-hearted ones, who as Isaiah commended, is not one who points the finger speaking evil, but rather offers food for the hungry and satisfies the needs of the afflicted (Isa. 58: 9-10). I want with my open heart, not only to allow the angels to feed me as thy have throughout Lent, but to be one who sees, who feeds, who helps heal the wounds of this fractured world.

Personal photo of work by Judy Chicago, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico.