Tag Archives: openness

Coming Into A Clearing

21 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by in listening, Mindfulness, Mystery, opening my mind, paying attention, Spirit, wisdom

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HuntingtonDogBeach

The big pressures of the Season are over, and even though there continues to be much to do, I feel as if I can pause to take a breath. I have been doing a great deal of reading about “mindfulness,” and listening to a multitude of voices who speak from their experiences about what this practice does for, in and through them. In attempting to participate in the practices about which I read, however, I find that they are not intuitive to me, or easy to get the hang of.

This break in the liturgical year between Epiphany and Lent does give me space to try to practice some ways of mindfulness. The calendar is not quite so event-filled, the deadlines have been met for the time being, and the sales forces are losing a little of their steam. I can be a little less in a hurry, a little gentler in my intention, and more expansive in my gaze.  Susan Phillips in her book, The Cultivated Life, (IVP,2014), when speaking of mindfulness for someone on a faith quest, says this: The praying person enters the silence, pays attention to what’s on her heart, and then directs attention to God, aided by the text and the community.” (116)

I am attempting to take that pause, to allow this change of pace to be more mindful and attentive. On a trip to the section of beach where dogs can roam free, accompanied by my grandson, husband and wild dog Max, in the crispness and quiet, I sit shivering, but still, captured by the juxtaposition of motion and stasis: rolling waves, calm ocean farther out; dark mass of clouds softening into promising light; intrepid surfers and quiet watchers. How do I attend to Holy Presence in this moment?

I begin with gratefulness–for being here in this moment to behold the beauty of the Creator in wave, sky and sand; to delight in the weaving of grand-boy, grandfather and dog, up and down the strand; for living in proximity to ocean and mountain both; for ample time to take a day to celebrate the birthday of this unique grandchild, with a love for creatures and a longing to wander untethered in as much wilderness as he can inhabit.

Then with the prayer, Loving God, here I am, I turn my heart to questions for clarity: what do you want me to know? where do you want me to be? how shall I do the next right thing? I experience these prayers as seeds being sown in the garden of my heart, to be brought to fruition when the time in right. For the moment I need only to offer them, and sit with the panorama of Light and Dark before me, and wait. Like the roses in my garden behind and as the irises in my garden in front, the flowering of answers will appear in due season.

The next morning I am in a sanctuary preparing for worship. I am sitting with my husband, there is powerful music, stained glass, and a welcoming liturgy. But first to get quiet. I find that  I routinely need to do things: rest in the truth that I am now a “person in the pew” not a worship leader, and that I need to recycle all the Grace that was extended to me by letting go of any bits and bobs of critique I might carry forward from my years of experience as pastor; then, I need to remind myself that I am gathered here with the people of God in worship of the Mystery we call God, even though I don’t have deep friendships or feel connected. I am ready now to pray, Loving God, here I am, and to see what how the Spirit will catch my attention and nourish my thirsty soul. Will it be words of a new hymn? will it be the reading of the Word by a sweet and adept 10 year old? will it be a line from the Word preached, a cadence sung by the alto soloist, an invitation to participate in the healing of the world close by? I tune my hearts to listen.

The next challenge will be to bring my practice of mindfulness to a committee meeting. Will I be able to lay aside my resistances, my anxieties, my critical spirit long enough to be quiet, pray again Loving God, here I am, and then listen for what prompts the Spirit brings to me: is this a time to speak, to refer to my past experience, to jump into the fray or this is a time to call of the Spirit ot “set a seal on my mouth,” to listen to the deliberations with an open heart, while praying for the common good for all of us gathered?

“Thou will keep her in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee…”  Isaiah 26:3

Loving God, here I am, make me mindful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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.

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.

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!

Openings in Lent-I

22 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by in Lent

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images-9My heart was caught with these words in my preparation for Lent by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser in his introduction to the season in God For Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter. He says:

It is a time to slowly prepare our souls. It is a time to open ourselves to the presence of God in our lives and let the angels feed us. (xiv).

Open…opening…opened. It has been a spiritual work of mine for years to set boundaries, boundaries determined by humility and call, boundaries set by faithfulness and responsibility, boundaries shaped by training and experience. So this Word comes to me as a surprise this season, yet it comes with force and resonance. I have a visceral response to it, as I notice the places that my muscles are taut and inelastic. I have an emotional response to it–one of anxiety about my vulnerability. I have a rational response to it, I who was given drink at the well of “good fences make good neighbors.” But I know there is an invitation for me here in this Lenten season.

I came late in my spiritual journey to Lenten practices; they were not part of the tradition of my imprinting. Yet, I have found them very helpful in focusing my musings and actions for well over 30 years now. However, the word OPEN is asking me to leave the practices in my life alone this year, let them stay as they are, but also pray into a less empirical, more organic practice of daily opening myself to the Presence of the Holy, without analyzing a list of what i have accomplished or not, and to pay attention to the places where the angels are feeding me.

In these first few days I am fumbling with his practice-that-is-not-a-practice, but I am noticing a few things already. I remember a song taught to me by a Roman Catholic sister, committed to social justice: Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see your face; Open my ears, Lord, that I may hear your voice. Open my heart, Lord, that I might love like you. Then, into what feels like a more ample space, I am able to notice without judging, the myriad ways that I experience the Holy One in me, for me, with me.

  • some sheer joy at the way the Spirit is healing and moving in someone else
  • some noticings of things unobserved before: a Bach oboe solo, a gathering of small yellow birds in front of my house, a delicious hamburger made by my son-in-law
  • some freedom after healing when I am called to greet the ghosts of days past
  • some new fascinations when I see how Word and art meet, in the museum or in my reading and conversation
  • some healthy awareness that I still need vigilance in the areas of envy, fear and acedia

My teacher and friend, Jan Richardson, tells me this week that:

In the wilderness, there are angels.

I have been fed by them: in a phone call, in an e-mail, in an unexpected smile, in a fresh brewed cup of coffee, in the writing of Ronald Rolheiser, in the synchronicity of my reading and doing, and in so many other places. In my openness I can see so many places where angels love to be in my life (Thank you, Jan!). So the call remains this year to be open–without a laundry list, anything that I can check off, and to notice when and where the Holy One and the angels show up.

I had just remembered this quotation form Anais Nin yesterday, when it was posted by a new Facebook friend, another slice of Angelfood:

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/anais_nin.html#gBov25XfTZ5L8dHO.99

Yes, that is my Lenten invitation–to risk blossoming! Open my heart, O Holy One! I am ready for the angels to feed me!