Tag Archives: Jesus

Peaceful Feet Advent 2

12 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in community, Jesus Christ, peace, pilgrimage, Uncategorized

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PeacefulFeetHow beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of the one who brings peace, says the prophet, and I would add “along the seashore, in the care facility, tn the church sanctuary, along the streets in the neighborhood, and in the shopping malls.” Too many feet are the bearers of bad tidings. The feet of the peaceful ones are, indeed, welcome, winsome and healing.

I am in awe of those this week whose feet are engaged in marches for reasons of peace–advocacy for DACA students, attention for the fragile in our world, and the strong, weary, persistent feet of the fighters of wind and flame here in Southern California, trying to save lives and home against the seemingly unremitting Santa Ana winds. When I hear footsteps approaching, I long for them to be the the steps of peace bringers, peacemakers, peacekeepers, peace seekers.

I kept company with my community of spirit journeyers yesterday in an Advent retreat, and for a few hours, we reflected on Christ, “the image of the invisible God,” as he walked this earth. Through copies of paintings of artists, we saw Jesus walking with his disciples on the Emmaus Road bringing them peace after their trauma at the crucifixion. We watched Jesus gliding over water to his frightened friends, and then in another painting saw him stop mid-stride when his being sensed the courageous one whose bleeding had kept her on the margins of life for so many years, and sensed her peace as healing flowed into her. This Prince of Peace is the One for whom we are waiting this season. Lady Julian reminds us that “He is our peace, when we ourselves are in un-peace.” We gathered to reflect and share on the stories of the One with peaceful feet that touched and challenged us.

However, I was once again struck with the feet of the very ones sitting in our circle, whose work in the world is so often to bring peace. One of us, while she was with us, was working on finding housing for those in the homeless shelter displaced by the SoCal fires. Another had been that week helping to raise money for the drilling of wells in villages in Niger. Someone else had been caring for family members who are ill, or had gone to the side of one in grief and despair. And each one there had taken herself to the place of being peace for someone else–at home, on-line, over land and sea–in speaking words of peace or in just showing up wordlessly  with peaceful presence.

I have seen several mashup posts from movies this week of dancing, all synchronized to a contemporary refrain and beat, and there is joy in seeing Fred Astaire, Julie Andrews, john Travolta and Minnie Mouse, one after the other,  swirl and tap out joy with their feet; that energy comes first from a peaceful being. Jesus, looking over Jerusalem, sighed,saying, “Would that you knew the things that made for peace!” We all echo that same sigh. And in this season of Advent while we wait, I am choosing to be the one with beautiful, peaceful feet, whether it is by sitting with my daughter overlooking the ocean as we contemplate the unknown future, or by dancing with my little loved ones for the sheer fun of it, or by taking a staff person in the church to lunch, or by collecting money day by day for the fragile ones further damaged by the fires around us. And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep my heart and mind…

 

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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.

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Holy Week: The Lorica

24 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in blessing, Holy Week, music, peace, prayer, presence

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The last practice from Joyce Rupp that I am observing this holy season is repeating the “lorica,” a Celtic prayer attributed to St. Patrick, invoked for protection and mindfulness. Last week on St. Patrick’s Day my inbox was filled with images and versions of that prayer, in calligraphy, icon and song. I knew that I was going to pray it myself this week, so I enjoyed the diversity of forms that were shared.  From the extended prayer, I especially like these parts:

I arise today with the strength of God to comfort me, the might of God to uphold me, the wisdom of God to guide me…

Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ with me, Christ within me, Christ around me, Christ about me, Christ on my left, Christ on my right…Christ in the heart of everyone that thinks of me, Christ in each mouth that speaks of me, Christ in each eye that sees me, Christ in each one that hears me.

The cadence and the tempo of the prayer ground me in my present moment, who I am right now, and from whence my help comes. But the image of a lorica is an armored breastplate–from medieval times, metal, sturdy impenetrable. Whether it is too remote by centuries or location or I am not a military type, I don’t find that image helpful. Nor, as I looked through books of painting and sculptures of Christ at the end of his life, did I find one that represented the sense on presence and protection that the lorica gives me. Then I  remembered that for several decades I have always carried with me a postcard of Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm.” The painting was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum many years ago, but before it was stolen, I was able to see it hanging there. The painting is huge, impressive, compelling. From the first glance I was captivated by it–the contrast of light and dark, the characters of fear and confusion, and in half-light down toward the right of the painting is Jesus asleep in the boat. The image of the sleeping, yet powerful Christ, stays with me, especially when my own “rough seas” seem to be gigantic and overwhelming. No matter what, I can trust the One who is at rest because he knows that all will be well, and at the right moment, he will rise and say, “Peace, be still,” to the madness, the wreckage, the terror that swirls around me, that swirls in our systems of work and connection, that swirls in the chaotic world.

So in these last days of Lent and Holy Week, I wake each morning saying the words of the Lorica, keeping in the eye of my heart the Christ whose knowledge and power and grace will bring all things to wholeness in the fullness of time.

May Christ guard me today from poison and fire, from drowning and wounding, so my mission may bear fruit in abundance.

 

I prefer my image of Jesus from Rembrandt to the art in this youtube from the Celtic Women, but the song with the words helps me in my planting myself at peace with Jesus in the boat. May each of you have holy days of trust and peace despite the raging of the storm and the roiling of the waters!

Longing for Light to Follow

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Christmas, Epiphany, Hope, illumination, pilgrimage, wisdom

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Today is Epiphany, the daychihulyTampa when the Church remembers and celebrates the arrival of the wise ones who have been following the Light in the shape of a Star in the East and now have stopped over that place where the Child was. I do not envy them the journey over miles and years, but I do envy the vision and clarity of the Star that took them right to the place where their hearts longed to be.

In reading one of my gifts from Christmas, Alexander McCall Smith’s The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine, I saw myself reflected in Mma Precious Ramotswe’s self-reflection after her colleague suggests she might want a holiday:

Mma Ramotswe looked down at her hands, folded passively on her lap. Was she getting stale? She looked at her shoes. at her faithful brown shoes with their broad soles and their flat heels. Were these the shoes of a stale person?  (21)

My shoes are not broad, brown and flat, but  I am wondering if parts of me are stale. I do know that when I have been musing on this part of the Christmas season, my heart is lightened when I think of this part of the ancient story of Epiphany, of wisdom meeting new life, of coming into new territory, of being filled with joy. And I have a longing for some of that lightness.

I didn’t make New Year’s resolutions this year, I usually don’t. However, I did find myself praying for Light and Hope, but the prayers were nestled in vows I took long ago when I was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament. In those vows I promised each time I recited them at each new call,  that I would seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love. So my prayer this year has become that I will encounter the Star of Light that will burnish my energy, intelligence, imagination and love, so that they more shine more brightly in me and through me to the people I am given to care for. I am aware that after thirty years, each of those intentions might have become stale–or maybe are just in need of re-calibration after an encounter with the Holy One.

In this decade of my life my energy is not the same as when it needed to meet the requirements of the rhythms of life that tried to balance my calling at church or seminary, commuting, raising children, caring for aging parents and keeping loving alive. My brain does not retain new information, nor does it remember familiar facts with the facility it once did. In some ways my imagination is more lithe and fantastic than it used to be, now that I put it to use only with taking flight with grand-children or hoping for outcomes not constricted by by-laws; that one glistens more brightly. And there is love! Always the Word–the greatest of these, always coming to me from Grace. But in some places and times it has felt more taxing. Weariness in well-doing has tarnished some of that first love; or that sense that one has lived long enough to say with the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and it seems that no new thing to savor, to take delight in, no new face to enchant with affection.

And so my prayer on this Epiphany is that the Star will shine in me, for me and through me:

Star of Wonder, shine on and energize my body and spirit so that I can make the treks over mountains and deserts to offer who I am to those who are ready to receive me.

Star of Beauty Bright, enliven my synapses and retrieve my skill sets, so that I can continue to bring ideas and strategies to the tables of conversation and cooperation in the things that make for peace.

Star of Night, shine through my dreams so that my imagination will be further illuminated with things that my eyes have not yet seen or my ears have not heard, but that add beauty and grace to the world around me.

Star of my Heart, keep the fires of Love burning, stoked and warm, brilliant and comforting, as long as my heart will beat.

In the name of that Bright and Morning Star, Amen.

 

 

Personal photo from Dale Chihuly Center, St. Petersburg, FL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Icons of Peace

11 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in icons, paying attention, peace

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VisitationSometimes there are no words…no words of inspiration, no words of provocation, no words of illumination. But there are icons, images, visual impressions all round in the world. When I have wearied of words, on which I am inordinately dependent, and they fail me, I open my eyes to the Light carried in images and in people.

This summer I seem to have had enough words–political words, ecclesiastical words, even words that are too clever by half. I am even tired of my own words, or attempts at them. But I long to sense the Light of Grace, and I remember how often Grace is articulated in exemplars in my life, people and things in whose presence I can recognize and rest peacefully in Grace and Truth.

There was a grandmother, small and unprepossessing, from the South, whose gentle manner and powerful faith commanded confidence and trust from any who sat with her near her corner chair. There is a spiritual director who appears to be made of fairy dust, living in a well-used library of text and symbol, with a black cat and a welcoming smile. There is an author of books who moves with quiet and ease, and when he speaks with confidence, a hush falls on the room. There is an anthem by a composer who recently left this world; each chord of this song sung by a choir intimates holy presence. There is a shoreline, away from a larger body of water, where the small wavelets lap in peace along the sand and rocks.

Each of these icons brings me into peace, and reminds me that there is peace to be had. Wendell Berry has reminded me of “the peace of wild things, who bear no forethought of grief,”  and when all the words bring no peace, I look to these images–people, places and things–who assure me that peace is still waiting to surround me.

In an exhibit of illustrated manuscripts at the Getty Museum this week, I found yet another icon in the central offering, from a 15th Century French prayerbook, the centerpiece of the exhibit, an illustration of the greeting of Elizabeth to her cousin Mary in the gospel of Luke. I spent 17 months marinating in this story when I first retired, and I came to know Elizabeth as that icon of peace for a young woman whose world was turned upside down by the appearance of an angel. All the gentle manifestations of hospitality are evident in her–her joy, her faith, her warmth, her hope, and that safe place in which Mary could begin the spiritual practice of pondering–paying attention to what was happening in her body, her mind and spirit–in safety and in rest.

In a restless and chaotic world, in the absence of reassuring rhetoric and thoughtfulness of loud pronouncements, in the numbing reiteration of talking points and faux narratives, I look for those people and things that embody peace. Not the least of these invitations is to looki again at Jesus…a peaceful presence always. Lady Julian tells us that, “He is our peace, when we ourselves are in un-peace.” My eyes and heart can rest with him.

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.