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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: reflection

Spiritual Clutter

22 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in advent, listening, prayer, reflection, Uncategorized, Word

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prayer, reading, silence

images-2The liturgical year comes to an end this week, and I am struggling with what  am experiencing as spiritual clutter in my heart and mind: too many books, too many websites, too many blogs from others, too many fraught conversations. All of these sources are good, some even brilliant, but the sheer number of them is crowding out my ability to listen for the Word of the Holy One to me day by day.

I am attracted to every shiny word and image about people’s journey of Spirit that I see. What does this young woman have to say? what insights do these theologians have to bring? how are these spiritual teachers expanding the parameters of deep conversation? and who are the latest voices to come to sit in at the table of conversation? Most of these sources are worthy, provocative and helpful. Theirs are insights and perspectives that challenge and enrich my own study and experience so far. But what I am finding is that for me right now, the engagement of “more” is crowding out the “one thing necessary” that Jesus flagged for Martha and Mary, that time of listening deeply, musing, pondering, letting the Word dwell in me richly, truly, madly deeply. I read quickly, so I can absorb lots of words in a record amount of time, but I am noticing that my rapid speed and prodigious quantities of written material are making it hard for me to hear a Word. I remember the seekers who went to the Desert Ammas and Abbas to ask, “Amma, give me a word!” Rarely were the responses given in more than one or two sentences. When that Word was given, the seeker was to go into her own life again to ponder, to meditate, to contemplate what that might mean for her in the location she was given to live.

As I take the turn into Advent next week, I want to  attend to the one thing necessary. It will mean ignoring and tuning out some very glittering images and plangent siren calls of What’s New, What’s Exciting and What’s Different. It will mean turning down the volume on the shrieking headlines and news updates of the hour. It will mean choosing an Advent practice wisely, and then sticking with that, and only that, while I give myself the time and space to reflect on what comes up for me. It will mean committing myself to the parts of my practice that I skate over quickly–the silence, the journal writing, the focused prayer. And keep my eyes and ears focused on the one thing I intend to do.

I have already begun removing things from my basket in my prayer place. That book I nearly finished but didn’t can go to another stack of awaited reading. That diary that is more about quotidian activities than the heart of the matter can come to my reading chair for later. That journal that is really completed can be replaced by a new one that is eagerly waiting with me for a Word. And my timer can keep me rooted and breathing in my prayer place as I listen for the Word.

My late spiritual director, Betsy, often quoted C.G. Jung, saying ,”The Good is the Enemy of the Best.” The good clutter all around, so readily accessible to me, is in this moment the enemy of my best hope for getting a clear channel of connection to the Holy One who is waiting to teach and direct me in these days fraught with bafflement. outrage and grief. My invitation is to un-clutter, sit still and keep my heart, eyes and ears open.

I look forward to what will come in this Advent of attention.

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Jars of Clay

27 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in body, reflection, slowness, Uncategorized

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body

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I am feeling very clay-like, earthen, limited these days, after a long period of intense focus and action on my own behalf and those of others. It is not that I can’t stop physical doing; it is more that I can’t stop “eating the bread of anxious toil,” as the Psalmist puts it. Anticipatory anxiety, worrying and carrying loads of fretting that don’t belong to me are much harder to lay down that just sitting down to rest. I am very aware of things that limit me.

My body limits me. I suppose it always has, but the older I get, the more doctor appointments I accrue, the more investment I am required to make in order to accomplish my quotidian tasks each day, the more that I am aware of those limits. I can’t reach what I used to reach, no matter how many stretching exercises I do. I can’t stay up as many hours as I used to, even if I take a nap. And I find that my glasses are critical to my ability to see and appreciate the world!

Also, my place in the classification of demographic seem to have disappeared–not a millennial, not even a Boomer, I seem to have fallen off the charts. Practically speaking, this means that the training I had, professionally and personally, often does not apply. I raised my children with one understanding of how to feed, dress and keep my children safe; those rules have all changed. I was formed as a pastor to serve in particular ways in a parish in a world that is now undergoing massive sea changes, and may be for the foreseeable future. Forms and patterns that I practiced are now seen as “old school,” read useless. I came late to technology, and presently limp along with the wise help of my technological keepers, but several times a month find myself buffaloed by terminology and functions that feel beyond my understanding. Limited indeed!

And my current exposure to the variety and complexity of the world lets me know that my story is of necessity a limited one–small when put up against the huge events and trends of history, colorless when put up next to those who have struggled against great odds and come through on the other side.

So I come back to the insight of the writer Paul, who in 2 Corinthians, as he struggles with his own limitations, reminds me that I am after all a “jar of clay,” an “earthen vessel,”  whose purpose is first to be faithful to her own location and story, and then to be the vessel or agency through which healing comes, wherever she is. I might be called, and am able, to bring water to someone thirsty for conversation or presence. I might be called, and am able, to be the patio light in which a small candle lights the way in the dark night gloom. I might be that colorful decorative planter that gives the tender shoots ample space in which to send their deep roots and thrive. All those things are with in my ken, may be within my calling. And in claiming my limits, I may be able to continue to be of use in God’s stitching up the brokenness of the world.

I could do worse than be a jar of clay.

 

 

 

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The Green Spirit

15 Sunday May 2016

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in blessing, creation, earth, gratitude, Mystery, reflection, refreshment, renewal, Spirit

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Holy Spirit, Maren Tirabassi, Rebecca Button Prichard

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

The Examen-ed Life

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in daily examen, Discernment, reflection

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dailiness, Daily examen, prayer

CoritawomanWhen I get stuck in amber, cannot seem to move ahead or back (often in the summer heat), I revert to well-tried practices of Spirit that have energized me in the past. So this summer I have reclaimed the Ignatian practice of the daily examen. I first learned this practice in a winsome and accessible book by the Linns called Sleeping with Bread. They describe simply the daily practice of reviewing one’s day with a set of questions: “Where did I experience Grace today?” and “where did I feel farthest from Grace today?”  Alternately, one could ask :where did I feel the most freedom?” and “where did I feel most restricted?” The answers to these prayerful questions then may lead to prayer, first those of gratitude, and then to prayers for forgiveness, for wisdom, for healing. I love this concrete, do-able exercise, for it helps me pay attention to my life in God, and helps direct my prayer to specific area of longing and need.

During these months I discovered…or was led to…a new book called Reimagining the Ignatian Examen by Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ, (Loyola Press, 2015) in which he deepens the basic premises of the examen, then focus them in thirty-four specific area of questioning designed to take one into the heart of each question. In using the book, I was instructed to begin in gratitude for particular gifts of the previous day. (I need to use this prayer in the morning; i am too sleepy at night!). Then, I was directed to review my day in light of the day’s focus, such as habits or thoughts, words, deeds, or discernment. Taking not more than 15 minutes, likening my responses to “tweet-size journaling,”  I was able to recall, savor and then to examine in a more precise way i which I had encountered the Holy One and where I needed to ask for something–forgiveness, assurance, wisdom, all with a more pointed  direction.

I became aware that all too often my prayer has been generic…”God, bless us all” kinds of prayers, but that I longed to be more concrete, more specific in my relationship with Christ and more conscious of that holy encounter when I was aware of the Presence, the Breath, the Fire, the Grace. So I was delighted to be prodded to something more. Over the course of the summer days, especially the dog-days in which we are now living, the keenness of each day’s particular questions often became a sign post pointing me in the direction of other connected, synergistic signs by which I could notice God’s presence, and hear God’s word. On a day when the examen directed me to think about the question, “what do you seek?”, I was then asked to preach on a text from Mark’s gospel in which the question was, “what do you want me to do for you?” In response in my own musings and in preparation for bringing the Word, I needed to dig in my soul for answers to those connected questions. After a day of asking the question, “Who wore God’s face today?,” I saw at an exhibit of the art of Corita Kent an early painting of hers, in which a woman is holding up both hands in prayer, as if she is offering up both her gloriousness as a creature of God and her frailty as a human being. A powerful selection on Choosing Life led me into walking through many days mindful of whether this action in which I was engaged was one in which I was choosing life or choosing death by not inhabiting my life.

And so energy has begun to flow, attention is being paid, love is blooming. The amber is set aside for the another time, and the the “sacrament of the present moment” is being honored. Ahead of me lies a connection with a friend, a performance of a young person, a reading with my beloved, a larky trip with children and grandchildren–all moments full of movement, possibility, hope and prayer. The examen-ed life is well worth living!

Personal photo of painting by Corita Kent at Pasadena Museum of California Art.

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