Category Archives: waiting

Through Darkness: Not Knowing

08 Sunday Dec 2019

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The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness..Ps. 18:28

Sometimes Advent is dark because I need direction. Even in the mundane choices in my world there are so many options! And so much seems to be elastic and unknown. When it comes to making choices that are merciful, just and kind, the right thing is not always clear. Nor are the directions in which I should go–to the right? to the left? straight ahead? back?

The Advent cast of characters must have had similar questions. Mary: what should I do? Joseph: what should I do? the shepherds: where in Bethlehem will be find something that has “come to pass”? And surely the Wise Ones had to make choices or throughways, overnight stays and allocation of resources for the day to day persistent journey. For them there was a Star keeping them on track, and I wonder if lighting the Advent candles, two this week, is a way of my keeping my eyes on the one thing most necessary–looking for the ways that the Holy shines on and in me and illuminates my path, footstep by footstep.

I confess I would like a clear, reliable GPS reading for each day of Advent, in fact for the rest of my life. But I am comforted by the words of Carrie Newcomer:

I am learning to live without knowing/ when I don’t see where it’s going…Here’s a clear space I’ve chose/where the denseness of this world opens/where there’s something steady and true. regardless of me and of you.

Each of the Advent travelers knew this truth, and it is a call to me as I light the second candle. My faith is in the One who daily places a Star on the route in front of me, step by step, even if I can’t see Steps three, five and ten.

The prophet Isaiah knew about not knowing, waiting, watching , listening discerning. He even tells us that God is waiting…to be gracious to us, to me (Isaiah 30:18), and when we join in that waiting, “your eyes shall see your Teacher, And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (vv.21,22).

So in this darkness I wait with my two candles this week, trusting that there is something steady and true, eager to share another step for me–in aging, in loving, in reaching out, in bringing hope and love to the world in the name of the One in Coming and will come again! Advent continues!

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Points of Detour: Roadblocks

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Lent, paying attention, waiting

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Some days the Lenten journey is frustrating. I set out to do something, and there is construction on the street. I go to pay for something, and the computer is down. I send a note of good cheer, and it is returned to me, “Addressee Unknown.”  And sometimes all of those things happen in one day! What does that tell me about my attempts to pay attention to the sanctuary that God can give and that I aspire to be?

My attention gets turned to the Psalms, and how often they challenge me to wait.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, in God’s word I hope./My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. (Psalm 130:5,6)

The roadblock, the detour is an opportunity to wait for the Holy. These past six months of recovery and restoration from surgery and a fall have given me ample opportunity to wait–for healing, for test results, for new ways to re-engage with life as I was used to it. I will admit that I am not always fond of waiting. I much prefer to imagine a kind of Wonder Woman progress that swoops up into the adventuresome task and gets immediate results. But the waiting, the detours and roadblocks have given me some gifts as well.

They have focused my attention on the immediate moment, and led me to ask, “What is here in front of me–both to enjoy and to care for?” I have watched enriching TV that I didn’t know was there. I have spoken to people about uncharted territory, and learned things about my being and the mysterious world of created humanity that I never would have discovered. I have practiced small movements, prayed small prayers, celebrated tiny successes that heretofore I would have swept by. I have learned AGAIN that my worth to the Holy and to those I am given to love is not in how much I accomplish, produce and deliver, but in just being who I am, as transparent and as open as I can be, everything that I was meant to be in the moment.

The hold-ups also direct my attention to others that I might miss if I am zooming about my intended agenda too quickly. While slowing for construction, I wonder if if I have taken time to pray for those who are doing the demanding and dangerous work. If I am delayed by technical difficulties at a counter, can I feel compassion for the one who is trying to sort it out? As I meet the seemingly unending array of caregivers in doctors’ offices, am I a person who notices names and faces, and treats each one with respect and interest, while still asking clearly for what I need? And as I “wait for the Lord,” where does my heart rest in trusting that wisdom and wholeness will come?

So it appears that part of my Lenten journey is attending to the waiting, the already but not yet, things hoped for but not yet seen. The waiting is a place of looking close up, of listening deeply and of opening myself to see how the Holy will appear and in what guise. It is not wasted time, but another gift.

Help me in the waiting times, O Holy One.

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His Eye Is On the Sparrow

04 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by in presence, singing, waiting

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Sometimes the world narrows down to  just me and my present experience of the moment, even though my mind know about the infinite number of people of the world and the great capacity of the Creator who made it and who loves it. Undergoing surgery two weeks ago my only focus was my wholeness held by the Holy One, for the procedure, for the aftermath, for the recovery. And all those feel very long.

Yet this song keeps pealing through my body and heart. I learned it first from my mother, whom I remember singing it, tear streaming down her face as she cooked in a steaming hot kitchen, her heart bereft with some secret sorrow. Then I heard Ethel Waters sing it in the movie, “Member of the Wedding,” and later Mahalia Jackson, commanding complete attention in Royce Hall at UCLA. Not for a second did any of the singers forget the grief and care of the world,  but in the moment of singing, the microcosm of particular need to be held under the eye of God herself. echoing the Psalmist, as she prayed her personal prayer for healing and Presence was the trust-filled longing of her heart.

In my recovery, I am still hearing this song in my veins, muscles, nerves, bones. I have been “watched” by the Beloved, I am being healed by the Great Physician, I am being comforted by the Spirit, and in my heart I sing.

 

Slow Down for the Turtles

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in grace, slowness, waiting

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images“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy,” sings Bess in Gershwin’s opera, “Porgy and Bess.” But my summer is not proving to be that easy this year; between an overbooked calendar and the flare-up of a chronic malady,  I find myself moving much more slowly, and feel much less “productive” than I like. Everything in my training and upbringing has been calibrated to the old Isaac Watts verse, “How doth the busy little bee improve each shining hour…” Yet that is not my speed in these first days of summer. I am moving very slowly. So I was very cheered when I saw a sign for drivers in another state where there are significant turtle populations saying, “Slow down for the turtles,” warning drivers to be mindful of those creatures along the highways who are moving very slowly to fulfill their purpose in being alive. This afternoon we were reading in Chet Raymo’s artful and provocative book, Natural Prayers, (Hungry Mind Press, 1999), about his observation of a female leatherback turtle in the process of laying eggs:

Pluck and patience. Necessary virtues if one is going to watch turtles.No other creature so big moves and acts with such deliberation…it is the intimacy of another age, a slower, more patient age, an age willing to wait for a month, or a hundred million years, if necessary, for something to happen. (97)

Maybe The Holy One has use for a slow-going creature like me this summer, one that is not operating at the speed she used to, not even keeping up with an agenda she used to set for herself. I am greatly heartened  to read the compelling book by Christopher Smith and John Pattison, called Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus and Smith’s subsequent book, Reading for the Common Good. These reflections help me to re-calibrate my “busy bee” expectations, and to accept and to honor the speed at which I am able to go, against the adrenaline and speed driven agendas of many of the surrounding cultures, including mine. Instantaneous reactions and warp speed may be the prevailing currency of the those systems around me, but my body and spirit are not able, maybe not even longing, to keep up. Smith reminds me of transformations and learnings  that can only happen at “turtle” speed.

When I look at the sacred text, the only reference to slowness of the Holy One is a slowness to anger, and surely that must be something very important for me to cultivate in this season of slowness. Again, the culture of tweets and Instagram encourage quick shooting from the hip of bile and vitriol, but that does not seem to be what an imitation of Jesus is about…maybe I need the space to slow down my reaction time, to be more judicious and spacious and grace-filled in my responses.

I am also reminded of Teilhard de Chardin’s wonderful charge:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God…it is the law of progress that it is made bypassing through some stages of inability, and that may take a very long time…Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser. Amen.

In these “turtle days” of summer, I am presuming to trust in the slow work of God!

 

 

 

 

 

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In the Valley of the Shadow

09 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in grief, presence, waiting

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Every person’s death and loss diminishes me,  according to John Donne. But the closer geographically it gets to me, the more I feel the oppressive and opaque weight of that shadow. This past week the gun violence was on my turf–my alma mater, with my extended family member enrolled;  the neighborhood where I worship, shop and meet people for lunch; and the car of the shooter,  located less than a mile from my house on a route that I travel frequently. The shadows feel ominous.

There are other shadows in my valley: people I love are struggling with illness and limitation; others I love are frustrated by the impenetrable job market; some suffer from lack of sufficient resources for what they need. Some of us are in the long, slow process of letting go of one who has died, another loop in the valley of the shadow of death. In  addition to the personal shadow, there are the billowing  clouds of the tenor of public discourse around the country is full of blame, accusation, and lack of charity.

So when the Psalmist in #23 names the “Valley of the Shadow” of death–of persons, of hopes, of dreams–I know whereof the poet speaks. The challenge is how to walk it. I have found just in the amount of time that it has taken me to actually get this blog written that the walk in the valley of the shadow is very slow. Grieving and letting go cannot be rushed, nor can I move too quickly in my body and heart to what I deeply believe, that all will be well. I need to silence the voices that yell from the back of the heart, “Are we there yet?” and listen for the voice of the Shepherd who promises that love contains no fear, and that there is a rod and a staff gentling me into comfort on the way to the table of peace and plenty.

“Rods and staffs” are not obvious in my daily rounds, so I am trying to attend to the ways the Holy is present in symbols that are easily accessible to me. Memories of the gifts I have been given in the ones and happenings that are now lost often comfort me; they are gifts of God. This person showed me a road not taken; that phone conversation invited me to listen in a new way for a sacred Word; that encounter, as brief as it was, became an “aha” moment, and though there was no more than that “brief shining moment,” it was a game changer.

The “rod and the staff”frequently show up in others who are walking this same valley. Even though the journey is my own, my fears are lessened when I encounter someone else whose sorrow is the same or who has walked this valley before. I am not looking for answers or solutions, but rather for open hearts and compassionate listening.

And I feel balm for my wounded soul in the words in sacred text–in Scripture, song, wisdom–that is embedded in me from my youth: It is Well With My Soul; We Rest on  Thee, Our Shield and Our Defender.  From Isaiah, “I have called you by name.”  From Psalm 139, “My darkness is not dark to you.” From I John, “Love contains no fear.”

And so the winding, opaque way through the valley of the shadow goes ever on, and I am accompanied by the Presence that I cannot see or always apprehend, but that I count on. That Presence keeps me from despair, because a “way is being made where there is no way.”

I would love to have the June gloom that is covering Southern California lifted soon, both where I live and in my soul trudging this valley of the shadow. However, I am confident that Light and Darkness co-exist, and that when the time is right, I will burst out into the clearing where I will once again dine and laugh and revel at the table, where cups are running over with love and joy.

Thanks be to God!

 

 

 

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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.

 

 

Advent II: Love, the Bird

06 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in action, children, compassion, paying attention, waiting

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Birds, though you long have ceased to build, guard the nest that must be filled. Even the hour when wings are frozen God for fledgling time has chosen. People, look east and sing today: Love, the Bird, is on the way.  (Eleanor Farjeon)

As I look eastward out my window in the morning, I have a host of birds that entertain and intrigue me–mockingbirds, wrens, crows, the busy hummingbird quite in love with the fig tree next door, who drops in often, and if the wind is right, seagulls come screeching through. One morning we were even visited by an adolescent hawk, resting mid-flight on her way to somewhere. But even in our temperate climate, there seem to be fewer birds aloft than in spring and summer months.

According to the carol, the Advent task is guarding the nest that must be filled. This week my heart longs to know how to guard and protect the nests for the little ones in our world who are at risk. We are closely connected to our neighbors in the east in the towns of San Bernardino and Redlands. Beyond the colleagues who were slaughtered last week, I am in grief for the children whose nests have been permanently upended because of  that day–the 6 month old child of the shooters, the little ones who were left without a parent after the shooting, the learners who endured hours of lock down while the sorting out process continues, the neighborhood gaggles of young people who now have been close up and personal to the effects of terror. How am I called to be a protector of nests and the ones who inhabit them?

I am reminded again and again how in both testaments of the Bible, there is a call to protect, to care for, to be advocates for the widows and children. A friend here is part of an interfaith coalition of people who are are becoming advocates for undocumented immigrant children shipped in from the border, awaiting in warehouses for the judicial process to grind its wheels. And I support with energy the many gatherings of faithful ones who labor at feeding the hungry children, housing the homeless ones and providing for the well being of so many vulnerable ones. In the movie “Mary Poppins” the most poignant plaint is from the Bird Woman on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, singing “Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.” How am I to feed the birds this Advent?

 The promise is that Love, the Bird is on the way this Advent. In a very provocative book, Consider the Birds, pastor Debbie Blue writes about the appearances and meanings of birds in the Bible. Some are metaphors, some are illustrations, some are even names for the Holy One. When I am praying for Love, the Bird, to come quickly, I have in mind one not named in Scripture, but one from the Celtic tradition, who is the symbol for the Iona Community, the Wild Goose. I am told by members of that community that she was chosen as a symbol of the Holy Spirit; they were drawn to her because the wild goose is known for going where it will, like the Holy Spirit, and sometime it makes what seems to us to be a great mess. Certainly I don’t know how and when the Spirit is coming among us, but I believe she will, and I feel sure that in guarding the nests of the little ones, some neat and tidy ways of societal organization might be left in a mess.

Even so the Spirit and the Church cry out: Come, Lord Jesus!

The whole creation pleads: Come, Lord Jesus!

And meanwhile, I am paying attention to the places where I can guard the nests that need filling and care and feed the little birds that are here in this world.

Becalmed: Longing for Wind

29 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in paying attention, Spirit, waiting

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I ventured out to my annual personal retreat last week, hoping to meet Simages-2pirit in all her personae of dove, fire and wind to ignite in me the energy I need both for myself and for those to whom I am called. I arrived at my familiar place (although there were plenty of personnel changes), settled in to a known room (although my favorite was already occupied), entered into well-tried practices to arriving, attending and resting. I walked, I read, I prayed, I listened, and in the first hours I felt the filling begin–no one else to react to, nothing on my to do list, no place to drive, no food to prepare. My brain and heart began to take notes, glad for the spacious interstices between impressions and insights. And then the energy stopped!

I am not sure what had happened. There was evening conversation around the table. There was problematic material in the book I am considering. There was a writing style that unnerved rather than reassured. There was lots of maintenance and construction noise in the surrounding neighborhood. However, as I checked in with my own heart, I noticed that I was becalmed, nothing was flowing and moving ahead. What had begun in energy now lay flat and still. I came to an awareness that even thought I had consciously intended to “come apart and rest for awhile,” another part of me was highly invested in achieving something on this retreat–setting an agenda, working a problem, moving on up a little higher with God.

But I was out of ideas and energy. So I put a stop to my Achiever in order to wait…and I discovered that the Spirit was still moving–in my breath. Breathe on me, Holy Spirit; breathe in me, Breath of God. Evening was falling, light fading, sounds diminishing. And I breathed–breathing out the clutter, breathing in Spirit. Over the next hours I kept reminding my self of the Breath, keeping me alive, even when I was not “accomplishing” anything. Jesus’ words, Come apart and rest awhile, reminded me that one thing was necessary for me, as it was for Mary–to listen to and for the Wind of the Spirit, even when it came in ways that were not Bright Red, or Aero-dynamic or High-Flying. The Sound of Sheer Silence was enough for now.

Over the remaining hours I had set aside, I rested, tuned into the moment in my body and in my mind, trusting that what I needed would be provided when I needed it. Into the rest I continue to take in and expel the Breath of the Spirit, to follow its lead, to let it propel me where it willed. I discovered a forgotten resource for my planning in the trunk of my car. I discarded one vista for another that took me into a peace garden full of Sadako’s cranes surrounding an infinity pool. I prayed for rain in our parched climate where the creek is no longer flowing. I sifted through images that spoke to me of gardens, of grief, of letting go, of loving. I savored poems of beloved poets who continue to feed and nourish my spirit. I drank peppermint iced tea, awaiting me in the pantry. I engaged in appropriate conversation with other retreatants when the time was right. And out of that rest I was led to some sacred texts in books that i had already discarded that had a Word for me in that moment.

When it was time to leave, I was ready. But I had no outline, no calendar, no assignments for people; nor did I have insightful imagining into my own questions and musings. Yet, I had experienced the rest that comes from standing down from even my unconscious lists of “to-dos” and trusting in the freedom that the Breath of the God brings, even, maybe especially when we are out of the energy we generate out of ourselves. I met and was met by the Spirit of Christ, and She set me free.

…where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!           2 Cor. 3:17