Category Archives: seeing

Sanctuary: A Place With Beauty

14 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in beauty, sanctuary, seeing

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firstrose17Looking for and wanting to be sanctuary this year, I wonder why beauty keeps popping up in my awareness. There is nothing inherent in beauty that keeps anyone safe! Yet it so many forms it signals shelter, respite, comfort, shelter.

The roses are all cut back for the winter, the rains have come steadily, insistently, watering the very dry land intermittently for two weeks, and we hope and pray that the aquifers are filling up, and that things will bloom, not just today but in the months to come. I walk out to the bare stems of the rose bushes, and there is the first Sutter’s Gold rose of this year, my beloved and cherished favorite, given to me by a soul sister over 20 years ago. It struggles in contrast to the younger, showier plants who will bloom sometime soon. But it was a heart gift–completely unexpected–that reminds me of Spirit, of loving friendship, and of hope.

Beauty gives hope…that there is more than bleakness, crassness, despair.

Matthew Fox says: Beauty saves.Beauty heals. Beauty motivates. Beauty unites. Beauty returns us to our origins, and here lies the ultimate act of saving, of healing, of overcoming dualism. Beauty allows us to forget the pain and dwell in the joy. (cited in Spiritual RX, Brussat,, 37)

There is a sanctuary in beauty that shelters, even if it is just for a fleeting moment, for one brief shining moment. My heart leaps up as I look at the bud of my Sutter’s Gold rose, even though I know that it will bloom, blossom and fade in an arc of precious few days. I take hope in knowing that as the rose demonstrates, there are no final defeats, there are wonderful surprises, and that the Holy One never lets us go.

So as I seek to be sanctuary, I seek, gather and create beauty where I am. It glows in my front garden. It shines in the faces in photos of my beloved ones, hanging on the wall. It shimmers in pieces of art gathered from travels thither and yon. It illumines the faces of those who enter our house for conversation or nourishment, and leaves an after glow when they depart. I find myself moved in gratitude that beauty amplifies the scent of comfort and joy. I listen to the prophet Isaiah who challenges the faithful to “give to them (the marginal and hopeless) beauty for ashes, and oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit,” (Isa.61:3) it is an act of resistance to provide Beauty in this world that God has created.

Marge Piercy’s poem concludes:

I picked the Sutter’s Gold to remind me/ I may love myself a little/ even when my work is done/ that many things are beautiful besides art,/ that if a rosebush can sit in the frozen/ earth enduring a dormant season,/ maybe I can learn to work without/ anxiety running its ripsaw in my throat/ to bear those peculiar flowers/ which carry in their centers/ both birth and death, let go/ and live on.   (The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing)

For me there is sanctuary in beauty…hope. I savor it, and intend to share it.

 

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From the Margin

23 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in Discernment, faithfulness, icons, Mindfulness, paying attention, seeing

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“The Servant Girl at Emmaus” by Diego Velazquez hangs on my wall, a print, an icon of my ministry, as one who has almost always felt that my ministry and life was not one of center stage, but in the surrounding support systems. The culture of celebrity ministry exacerbated that feeling when I was active in church and seminary, but this season I am even farther out on the edge in my retirement and in my recovery from surgery–limited by energy, strength and position. However, The Servant Girl is here to remind me that even in a place of limitation, I can encounter the Holy One. Up in the left corner on the painting I can see Jesus and his two companions to Emmaus. They have been walking the road together, wrestling and wondering, and now sit down to eat together. She, however, is the one who recognizes first that this is the Risen Christ, the Beloved One; it is evident in her attentive pose, her listening ear, her momentary pause from her tasks.

So I can take heart. Even though my appointed rounds are more circumscribed than they used to be, I can still encounter the presence of the sacred, the incarnation of the holy in the encounters I do have. This week there has been an encounter with someone at an occasion where I was a stranger where I met another stranger who longed for connection, and in those moments we were joy and peace for one another. Although I cannot and do not want to enter the shrill and divisive political fray, earlier in the week I was able to sit with a wounded one to imagine together how we could be faithful citizens, yet still do the things that makes for peace, within us and for those around us. Although I can’t go far afield for long times, I can, with memory and social media, keep prayerful watch over the weeping ones, the sick ones, the fearful ones, the weary ones, the suffering ones, and those in despair, knowing that the Loving One is the healer, the Comforter, the Sustainer, of me and of the ones I hold to the Light.

The Servant Girl also teaches me that my connection the holy happens when I am doing the things I have been given to do. Even in my limitation I still have laundry to fold, bills to pay, errands to run, phone calls to make, appointments to keep. When I am paying attention those are venues, however surprising, in which I might hear a word, see a sign, sense a direction from the Holy One. My daily practices may need to be adapted to my present body and mind realities, but I never go anywhere in which I am outside of the circle of God’s loving care, for me and for others.

The changing world, the changing Church, the changing ecosphere, the changing social milieux all cry out for powerful activists, agents of change, makers of peace, visionaries and workers for the healing of the world. But, that is not is not the call to me right now. I think of Milton’s conclusion in his poem, “On His Blindness,” They also serve who only stand and wait. Neither is that my call. I am, like my beloved Servant Girl, asked to do daily that which is given to me, all the while paying attention to the places and ways in which the Holy One may appear, listening for the Spirit voice that says, “Go here–to the right or to the left.” Even on the margin.

diego-velazquez-kitchen-maid-with-the-supper-at-emmaus-circa-1618diego-velazquez-kitchen-maid-with-the-supper-at-emmaus-circa-1618diego-velazquez-kitchen-maid-with-the-supper-at-emmaus-circa-1618gqlvpf4m3jghkfgmhpgnbztnmyydbvuwdflo-j7ltxdp6p7f04-9x8pz69j2vidqonh2wm8s167diego-velazquez-kitchen-maid-with-the-supper-at-emmaus-circa-1618Save

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Peaceful Places

21 Saturday May 2016

Posted by in beauty, blessing, music, paying attention, peace, pilgrimage, seeing

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I noticed this week that although I have trusted that peace was first an interior attitude of Spirit, I also come more readily into peace (which passes understanding) when I am in a physical environment of peace. I enter into it whenever I am able to retreat to the Immaculate Heart Center at Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara. I felt it when I visited the exhibit of Agnes Martin paintings at the Los Angeles Museum of Art this week. I am always engulfed in peace when I hear concerts by the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Disney Hall. And I am learning more deeply, and leaning more fully into “the peace of wild things,” as Wendell Berry calls it, as I encounter and attend to the natural world.

This morning as I went out early to pick up the newspaper, as I was musing about the new stalks of irises about to bloom, yet again, I heard a thrilling and joyful birdsong which I was able to follow to a mockingbird perched on a “No Parking” sign directly across from my house. No one else was visible, no other noises were audible, and this moment there was a peaceful beauty as the sun rose in the east, that tuned my own heart to the Peace of the Holy. I sense in my body and soul when I have entered into a place of peace.

I wonder why I don’t seek out these places with more regularity. Between my enslavement to the clock, my anticipatory anxiety, and my restless mind, I find it difficult to follow Wendell Berry, to turn aside into the places and the things that foster peace. I don’t lack possibilities. Several years ago my husband and I each bought each other simultaneously, and unbeknownst to the other, a book called Peaceful Places in Los Angeles (Laura Randall, Menasha Ridge Press, 20010). Each week that summer I explored one of the 110 “tranquil sites” listed in the book. I selected a place for each Thursday morning, setting out with a sacred book, journal, hat, and sunglasses. I sat in the courtyard of Union Station downtown, perused the collection of the Long Beach Museum of Art on the ocean, savored the UCLA Murphy Sculpture Garden, and and browsed Small World Books in Venice. I visited for the first time the Lake Shrine Temple in Pacific Palisades and the labyrinth at the Neighborhood Church in Palos Verdes Estates.

Several things happened in these pilgrimages. I was removed from my quotidian routine and daily distractions; my sojourn was intentionally to seek the things that made for peace in my being. And I discovered delights and challenges right around me that I had never known were there. Not every single one felt like what the Celts call a “thin place,” where heaven and earth intersect, yet every one had things of beauty and interest. Moreover, the time and attention that I gave to this quest brought me nearer each time to that place of peace for which I yearn day after day.

So! my spiritual practice in this ordinary time leading into the summertime is to pick up the practice again. According to the book, there are many place that still await:Amir’s Garden in Griffith Park, the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, Jin Patisserie in Venice, Wattles Garden Park in Hollywood, and many more. My guess is there are also hidden places of peace not even catalogued in the book.

And I need to bring my open heart. The apostle Paul write in Philippians that the steps to that openness are gratitude–again and again; gentleness to everybody; letting go of worry and anxiety, and: the peace of God which surpasses understanding will keep our hearts and minds safe (Phil 4:7) as we enter into the peaceful places.

Here’s to a summer of entering the places and practicing the attitudes that make for peace!

Personal photo taken in courtyard, Immaculate heart Center, Casa d Maria, Santa Barbara.

 

Advent IV: Love, the Star

20 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in advent, illumination, pilgrimage, seeing

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I keep looking to the east this Advent. How I long for a Star in the east that would bring us goodness and light!

Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim one more light the bowl shall brim, shining beyond the frosty weather, bright as the sun and moon together. People, look east and sing today: Love, the Star is on the way. (Eleanor Farjeon)

The promise is that the Holy One has visited/is coming in this season. When I look out east from my prayer corner, I don’t see stars. The ambient light has faded them away, or daylight is overtaking the night sky. The same is true for the anticipatory longing looks in my soul. But I trust that there is a Star shining beyond the frosty weather, bright as the sun and moon together who has appeared and will appear in my heart and in the world. So I pray in these last days of Advent:

Come, O Star of Wonder, fill me with wonder–at your created beauty, at your amazing diversity, at the endless surprises in making a way where there is no way. Shine in me and through me, so that I am a bearer of wonder along the trails that I wander, and bring delight to my companions on the way.

Come, O Star of Night, into our world of opaqueness and myopia–shine into the crevices and crannies where the Light seems absent and impossible. Shine into my own darkness, which I know is not dark to you, and shine through me so that I can go boldly into places along my path that are longing for light.

Come, O Star of Beauty, buoy me with the beauty I see in your star-shine in the world–in faces of peacemakers, in random acts of kindness by strangers, in the artistic renderings of painter, poet and composer, in birds and trees and friendly beasts. Shine your beauty on and in me that I may bring brightness to the neighborhood and city and nation awash with the smudges and soot of trying to make it through the day, trying to make sense of things, trying to make ends meet.

Come, O Star of Grace, illuminate my own own understanding of how you are present in our world, from the knottiest and most complicated issues of the day to the tiniest and most fragile of connections between people and your created world. Shine your Grace upon me that I can walk with Grace, in Grace, gracefully.

May your Love, the Star, keep shining, giving us great Light, in us and around us, until we are able to see it and follow it! Amen.

 

 

 

 

Seeing What’s New Within

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Easter, examen, seeing

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strasbourg-cath-rose1404I have been looking all around me to see signs of new life this Eastertide, and have been energized and delighted by what I have seen. With Ascension Day, we turn into the last days of this season which will end with Pentecost. It is time to look inside to see what the power of the Resurrection has done in me. The ancient practice of  Examen is one I use often, especially in the evenings when I can reflect on the day. However, today I can do the examen with an eyes to gratitude in this Easter season: what am I noticing that has been given new life by the Presence of the Spirit?

At my stage of life I have a longitudinal view over the decades of my journey with the Risen Christ that gives me great joy:

  • I can see that much of my fearfulness as a young person has been transformed into a more familiar trust, something I never imagine would have happened.
  • I notice that my trigger-speed judgement of others—where they belong, what their motives are, how they are to blame–has been mercifully slowed down, even held in abeyance, until I know more, can see more, and realize once again that I am not given the role of judge.
  • In concert with that, I have been given much more compassion, as I am learning to bless even the ones who cause my grief. I know it only as a gift, not a result of good intentions or will power.

But I notice changes in me with the clear awareness that God is not finished with me yet. I am living in a chapter of my life in which frailty, brokenness and death are much more pronounced in me, in the people I love and in the world. They come relentlessly, not only to my elders, but to contemporaries and to younger friends. I see tiny seedlings of new life in me, but they need nurture and nourishment. I find I am needing to pray for the graces to ground me as I accompany those I love through the valley of the shadow:

  • I need stamina to remain faithful in my loving when the road is long and unpredictable, and takes unexpected directions, and when people I presume to know do quite baffling things.
  • I need deeper trust that the Holy One is continuing to make a way where I don’t always see a a way.
  • I need to focus on the things most necessary, and not get diverted by things that don’t point me in the right direction, that take me away from first loves, that engage me in fretting and wringing my hands.
  • I also need to let laughter ring widely and deeply and frequently in my spirit. I want to cultivate that Sarah-spirit, whose laughter might occasionally be inappropriate, but ultimately is a sign of rejoicing in the complex universe that is beloved of God, with thousands of nuances, surprises and curiosities.
  • I want to cultivate that peaceful way of navigating the world that embodies the knowledge with Lady Julian that all will be well, and all be well and all manner of things will be well.

The coming of rain this week to our parched landscape has reminded me that small shoots of new life require several things: the sunshine of hilarity and gladness because my mourning is so repeatedly turned to laughter; the soaking of the spirit from those who risk telling me the truth; and the rich soil of those who walk and wrestle the journey of Spirit with me. All together they may continue to produce in me a harvest that produces an aroma and a beauty of a rose, or like a rose window, allow the Light of the Risen Christ to shine through. I pray it is so!

Photo of Strasbourg Cathedral, Rose Window.

Seeing What’s New–through Pain

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Easter, grief, presence, seeing

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images-5From Lent through Eastertide I am trying to pay attention to the places that the Risen Christ is visible in ways I have not yet fully seen. One constant in the lives of those I know and love is the presence of suffering, grief and pain. And I am watching to see how surely God is in those places, and I wait to see how.

  • how is God present in the dailiness of the beloved ones who are chronically ill, who can never know from moment to moment if their bodies are going to allow them to step into the plan for the day?
  • how does God come alongside the grieving ones–those who have lost someone without warning? those who have walked in the excruciating pain of doing all that medicine and current protocols can provide, only to recognize that those means are not enough to save the life of the beloved? those who have been faced with the mortality to which all flesh is heir?
  • how is the Holy One a companion who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows through depression, anxiety and despair, whether those weights come from biology, trauma, circumstance or habit?
  • how is the Spirit manifest and available when our sighs are too deep for words?

I am drawn again to the company of Jesus in the post-Resurrection days, this time to the fearful gathered ones in a locked room, then the next week to Thomas, who is full of doubts. I am touched by the fact that Jesus does not wait until they get themselves together, with right belief or with right feeling, but enters into the place where they find themselves and speaks and touches them right where they are. He brings peace, he shows his own woundedness, and they are glad.

I am uncovering that reality as I accompany my own company of beloved ones who suffer and/or wrestle–the Holy One appears in unlikely places for them; they report to me that there are moments of joy, moment of peace, moments of rest, even when the going is bleak and is rough. For one it was new information that brought promise; for another it was the laughter than was infectious that gathered everyone into a sacred moment. Another one was buoyed up by faithful friends who continue randomly to appear in tangible and intangible ways. The refrain of a well loved song or a just remembered line of an old poem can evoke Holy Presence; the new blooms of spring or the endless and constant ocean sing out the praises of the Creating One, and there is peace or respite for a moment.

The invitation in these stories for me is first to be like the disciples–honest about my own fears, my own doubts, my own struggles, and to let go of my need to “do it right,” whether it be grieving, aching or fighting. The transparency of these wounded ones allowed them to be receptive to the Risen Christ when he came to them; some well mannered defenses may have deprived them of that miraculous break-in of Light in their darkness.

But also I learn from Jesus that intimacy with the Holy and others can happen when I am not afraid to show my wounds and scars, even to allow them to be touched. I can hold them in such a way that they can give me and entree of Grace into the places and ways that others need a sign that there is hope and resurrection after great darkness. I am challenged and encouraged by that stance. I need courage and trust to live that way.

It helps me to know that the disciples had to live into the reality of the Resurrection, even through pain, even as i do. And the Holy One does and will appear.

Seeing What’s New– at the Table

12 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in breaking bread, Easter, seeing

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diego-rodriguez-de-silva-y-velazquez-kitchen-scene-with-the-supper-in-emmausI love the vignettes that follow the Resurrection story in the gospels as this reality of a New Life began to sink into the consciousness of the beloved ones of Jesus. I especially love the story of the wandering ones making their way to Emmaus, wrestling with their previous expectations and understandings of of what Jesus said was going to happen and how it fit the paradigms of what they thought they already knew. Jesus joins them, but they are so preoccupied with their questions and presuppositions that they never recognize him. Until they broke bread together at the table. And we read that it was in the breaking of the bread together that they saw him.

Diego Velasquez has an acute lens on that moment in his painting called ‘The Serving Girl,” in display at the National Gallery of Ireland. In the upper left corner of the painting, one can see Jesus and the two questioners sitting at the table about to break bread. But the foreground is filled with the image of the Serving Girl who is providing them with the food, and surely will be washing up afterwards. The two seekers have yet to get it, but she already has recognized that this is Jesus–risen from the dead, walking and talking with them, nourishing them with his very Presence. What is there about sitting at table with another that allows to see deeply and truthfully into the identity of another?

As I have shared meals with other in this first week of Eastertide, some festive celebrations, some intimate tete-a-tetes, some casual coffees, I recognize that knowing and loving another is a full body experience at its best. It is multi-sensory–ambiance matters, from setting to decorations. Tastes sharpen our palates when we share bread–and cheese or jam or pate. “There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk,” says the late food writer M.F.K. Fisher. I love the moments when one at the feast says to another, “Here; have a bite of this!,” or “May I just taste your dessert?” Aromas of good cooking that we share allow us a sense of a deep comfort we might call “home,” whether or not our own home had such a great culinary menu.

However, it is the Serving Girl who brings the one thing necessary to the soul-knowing that gives life. She is paying attention. Although no one seems to pay attention to her, as one whose skin color pegs her as an outsider, as one whose status in the household gives her no privilege, as one whose only viewpoint is that from afar–she knows, she trusts, she believes and she smiles in the New Life that she witnesses. All things are new now! Christ is Risen!

I am paying greater attention to those with whom I share a table this Eastertide–making sure that my cell phone is put away, listening for the words spoken and unspoken, taking note of where we meet, of where beauty attends us, of how well we can hear each other. When someone comes to my house, even just for tea, I want each table tryst to be a holy moment, so that I can see with fresh eyes the new creation sitting with me and before me.

And my prayer is that my heart will be that continually open one to the old friend, the new friend, the grieving one, the rejoicing one, the baffled one and the the baffling one. “Come in and stay with me, Lord Jesus.”

Seeing What’s New!–Eastertide

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Easter, listening, seeing

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chihulyTampaIt is Easter Monday, and as intensely as I participated in the 40 days of Lent and the journey of Holy Week, I am relieved and delighted to be here in Eastertide. It is not as if there are great celebrations of faith in front of me, but I feel as if if I am entering in a spacious place with room enough to observe in quiet the ways that the resurrection keeps happening in the world, in the Church and in me.

I am grateful for waking up to a silent morning, with only the accompaniment of birds. No school buses or trucks or planes seem to be racing around in my neighborhood yet. I muse on my favorite Easter scene in John 20, when Mary come to the place where Jesus has been lovingly buried, to ponder, to wonder, to imagine what what might come next. There are tears and remembering, but then suddenly there are angels–always carrying a sacred message–who extend compassion to her by asking where her tears come from. I often wonder where my tears come from–why am I weeping? Certainly the world presents enough cause for tears on a daily basis, and my heart weeps more often than my eyes do–for innocent families left bereft because of the cruelty or torment from others; for the ravages of wars on targeted populations because of their faith or race or gender; for the earth gone dry here in my home state because of rampant greed. However, it is those moments when by surprise my eyes are suddenly filled with tears that I ponder in this morning quiet–the music that throws me back to a time when I was more wide-eyed and eager, an observation of a grandchild who is overcoming great obstacles, or a realization that I am in the last third of my life with opportunities come and gone. What am I being given a chance to see through my tears in this Eastertide?

Mary gets to see Jesus. She doesn’t recognize him at first; he seems ordinary, utilitarian, unrelated to the drama in which she has been living this last week. However, when he speaks her name into that silent beauty of morning, she recognizes that One whom her heart loves. Yet the relationship has undergone a transformation; their love for each other will take a new shape. Jesus tells her he is returning to God, she will now be about the business of recognizing the face of Jesus in everyone she meets and loving that particular one because she and he bear the image of God in their particular person. With Easter we don’t view people from a human point of view any more; we see them as new creatures, in the words of Thomas Merton, “shining like the sun.”

So I muse on those I expect to see this first week of Easter–those with whom I sit in spiritual direction–will I recognize the sun shining in them? my neighbors with whom I share the welfare of the block and the city? my family who bring laughter and tears into my life? my friends in faith who worry and churn about the state of the Church and living in a pluralistic world? How will I be willing to look at those in our country and our world who seem bent on muddying the waters, striking fear and anxiety in the populace, spewing inanities and vilification all around? Will I be willing to see the face of God in them?

I am grateful this early morning for the space to sit quietly with this question, and to pray this prayer, Open my eyes (again) that I would see Your face. Show me the new creation that you love, and empower me to love the ways you do. In the name of the Risen One, Amen.

Opening My Eyes-Lent III

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Lent, seeing

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IMG_3358I prayed that me eyes would be open this past week–to Holy Presence, to what I needed to see, to things I had not seen before. However, I found that it was not at all that simple. Many things competed to be seen and noticed every moment of every day, so I needed to add to my prayer, “Which lens are You giving me to use today? and what do You want me to savor and let sink into my consciousness in the days ahead?”

One day, with assistance from Christin Valters Paintner from her contemplative book Eyes of the Heart, I was caught by the lens of wonder, love and praise in the blueness in the world–cerulean, cobalt, cyan, cornflower, so many shades and hues that are part of creation, both divine and human, and in the intersections of those creative energies. I have had as a motto in my heart and on my refrigerator for many years: If you are going to be blue, be bright blue! The contemplation of that color, amongst so many colors, reminded me of the paradoxical nature of being a creature in God’s world–light and darkness, coexisting in our personal and collective lives. And I was thankful!

Another day I was overtaken by the lens of lament as I was thrust into the world of the commuter in which I spent much of my life and ministry. Freeway lanes and ramps, Metro platforms, parking lots, all  were jam packed with beings, and cars and trucks were laden with people on deadline heading toward their appointed rounds. For so many, stress lay head of them, and so many we know are  caught in systems of injustice and dead ends. Meanwhile, the news media on the radio counted out its tales of grief and horror as I drove, and I remembered Jesus lamenting over his city of vocation, Jerusalem, and his cry of prayer: Would that you knew the things that made for peace! I was led to praying in grief and sorrow that the Word of peace and hope would descend upon my city, my country, my county, even I prayed for the peace in Jerusalem and the rest of the world.

The lament became more personal another day when I heard of the untimely death of young man, someone my daughter’s age. The lens of grief and sorrow became my window into the world that day as I faced the realities of human frailty, brokenness and mortality. Once again I remembered how Jesus was present to me through that lens–meeting Mary and Martha at the tomb of their brother, Lazarus, and greeting Mary Magdalene in the garden of his own tomb. He bears our grief and carries our sorrows.

And then the lens of wholeness and healing opened up God’s presence to me on a day when I was able to notice places where the crooked had been made straight, where peace had come where there had been no peace, where the wounded had been made whole. A bereft friend is stepping into new life. A church community has opened itself to some new awareness of the presence of the Spirit. Traveling mercies, healing mercies, surprises of grace are attending the journeys of so many I can observe, as they commit themselves to the Good, toward the healing of the world. Grace abounds, and I can see the goodness of the Holy when I open my eyes.

In my Lenten journey I am seeking to open myself to the Presence of the Holy One within me and around me, and let the angels feed me. Opening my eyes, letting the Spirit gives me the lens for the moment, is allowing me to see that Holy One more clearly, and I am fed by the angels who embody what I can see of God’s ways in the world. I am blessed and grateful!