We are all on branches of the one vine, but some of us are way out on a limb. The trouble with going out on a limb is that someone might cut it off behind you. Or while you're out there you’ll hear a creaking and before you can skuttle back … kaaa-booom!
What is the mission and meaning of your life. Go out on a limb and think about it. Don’t just read it off the corporate logo or take it from a great quote. Take some time with it and think about it on your own. Why are you here? With your peculiar set of quirks and homely peccadilloes, what are you meant to be for the sake of the world? Imagine yourself Matthew out on a limb looking down at Jesus from afar, hoping not to be noticed by the crowd. What on earth are you up to?
Its an interesting question, but an unanswerable one. It reminds me of the story Father Joe told us about the woman on an airplane reading the Bible. The man beside her says, “You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?” She replies, “I believe it is the inspired word of God.” He says, “But what about Jonah and the whale, you don’t really believe he spent three days in the belly of a whale and lived, do you?” Trying to discourage further conversation, she looks away and says, “I don’t know, but when I get to heaven I’ll ask Jonah.” Perturbed, the man scowls, “What if Jonah isn’t in heaven?” “Then you ask him!” she says. The point is when I get to heaven, I’ll ask God what my mission was and the meaning of my life. Until then I’m doing what seems to be most needed and what I can do to live the Gospel.
Mychal Judge, OFM put it this way, “Lord, take me where you want me to go – let me meet who you want me to meet – tell me what you want me to say – and keep me out of your way.” Father Joe told us when we find ourselves out on a limb and the branch begins to creak we can take heart because out there where the branch is the weakest is where growth happens, where buds form and blossoms appear and where the delicious fruit we long for emerges.
As I live my life hoping to keep on the path God wants me on, occasionally going out on a limb in search of the fruit and trying to stay out of God’s way, there are a few good friends I turn to who help me keep the fires of my passion burning. It is my friends who remind me who I am even when I forget. Some are around me right here on earth, and some like my grandmother are up in heaven with the communion of saints. She reminds me to be true to who I am, who I was when she was alive, and who I always will be. I'm a curious kid, a quick learner, a happy worker, who loves to write. For my 7th birthday my grandmother gave me a necklace with a tiny mustard seed encased in a glass heart to wear. She told me one day I would know what it meant. I know now it was her prayer for me that helped my faith to grow so that I became a preacher.
All the Saints and Blesseds, the ones whose names we know and those we don’t, surround us. They are continually fanning the embers of love in our hearts and giving us courage, hope and understanding . . . especially when we most need it. Thanks be to God!
Saturday, July 23, 2011
EUCHARIST: THE RADICAL ACTION OF LOVE (Jn 13:3-6; Mt 16:13-28)
For the past seven years I’ve been in four different parishes for the service on Holy Thursday. In every one of them I was asked to get my feet washed. Do I seem to need to learn the lesson of this Gospel more than the next person in the pew? What goes on here? I understand this ritual is about humility, service and reciprocity. I see the irony that it is just as humbling to be the one having your feet washed as it is to be the one doing the washing. No matter who you are you can always be more humble. The towel and the basin are beautiful symbols – great images for sketching. I can’t help thinking this ritual needs to be more than a quaint service in which we stumble over each other trying to outdo each other in humility. Its too orchestrated and symbolic and not what real service looks like to me at all.
I am reminded too that caregivers need to be careful that they are not offering service out of their own need to serve rather than the need of the one they care for to receive that service. We see pairs of people who become codependent: one needing to be helped all the time and the other having an addiction to be helpful. We can make invalids of each other in our competition to be caring. Radical hospitality goes beyond symbolic service and beyond the desire to make ourselves feel better by being the most humble servant of all, the servant of the servants of the servants, the poorest of the poorest of the poor. True service is compassion that flows naturally out of a good heart in practical actions with no fuss and no muss. This kind of service happens every day because someone notices what is needed and does it. It happens because people care about one another without wanting or needing recognition or even a return of affection for the services they offer.
I know the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday is a reminder to the priests that even among the apostles being top dog didn’t mean getting the top honors. And priests are reminding us that same lesson goes for the rest of us too. It is true that sisters as well as priests, sometimes lord it over others. Indubitably. But it is also true that members of the laity sometimes lord it over priests and sisters too. Radical hospitality doesn’t mean welcoming each other because we are all equals in the eyes of God. More often than not that happens naturally. When it doesn’t, it is because of the self-righteousness of a few who frankly ought to know better.
Radical hospitality means welcoming those who are nearly impossible to welcome because they do not even come close to our image of what is humble, decent or deserving. It is about finding the self-righteous woman who tsks through her teeth at the homeless man on the street and making her feel welcome and loved. It is about finding the indecent man who makes lewd gestures behind the backs of unsuspecting strangers and making him feel welcome and loved. It is about finding the undeserving child who is repeatedly held back for bad behavior and bad grades and making him or her feel welcome and loved. The community of faith that prepares us to do these things without giving them a second thought can hold a Holy Thursday service with or without the basin and towel and know that Christ is present.
Pondering hospitality today I went out to sit on the bench by a jasmine bower in the back yard. A deer came by and stood in the tall grass and looked at me. He was a young male deer with fuzzy little three inch antlers. He sneezed twice and looked at me as if worried I might have noticed him. I smiled at him and then looked away as if I hadn’t noticed, so he wouldn’t feel stared at. He looked away too. Then he lay down not ten feet from my bench and nestled his head on his front legs. Radical hospitality can happen just like that without so much as a thank you, dear.
I am reminded too that caregivers need to be careful that they are not offering service out of their own need to serve rather than the need of the one they care for to receive that service. We see pairs of people who become codependent: one needing to be helped all the time and the other having an addiction to be helpful. We can make invalids of each other in our competition to be caring. Radical hospitality goes beyond symbolic service and beyond the desire to make ourselves feel better by being the most humble servant of all, the servant of the servants of the servants, the poorest of the poorest of the poor. True service is compassion that flows naturally out of a good heart in practical actions with no fuss and no muss. This kind of service happens every day because someone notices what is needed and does it. It happens because people care about one another without wanting or needing recognition or even a return of affection for the services they offer.
I know the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday is a reminder to the priests that even among the apostles being top dog didn’t mean getting the top honors. And priests are reminding us that same lesson goes for the rest of us too. It is true that sisters as well as priests, sometimes lord it over others. Indubitably. But it is also true that members of the laity sometimes lord it over priests and sisters too. Radical hospitality doesn’t mean welcoming each other because we are all equals in the eyes of God. More often than not that happens naturally. When it doesn’t, it is because of the self-righteousness of a few who frankly ought to know better.
Radical hospitality means welcoming those who are nearly impossible to welcome because they do not even come close to our image of what is humble, decent or deserving. It is about finding the self-righteous woman who tsks through her teeth at the homeless man on the street and making her feel welcome and loved. It is about finding the indecent man who makes lewd gestures behind the backs of unsuspecting strangers and making him feel welcome and loved. It is about finding the undeserving child who is repeatedly held back for bad behavior and bad grades and making him or her feel welcome and loved. The community of faith that prepares us to do these things without giving them a second thought can hold a Holy Thursday service with or without the basin and towel and know that Christ is present.
Pondering hospitality today I went out to sit on the bench by a jasmine bower in the back yard. A deer came by and stood in the tall grass and looked at me. He was a young male deer with fuzzy little three inch antlers. He sneezed twice and looked at me as if worried I might have noticed him. I smiled at him and then looked away as if I hadn’t noticed, so he wouldn’t feel stared at. He looked away too. Then he lay down not ten feet from my bench and nestled his head on his front legs. Radical hospitality can happen just like that without so much as a thank you, dear.
WISDOM IN THE BLOOD: CAN WE DRINK THE CUP? (Mt 20:17-28; Mk 10:32-45; Lk 22:44; Ex 24:1-11)
What were you doing when Jesus called you? I was teaching and writing a book. When Jesus called the fishermen and net menders and tax collectors, he didn’t call them to do something else, he called them to do what they were doing but in a new way. This is true of us too. Jesus wants us to remain who we are and bring that true self to the work of the Gospel.
Father Joe told about a feeling he had during the last election for leadership in his congregation. He told them he felt like the congregation was in a boat and the boat heading right for a huge waterfall and they were all going to die. He said, "We don’t need a Provincial, we need a Hospice Chaplain!" He wanted to jump out of the boat. He saw that many others had jumped out already and believed that took real courage to do, but then one of his friends helped him to realize that it also takes courage to stay. When you step out of the boat it rocks a little, but then it steadies again. If you stay in the boat and rock it gently, it will change course eventually. What would have happened if the apostles had all jumped out of the boat? They had a bigger waterfall to face than we have. So he decided to stay, and now they elected him Provincial. Blessings Father Joe!
Jesus comes to the apostles walking on the water when they are afraid they are about to die saying, “Take Courage. It is I. Do not be Afraid.” G. K. Chesterton wrote about courage. "Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if we will risk it on the precipice.
He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying."1
When you look into the cup at Eucharist, what do you see? Kathleen Norris writes that Americans love blood if it is in a horror film or a vampire movie, but when it comes to facing the real blood crying out to us from the ground, the blood of Christ on the cross, the precious blood in the cup, we don’t really want to see it. We avert our eyes and sip the cup without even taking a moment to ponder the bloodshed and bitterness it represents. For the precious blood to be transformational we need to remember the suffering of Christ, of humanity, of creation and be willing to drink of that cup. This sharing in the cup isn’t a promotion like the sons of Zebedee thought, it is a new covenant sealed in blood, human blood shed daily for justice, not the blood of animals. The mother of James and John may not have understood when she asked for a place at Christ's right and left hand for her sons, but she understood the reply when he said, “It shall not be that way with you.” She was there at the foot of the cross with Mary and Mary Magdalen and the beloved disciple. That is where we are reminded to be at the Eucharistic table. It is there, in that consciousness, we are transformed. Not in hocus pocus, but in the mindfulness of the martyrs and mystics.
1 Chesterton, G.K, Orthodoxy, p. 91-92.
Father Joe told about a feeling he had during the last election for leadership in his congregation. He told them he felt like the congregation was in a boat and the boat heading right for a huge waterfall and they were all going to die. He said, "We don’t need a Provincial, we need a Hospice Chaplain!" He wanted to jump out of the boat. He saw that many others had jumped out already and believed that took real courage to do, but then one of his friends helped him to realize that it also takes courage to stay. When you step out of the boat it rocks a little, but then it steadies again. If you stay in the boat and rock it gently, it will change course eventually. What would have happened if the apostles had all jumped out of the boat? They had a bigger waterfall to face than we have. So he decided to stay, and now they elected him Provincial. Blessings Father Joe!
Jesus comes to the apostles walking on the water when they are afraid they are about to die saying, “Take Courage. It is I. Do not be Afraid.” G. K. Chesterton wrote about courage. "Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if we will risk it on the precipice.
He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying."1
When you look into the cup at Eucharist, what do you see? Kathleen Norris writes that Americans love blood if it is in a horror film or a vampire movie, but when it comes to facing the real blood crying out to us from the ground, the blood of Christ on the cross, the precious blood in the cup, we don’t really want to see it. We avert our eyes and sip the cup without even taking a moment to ponder the bloodshed and bitterness it represents. For the precious blood to be transformational we need to remember the suffering of Christ, of humanity, of creation and be willing to drink of that cup. This sharing in the cup isn’t a promotion like the sons of Zebedee thought, it is a new covenant sealed in blood, human blood shed daily for justice, not the blood of animals. The mother of James and John may not have understood when she asked for a place at Christ's right and left hand for her sons, but she understood the reply when he said, “It shall not be that way with you.” She was there at the foot of the cross with Mary and Mary Magdalen and the beloved disciple. That is where we are reminded to be at the Eucharistic table. It is there, in that consciousness, we are transformed. Not in hocus pocus, but in the mindfulness of the martyrs and mystics.
1 Chesterton, G.K, Orthodoxy, p. 91-92.
Friday, July 22, 2011
IMAGES OF COMMUNION: THE CHALLENGE OF BELONGING (1 Co 1:10-18; Mt 14:13-33; Mk 1: 16-20)
The images of connectedness that speak to my heart are the bonds of friendship. They are like the links of a golden chain upon which hang an image of the Crucified Lord. My fears in connectedness are that the few of us who have only been in religious life for 5, 10, 15 years might never have enough experiences together to develop the kind of trust and familiarity with one another that we can think of each other as friends. We seldom live or work together long enough to form a close bond because we are so spread out and each of us experiences being the one or two people under 65. How can we create a cadre of welcome for the next generation of religious women when the weight and needs of the large group of religious over 65 always takes precedence. My fear is that in our vocations work it looks like just a bunch of old folks to the young people who are called and they will decide not enter, or they will leave once they’ve been with us a short while because of a failure to make any abiding friendships. I see a long list of good young people who have left already. I want to find more ways to connect with my own peers while still honoring my elders and providing for their needs.
The bridges I need to build are with younger adults thinking about God and religious life, and with men and women who share my experience of being a Post Vatican II Catholic. The sisters in the 60 - 70 year old range consider me one of them, and the ones under 50 think I am one of them too. At 55 I am between the two. Should I burn the bridges with older people because they keep me from being able to forge bonds with the young women who will be with me the next 20, 30, 40 years? I don't think so. I think I need both bridges even though this stretches me too far sometimes. I am committed to doing the work I have been doing supporting our older sisters and helping them find ways to stay connected with each other and the rest of the world. But, I want to make time to get to San Francisco and Oakland, to Newark, Moraga, San Rafael, Santa Clara, Los Gatos and Berkeley to build frienships with young people too. I have a recurring dream of periodically making the rounds taking photos and videos of young people doing God's work in various ministries with our sisters for the website. I think this will be good for me as well as the congregation.
Father Joe told us a story of “Old 97”, the bus they used in the novitiate. One time Old 97 got stuck in the mud. "All the provincial’s horses and all the provincial’s men couldn’t get it back on the road again," Father Joe remarked. They pushed and they shoved. They got angry and frustrated. Someone reminded them that what is needed when you are stuck is to stop what you are doing, stop pushing, stay calm and start rocking back and forth. If everyone rocks back and forth, the grit will eventually give way and you will be out of the mud before you know it. This is also true of boats. John Paul I said we are all in this boat together and the seas are rough around us, but if we focus on what unites us rather than what divides us we will pull through together. This could be said of the Church today too.
We need to test the limits, but stay in the boat. The image of sailing and hiking out on the edge to make the most of the wind comes to my mind. Who is brave enough to sit out on the edge of this boat we call Church and let the wind move us faster in the direction we want to go? Are the waters really rough? They seem calm enough to me, but there is a whole lot of wind! No one has the guts to push it to the limits. Afraid of being tossed overboard or sent below, we huddle too close to the mizzen and let the boat flop around like a cork in a tub instead of pressing on like the great majestic four-master it could be. We’ll never get to the place where we can let the nets down deep this way! Kurt Vonnegut said he wanted to be as close to the edge as he could be without falling overboard because on the edge you see things you can’t see from the center. I like that idea and the courage and wisdom it implies.
The bridges I need to build are with younger adults thinking about God and religious life, and with men and women who share my experience of being a Post Vatican II Catholic. The sisters in the 60 - 70 year old range consider me one of them, and the ones under 50 think I am one of them too. At 55 I am between the two. Should I burn the bridges with older people because they keep me from being able to forge bonds with the young women who will be with me the next 20, 30, 40 years? I don't think so. I think I need both bridges even though this stretches me too far sometimes. I am committed to doing the work I have been doing supporting our older sisters and helping them find ways to stay connected with each other and the rest of the world. But, I want to make time to get to San Francisco and Oakland, to Newark, Moraga, San Rafael, Santa Clara, Los Gatos and Berkeley to build frienships with young people too. I have a recurring dream of periodically making the rounds taking photos and videos of young people doing God's work in various ministries with our sisters for the website. I think this will be good for me as well as the congregation.
Father Joe told us a story of “Old 97”, the bus they used in the novitiate. One time Old 97 got stuck in the mud. "All the provincial’s horses and all the provincial’s men couldn’t get it back on the road again," Father Joe remarked. They pushed and they shoved. They got angry and frustrated. Someone reminded them that what is needed when you are stuck is to stop what you are doing, stop pushing, stay calm and start rocking back and forth. If everyone rocks back and forth, the grit will eventually give way and you will be out of the mud before you know it. This is also true of boats. John Paul I said we are all in this boat together and the seas are rough around us, but if we focus on what unites us rather than what divides us we will pull through together. This could be said of the Church today too.
We need to test the limits, but stay in the boat. The image of sailing and hiking out on the edge to make the most of the wind comes to my mind. Who is brave enough to sit out on the edge of this boat we call Church and let the wind move us faster in the direction we want to go? Are the waters really rough? They seem calm enough to me, but there is a whole lot of wind! No one has the guts to push it to the limits. Afraid of being tossed overboard or sent below, we huddle too close to the mizzen and let the boat flop around like a cork in a tub instead of pressing on like the great majestic four-master it could be. We’ll never get to the place where we can let the nets down deep this way! Kurt Vonnegut said he wanted to be as close to the edge as he could be without falling overboard because on the edge you see things you can’t see from the center. I like that idea and the courage and wisdom it implies.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
EUCHARIST: TIME OF TRANSCENDENCE (Mt 2:1-12; Lk 9:28-36)
Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them to eat. Eucharist is the primary sacrament of reconciliation. We bring our life experiences to the altar to be blessed, broken and shared. I wonder today about the sins we let happen so that a greater sin does not take place? What about that kind of sin when no one knows of it but God and ourselves? I have in mind something I did or let happen because I felt allowing it to happen would prevent a worse thing from happening. Yet what happened was unjust and I did nothing to stop it. How do I find forgiveness for that sin? We do violence to ourselves and to the community when we don’t embrace our truth. That is where we find God. Do I really trust in my dreams or do I short change myself by letting things happen that compromise who I am? Do I trust in my dreams and my own inner truth even when they put me at odds with authority figures? This is what I will take to prayer and reconciliation and ask forgiveness for along with gentleness and patience, both of which it seems I always needing more.
Father Joe told us a creation myth in which God drew in the divine breath and placed vessels throughout the universe. When God breathed forth the light of the creation, the vessels were shattered because they could not hold it. The work of humanity is to travel throughout the world picking up the shards of the shattered vessels, healing the scars of that shattering and repairing the vessels. I am listening to the slow intake of God's breath today and waiting for the light to come back.
In the film Moonstruck, Olympia Dukakis is betrayed by her husband who cheats on her with another woman. All through the movie she plans to get back at him by doing the same thing to him. In a crucial scene she agrees to go out on a date with her husband's best friend who has always expressed his admiration for her. They have a wonderful intimate dinner together and he invites her to come back to his house. She says, “No, I know who I am.” That moment of recognizing her own truth and that a betrayal of her husband would damage her own integrity more than her husband is the message of the movie. The Eucharist happens in just such an atmosphere of betrayal and self-doubt that calls us to face what is really important deep down inside. It is an experience of the aching love and desire to be one with Christ like the apostles in the moment of that First Communion. We cannot betray that truth of who we are in our best selves. Even when questions nibble at our consciences and quibbles threaten to dampen our spirits, we know who we are. We are people who ache to be one with the Christ who died for us and gives us his Body and His blood to redeem our sins through the Eucharist.
Places of transcendence for me in nature are the many beaches where the waves rush in and recede taking all manner of creatures and pebbles back out with them. The repeated rhythm reminds me to accept my losses and gains in stride. God gives and God takes away and God gives back again. I savor the memory of that rhythm as it unites with the rhythm deep in my heart. My instincts teach me that all creatures are fascinated with what happens at the seashore and convene there to examine what is left behind and what is taken up by the waves. It does not surprise me that even whales when they grow weary turn themselves to the shore to die. The inner star, the light in my being is the vocation to write and teach. I need to heal some wounds before I can go on to do that or I will do violence to my true self and to the community. I need to embrace my truth and trust in my dreams even when they put me at odds with authority figures in our own congregation.
Father Joe told us a creation myth in which God drew in the divine breath and placed vessels throughout the universe. When God breathed forth the light of the creation, the vessels were shattered because they could not hold it. The work of humanity is to travel throughout the world picking up the shards of the shattered vessels, healing the scars of that shattering and repairing the vessels. I am listening to the slow intake of God's breath today and waiting for the light to come back.
In the film Moonstruck, Olympia Dukakis is betrayed by her husband who cheats on her with another woman. All through the movie she plans to get back at him by doing the same thing to him. In a crucial scene she agrees to go out on a date with her husband's best friend who has always expressed his admiration for her. They have a wonderful intimate dinner together and he invites her to come back to his house. She says, “No, I know who I am.” That moment of recognizing her own truth and that a betrayal of her husband would damage her own integrity more than her husband is the message of the movie. The Eucharist happens in just such an atmosphere of betrayal and self-doubt that calls us to face what is really important deep down inside. It is an experience of the aching love and desire to be one with Christ like the apostles in the moment of that First Communion. We cannot betray that truth of who we are in our best selves. Even when questions nibble at our consciences and quibbles threaten to dampen our spirits, we know who we are. We are people who ache to be one with the Christ who died for us and gives us his Body and His blood to redeem our sins through the Eucharist.
Places of transcendence for me in nature are the many beaches where the waves rush in and recede taking all manner of creatures and pebbles back out with them. The repeated rhythm reminds me to accept my losses and gains in stride. God gives and God takes away and God gives back again. I savor the memory of that rhythm as it unites with the rhythm deep in my heart. My instincts teach me that all creatures are fascinated with what happens at the seashore and convene there to examine what is left behind and what is taken up by the waves. It does not surprise me that even whales when they grow weary turn themselves to the shore to die. The inner star, the light in my being is the vocation to write and teach. I need to heal some wounds before I can go on to do that or I will do violence to my true self and to the community. I need to embrace my truth and trust in my dreams even when they put me at odds with authority figures in our own congregation.
THE PASCHAL MEAL: MEMORY AND MYSTERY (Lk 22:14-20; Acts 2:42-47)
My First Communion happened later in life and so I have a clear memory of it, but because it came together with baptism and confirmation it lost the significance some who remember it as a child have given it. The pictures of girls with their first communion dresses looking like innocent little brides help make me think what a sweet moment in the faith journey of the family that must have been. How their moms and dads must have loved them! My first communion is overshadowed by the baptism which was a much more significant event. But I do know it was in order to receive communion that I began the process that led to baptism.
For me the family meal and dinner with friends are occasions of enjoyable conversation, long discussions, with everyone welcome and everyone well fed. Solidarity with humanity and the rest of creation can happen in the most isolated of places. Garrison Keillor writes a story about the frozen lake where fishermen bond with the vast icy beauty of the lake and the mystery of the life below the surface. Father Joe asked us if we ever saw Grumpy Old Men … not the Vatican, he said jokingly… the movie. He referenced the image of grumpy men in a hut on a frozen lake. If stark places like this bring about solidarity, what of the meal with friends? I guess the point is we feel if we can be in solidarity with even grumpy old men and a frozen lake, then we can be in solidarity with all the rest.
One of the great scandals of our time is the excommunication of so many Catholics over their social or political views, or someone’s opinion of their lifestyle and the authority of the Church what is right and what is wrong. If we are no longer able to receive Eucharist when we are ex-communicated, what is communicated in this meal? What do I communicate? Why is meal connected with communication at all? It is at meals that we learn to share heart to heart with family and friends. If it is communication to celebrate Eucharist, it ought to be a communication of thanks. We give you thanks O Lord for the gifts we are about to receive in this meal and in each other. I hope to be able to say this at every meal and mean it with my whole heart. In truth sometimes I struggle with this when communication seems too managed, too stilted or phony, too judgmental or hypocritical … or when the political tensions call for discretion and make it seem that no subject of meaning is safe to bring up. I think we have a long way to go as Church to realize that communication more important than excommunication.
For me the family meal and dinner with friends are occasions of enjoyable conversation, long discussions, with everyone welcome and everyone well fed. Solidarity with humanity and the rest of creation can happen in the most isolated of places. Garrison Keillor writes a story about the frozen lake where fishermen bond with the vast icy beauty of the lake and the mystery of the life below the surface. Father Joe asked us if we ever saw Grumpy Old Men … not the Vatican, he said jokingly… the movie. He referenced the image of grumpy men in a hut on a frozen lake. If stark places like this bring about solidarity, what of the meal with friends? I guess the point is we feel if we can be in solidarity with even grumpy old men and a frozen lake, then we can be in solidarity with all the rest.
One of the great scandals of our time is the excommunication of so many Catholics over their social or political views, or someone’s opinion of their lifestyle and the authority of the Church what is right and what is wrong. If we are no longer able to receive Eucharist when we are ex-communicated, what is communicated in this meal? What do I communicate? Why is meal connected with communication at all? It is at meals that we learn to share heart to heart with family and friends. If it is communication to celebrate Eucharist, it ought to be a communication of thanks. We give you thanks O Lord for the gifts we are about to receive in this meal and in each other. I hope to be able to say this at every meal and mean it with my whole heart. In truth sometimes I struggle with this when communication seems too managed, too stilted or phony, too judgmental or hypocritical … or when the political tensions call for discretion and make it seem that no subject of meaning is safe to bring up. I think we have a long way to go as Church to realize that communication more important than excommunication.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
THE LOST LANGUAGE OF LISTENING (1Sa 3:1-10, 19-20; Mk 1:35)
My heart first opened when I heard the great “Yes” sung to the mystical body of Christ present in the Eucharist. I joined my “Yes” to that of the rest of the congregation, and before my mind understood what my heart was saying I was converted -- out of the wilderness and into the Catholic Church. I have never regretted that moment of enthusiastic assent. Since that moment I have trusted my heart to make the right choice. The image of my heart is of a place where the bird of faith flew in to rest and found a home. I protect the little bird of my vocation from storms and nurture it with bits of grainy food and wriggling things. The heart is a hearth, a warm place that glows and welcomes and invites the truth to come and be safe.
My spiritual director has a loving wide-open theology and a passion for good preaching mixed with contemporary wisdom and truth stories from real life. His self-deprecating humor about his vanity and blatant need to be appreciated make me feel comfortable in his presence. I trust him as a friend and guide because he is without pretense. He listens to my heart and speaks truth to me in a simple ordinary way. I have other mentors, but I consider him the one I turn to with the most difficult things. Others have the skill to direct, but it feels as if they have their own best interest rather than mine at heart sometimes, or as if they really don’t care that much to hear what I have to say. i see that Father Joe is this kind of man as well and think St. Louis will be glad to have him there. Our loss, their gain. I find hope in my relationship with my director, and in my friendships with other priests and religious men. They prove to me that healing can take place in the Church and in society if men and women are able to grow in honest understanding and admiration for one another without any exterior motives or needs.
The four steps for centering prayer outlined by Thomas Keating are a guide for listening to one another. We hold the Word sacred and are not afraid to tell each other the truth. The Word plants seeds in our hearts that invoke stories whose messages are unknown to us until we tell them to a friend. These stories are not carefully constructed homilies with all the parts woven together neatly to make a point. They are stories that emerge from the depths of an honest striving to love and be loved by another. Telling them is a trust walk. I know that when I stumble in the telling of a story my director will catch me and fill in the places I don’t see, move the twigs that might trip me up and hold back the branches that might snap back so I can move forward in my narrative with confidence. We consent to the Word God gives us to share and are comfortable in each other’s presence. We return gently to what has already passed between us, our dreams, our visions, our hopes for a new church, a better society, a new life – and we are grateful for God’s indwelling spirit among us. We are centering prayer for one another.
Robert Gass tells us to live in the present moment, not in planning for the future, responding to the present, and not in dwelling upon a past that can’t be changed. Mindfulness is embracing our vulnerability without becoming paralyzed by the pain of the past. As Timothy Radcliffe says, we are not human beings we are human becomings. We cultivate human connections and become hope for each other by being truthful and knowing the power of life triumphant over death, hope becomes new life for us in this moment and for all eternity.
My spiritual director has a loving wide-open theology and a passion for good preaching mixed with contemporary wisdom and truth stories from real life. His self-deprecating humor about his vanity and blatant need to be appreciated make me feel comfortable in his presence. I trust him as a friend and guide because he is without pretense. He listens to my heart and speaks truth to me in a simple ordinary way. I have other mentors, but I consider him the one I turn to with the most difficult things. Others have the skill to direct, but it feels as if they have their own best interest rather than mine at heart sometimes, or as if they really don’t care that much to hear what I have to say. i see that Father Joe is this kind of man as well and think St. Louis will be glad to have him there. Our loss, their gain. I find hope in my relationship with my director, and in my friendships with other priests and religious men. They prove to me that healing can take place in the Church and in society if men and women are able to grow in honest understanding and admiration for one another without any exterior motives or needs.
The four steps for centering prayer outlined by Thomas Keating are a guide for listening to one another. We hold the Word sacred and are not afraid to tell each other the truth. The Word plants seeds in our hearts that invoke stories whose messages are unknown to us until we tell them to a friend. These stories are not carefully constructed homilies with all the parts woven together neatly to make a point. They are stories that emerge from the depths of an honest striving to love and be loved by another. Telling them is a trust walk. I know that when I stumble in the telling of a story my director will catch me and fill in the places I don’t see, move the twigs that might trip me up and hold back the branches that might snap back so I can move forward in my narrative with confidence. We consent to the Word God gives us to share and are comfortable in each other’s presence. We return gently to what has already passed between us, our dreams, our visions, our hopes for a new church, a better society, a new life – and we are grateful for God’s indwelling spirit among us. We are centering prayer for one another.
Robert Gass tells us to live in the present moment, not in planning for the future, responding to the present, and not in dwelling upon a past that can’t be changed. Mindfulness is embracing our vulnerability without becoming paralyzed by the pain of the past. As Timothy Radcliffe says, we are not human beings we are human becomings. We cultivate human connections and become hope for each other by being truthful and knowing the power of life triumphant over death, hope becomes new life for us in this moment and for all eternity.
A SPIRITUALITY OF ACCOMPANIMENT (Ph 2:6-11; Lk 7:11-17; 8:1-3)
The stories of those who have been the face of God for us are stories with power to heal and change me. These days I am accompanied on my journey by many elders who daily teach me humility through their example of suffering and perseverance. Can I drink the cup they drink? No, I think, my time has not yet come. In the evening I am often hidden away to avoid being called to fix more things with computers, but in making that choice if hiding I am out of balance. Unavailable to them by being hidden away, even though I am there, I am not open to the face of God with the power to heal and change me. How can I be the cup of God’s mercy and forgiveness if I always keep the cupboard door closed? This is the area I am working on right now in my life as I try to bring my life into better balance.
In my mind there is a clear difference between authority and power, but they sometimes come together. Authority is built on authenticity. It is sometimes heard in the voice and the choice of words a person uses. This quality of voice either settles or does not settle well with the hearer. People differ as to what qualities are needed to make a person seem authentic. We react differently and disagree about who is the best authority on any give topic. I have sometimes found my authenticity and my authority challenged by my sisters. I don't sound like one of them because my life experiences have been so different having entered later in life and having learned to lead in a different way from the way they were taught to lead.
Do you remember the commercial “This is not your grandfather’s Oldsmobile?” Oldsmobile was a company who was perceived as having authenticity and trustworthiness with a generation that would soon pass away. They had missed the boat in meeting the needs of the sons and daughters of that generation by opting to build a product to the speculations of the previous generation (with all the money), but now they needed to create a new image to appeal to the grandchildren of that generation or they would take a huge loss. The slogan was catchy but it didn’t work. It only made it clearer to the public that Oldsmobile was a grandfather’s car.
Right now I live in my grandmother's community, but I am not your grandmother’s Oldsmobile. I can’t speak with a grandmother’s voice, because I am not of that generation. I am not anxious about holding onto the changes of Vatican II. I am not bitter or angry or defiant of the hierarchy, but I am not a pre-Vatican II Catholic. Right now change is slow or even at a standstill in the Church because of the anxiety of those who fear losing the changes brought on by Vatican II. The “me generation” would rather see the Church and religious life itself die out than turn over the reins to someone who did not live through what they lived through and cannot speak with their voice. I have a new vision, but my time has not yet come. In time a new image of an entirely different car, not an Oldsmobile at all perhaps a hybrid, will be accepted but is now the time?
All this is about authority and not about power. I know that power belongs to God alone. But authority makes a difference here on earth and structures can thwart the productive conveyance of God’s power. Like a mystic I unite myself with God through prayer so that I will be able to live and speak of it to the next generation in inspirational ways. The mystics in my life give me hope that this can happen through God’s power working in us and through us. In experiences of emptiness I seek out my mystics rather than my mentors. I go to my mentors when I am full of information and need help prioritizing and making wise choices. I go to my mystics for courage and inspiration. Knowing they are with me, observing, communicating and keeping on in the midst of suffering and trials inspires me to persevere in hope.
In my mind there is a clear difference between authority and power, but they sometimes come together. Authority is built on authenticity. It is sometimes heard in the voice and the choice of words a person uses. This quality of voice either settles or does not settle well with the hearer. People differ as to what qualities are needed to make a person seem authentic. We react differently and disagree about who is the best authority on any give topic. I have sometimes found my authenticity and my authority challenged by my sisters. I don't sound like one of them because my life experiences have been so different having entered later in life and having learned to lead in a different way from the way they were taught to lead.
Do you remember the commercial “This is not your grandfather’s Oldsmobile?” Oldsmobile was a company who was perceived as having authenticity and trustworthiness with a generation that would soon pass away. They had missed the boat in meeting the needs of the sons and daughters of that generation by opting to build a product to the speculations of the previous generation (with all the money), but now they needed to create a new image to appeal to the grandchildren of that generation or they would take a huge loss. The slogan was catchy but it didn’t work. It only made it clearer to the public that Oldsmobile was a grandfather’s car.
Right now I live in my grandmother's community, but I am not your grandmother’s Oldsmobile. I can’t speak with a grandmother’s voice, because I am not of that generation. I am not anxious about holding onto the changes of Vatican II. I am not bitter or angry or defiant of the hierarchy, but I am not a pre-Vatican II Catholic. Right now change is slow or even at a standstill in the Church because of the anxiety of those who fear losing the changes brought on by Vatican II. The “me generation” would rather see the Church and religious life itself die out than turn over the reins to someone who did not live through what they lived through and cannot speak with their voice. I have a new vision, but my time has not yet come. In time a new image of an entirely different car, not an Oldsmobile at all perhaps a hybrid, will be accepted but is now the time?
All this is about authority and not about power. I know that power belongs to God alone. But authority makes a difference here on earth and structures can thwart the productive conveyance of God’s power. Like a mystic I unite myself with God through prayer so that I will be able to live and speak of it to the next generation in inspirational ways. The mystics in my life give me hope that this can happen through God’s power working in us and through us. In experiences of emptiness I seek out my mystics rather than my mentors. I go to my mentors when I am full of information and need help prioritizing and making wise choices. I go to my mystics for courage and inspiration. Knowing they are with me, observing, communicating and keeping on in the midst of suffering and trials inspires me to persevere in hope.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
TIME WILL TELL: THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR SELVES (1Co 11:17-2; 12:12-26; Jn 1:19-28)
I write because without writing I become lost, afraid, confused, frustrated and disappointed. It is where God meets me in the innermost recesses of my mind and heart and encourages me to connect with others in love and truth. I write to live a fuller more effective life, to be sharper, more decisive and prudent. My image of truth is the sword, the double-edged sword of the Word that divides marrow from bone, the sword of St. Paul and St. George who fought the good fight and died but who live on in our faith. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow, as it judges the thoughts and purposes of the heart.”
In St. Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ, all parts of the body are equally needed: the eyes to see what has happened, what is needed now and imagine what will be needed in the future; the ears to hear what is being said aloud, what is whispered and reshapes the inner ear to hear anew; the feet to walk where one is led and where no one else has gone with trust, agility and steady pace; but most of all the hands to wield the truth with resolve and purpose. The projections of others about laying down the sword, what it means to them in terms of securing the peace, are true for me as well, but for I know that I am called to live Jesus by fighting the good fight using my skill with words even if that means suffering and dying as a result. For this reason, I am one who will ask the challenging question and interject the honest word when others might be more inclined to silence and caution, and I accept the scars of the consequences.
As Jesus says, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. Jesus came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” These are not easy words but they are true. It is healthier and wiser to accept, than to slide into a mindset of tacitly accepting rather than challenging injustices where we find them.
This doesn’t mean not holding your piece and waiting for the opportune moment. Timing is important. The same is true of embracing our own truth. There are times when self-sacrifice means doing what needs to be done rather than what we would rather do. In my own life I know that undertaking ministries to which I did not feel truly called has caused me, and others, tremendous grief. While seeming valiant and self-effacing at the time, I have learned there is cost not only to me but also to others. However, there are also times when it is right to wait, to just help out and set aside one’s own dreams for the sake of the common good.
1 Hebrews 4:12, International Standard Version, 2008.
2 Matthew 10:34, International Standard Version, 2008.
In St. Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ, all parts of the body are equally needed: the eyes to see what has happened, what is needed now and imagine what will be needed in the future; the ears to hear what is being said aloud, what is whispered and reshapes the inner ear to hear anew; the feet to walk where one is led and where no one else has gone with trust, agility and steady pace; but most of all the hands to wield the truth with resolve and purpose. The projections of others about laying down the sword, what it means to them in terms of securing the peace, are true for me as well, but for I know that I am called to live Jesus by fighting the good fight using my skill with words even if that means suffering and dying as a result. For this reason, I am one who will ask the challenging question and interject the honest word when others might be more inclined to silence and caution, and I accept the scars of the consequences.
As Jesus says, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. Jesus came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” These are not easy words but they are true. It is healthier and wiser to accept, than to slide into a mindset of tacitly accepting rather than challenging injustices where we find them.
This doesn’t mean not holding your piece and waiting for the opportune moment. Timing is important. The same is true of embracing our own truth. There are times when self-sacrifice means doing what needs to be done rather than what we would rather do. In my own life I know that undertaking ministries to which I did not feel truly called has caused me, and others, tremendous grief. While seeming valiant and self-effacing at the time, I have learned there is cost not only to me but also to others. However, there are also times when it is right to wait, to just help out and set aside one’s own dreams for the sake of the common good.
1 Hebrews 4:12, International Standard Version, 2008.
2 Matthew 10:34, International Standard Version, 2008.
STATE OF COMMUNION AND SOUL EXHAUSTION (Is 50:4-7; 1Ki 19:3-13; Mk 14:12-32; Mt 26: 20-46)
When I am weak or weary or wounded, the natural world teaches me that all is fleeting. All things are changing. I can choose to use the challenging and hurtful experiences in my life to become bitter or let them help make me better. When I try to hide or run away from my own weakness, weariness and wounds, my wounds fester and I become bitter. Instead I choose to “peel my own image from the mirror, sit and feast on my life.”1 I make friends with my weakness, weariness and wounds as the enemies Christ bids me to love, and they become my best allies. When I feel the deep soul exhaustion, the aching bone weariness, the tiredness that terrorizes the soul, the natural world reminds me that the land we call barren is the land lain fallow to receive the new seed of hope. Hospitality is the openness that needed for reconciliation to take place.
Father Joe told us about how in Enterprise, Alabama they built a monument to the boll weevil. The plaque below it describes it as a tribute erected by the citizens of Enterprise in 1919 to show their appreciation for its profound influence on the area's agriculture and economy. Hailing the beetle as a "herald of prosperity," it stands as the world's only monument built to honor an agricultural pest. The boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) was indigenous to Mexico, but appeared in Alabama in 1915. By 1918 farmers were losing whole cotton crops to the beetle. Instead of despairing, an insightful businessman named H. M. Sessions used this as an opportunity to convert the area to peanut farming. Cotton was grown again, but farmers learned to diversify their crops. The monument stands as a tribute to how something disastrous can be a catalyst for change, and a reminder of how the people of Enterprise adjusted in the face of adversity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_Weevil_Monument
Recovering from some painful experiences in ministry, I am longing for new creation in my life by accepting my personal truth and giving time for God to let that truth blossom and grow and bear fruit. I am a writer first and foremost. This is my vocation and my gift. If I am to do anything meaningful for the young, the poor and vulnerable and serve the Church, I must do it by employing this gift even when others would have me do otherwise, regardless of the cost. Repeatedly in spiritual direction and counseling this truth emerges, and repeatedly I have quietly put it aside in order to do something else. Excuses, excuses. No time, no compulsion, no paper, no energy, no focus, no agent. No, no, no. Karl Rahner defines guilt as the human “no” to God’s self communication. "Guilt is not, as is often assumed, a series of specific violations against an authority with punitive power, or the collective infractions and transgressions of human norms and the law. Likewise, it is not an error in judgment or failure to act on moral obligation. Rather guilt is “an ultimate, irrevocable, protest stemming from the rejection of life itself, of an act against oneself as a whole person and against God."2 I know in my heart that the one thing I would regret on my death bed is failing to publish the story I have inside. I must write this story in order to be redeemed and I need God’s grace to do it.
The climate in the Church today is as clouded by denial betrayal, accusation and denial as it was in the moment Christ instituted the Eucharist. We receive the Eucharist in a climate clouded by betrayal of trust placed in the priests we call fathers and subsequent damage to our image of God as Father, clouded by accusations both true and false that threaten to bankrupt the resources of the Church, and by systemic injustice that denies the message of Jesus Christ that men are not to be placed above women and children in the reign of God. What story do I need to write to help dispel these clouds so that the spirit of truth and justice can be incarnated again in our midst and unite us in faith? I know the answer to that question, and I am making time in my life to find an agent and write it.
1 Walcott, Derek, Collected Poems 1948-1984, p. 328.
2 Rahner, Karl, Meditations on the Sacraments, Seabury, 1944, p. 73.
Father Joe told us about how in Enterprise, Alabama they built a monument to the boll weevil. The plaque below it describes it as a tribute erected by the citizens of Enterprise in 1919 to show their appreciation for its profound influence on the area's agriculture and economy. Hailing the beetle as a "herald of prosperity," it stands as the world's only monument built to honor an agricultural pest. The boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) was indigenous to Mexico, but appeared in Alabama in 1915. By 1918 farmers were losing whole cotton crops to the beetle. Instead of despairing, an insightful businessman named H. M. Sessions used this as an opportunity to convert the area to peanut farming. Cotton was grown again, but farmers learned to diversify their crops. The monument stands as a tribute to how something disastrous can be a catalyst for change, and a reminder of how the people of Enterprise adjusted in the face of adversity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_Weevil_Monument
Recovering from some painful experiences in ministry, I am longing for new creation in my life by accepting my personal truth and giving time for God to let that truth blossom and grow and bear fruit. I am a writer first and foremost. This is my vocation and my gift. If I am to do anything meaningful for the young, the poor and vulnerable and serve the Church, I must do it by employing this gift even when others would have me do otherwise, regardless of the cost. Repeatedly in spiritual direction and counseling this truth emerges, and repeatedly I have quietly put it aside in order to do something else. Excuses, excuses. No time, no compulsion, no paper, no energy, no focus, no agent. No, no, no. Karl Rahner defines guilt as the human “no” to God’s self communication. "Guilt is not, as is often assumed, a series of specific violations against an authority with punitive power, or the collective infractions and transgressions of human norms and the law. Likewise, it is not an error in judgment or failure to act on moral obligation. Rather guilt is “an ultimate, irrevocable, protest stemming from the rejection of life itself, of an act against oneself as a whole person and against God."2 I know in my heart that the one thing I would regret on my death bed is failing to publish the story I have inside. I must write this story in order to be redeemed and I need God’s grace to do it.
The climate in the Church today is as clouded by denial betrayal, accusation and denial as it was in the moment Christ instituted the Eucharist. We receive the Eucharist in a climate clouded by betrayal of trust placed in the priests we call fathers and subsequent damage to our image of God as Father, clouded by accusations both true and false that threaten to bankrupt the resources of the Church, and by systemic injustice that denies the message of Jesus Christ that men are not to be placed above women and children in the reign of God. What story do I need to write to help dispel these clouds so that the spirit of truth and justice can be incarnated again in our midst and unite us in faith? I know the answer to that question, and I am making time in my life to find an agent and write it.
1 Walcott, Derek, Collected Poems 1948-1984, p. 328.
2 Rahner, Karl, Meditations on the Sacraments, Seabury, 1944, p. 73.
Monday, July 18, 2011
CARE OF THE EARTH AND CARE FOR THE SOUL (Ps 146; Lk 24:13-35; Jn 19:31-37)
Care of the Earth involves attentiveness to the messages communicated by earth, wind, water, fire and the creatures and plants that dwell therein. It is quite simply opening all of our senses to what creation has to convey in any given moment and holding that. Matter mediates the divine. What does it matter that matter mediates the divine if I do not attend to what God conveys to me thereby? Care for the Soul also involves attentiveness to the messages communicated by earth, wind, water and fire…but it is the interior listening to what happens in my deepest core. When the resonance between what God conveys through matter above, behind, below and before me with what God conveys within my deepest core is in harmony I am at peace and healed…when there is dissonance, my senses are disrupted and I feel lost, afraid, confused, frustrated and disappointed. When I am at my least sensible, I feel betrayed by my neighbors and by God whom I love.
The symphony of the Eucharist has five major movements according to Henry Nouwen: Loss, Presence, Invitation, Communion and Mission. When I am aware of the losses, fears, confusions, frustrations, disappointments and betrayals in my own heart I have more compassion for the losses, fears, confusions, frustrations, disappointments and betrayals that are felt by others. I convey that what happens to them matters to me in a personal way and there is a sense between us of a deep connectedness. It is in being attentive that I seek to be a good neighbor with humanity and the earth from which we are made. I experience the Eucharist as “uniting heaven and earth” especially in the consecration and prayer. My stance before the Eucharist is one of holding my heart open and letting its contents flow into the Body and Blood of Christ consecrated on the altar. I let the troubles and trials within my soul flow into those of the rest of the world and receive into my heart what the concerns conveyed back to me through the Eucharist. In this stance, connected to all of creation, my heart weeps with the Blessed Mother before the crucified Lord, nourished by the Body and washed by the Blood in prayer.
At this moment in my life I feel keenly a loss of my youth, of the strong, confident, easy going woman I used to be. My body is aging noticeably and I feel weaker and achier after doing the physical exercises that I know I need. Still I do them and let myself ache. I feel a loss at work too. I am gradually giving up the work I have been doing to other ministers. This is a loss that I accept willingly in order to make space in my life for another type of work next year. But, what that work will be I do not know. I am measuring the pace at which this turn over happens so that I can feel more comfortable with the way it is occurring. There is a loss of authority and power involved and I recognize that and feel it. There are some hurts involved and some fears. The aging is happening in the same way, gradually, in a managed and paced way. I am willingly taking these losses as a natural. I have a rich understanding of the ebb and flow of life that gives me courage to accept all losses as vital preparation for gain. I trust in God to lead me in the way I need to go next.
The symphony of the Eucharist has five major movements according to Henry Nouwen: Loss, Presence, Invitation, Communion and Mission. When I am aware of the losses, fears, confusions, frustrations, disappointments and betrayals in my own heart I have more compassion for the losses, fears, confusions, frustrations, disappointments and betrayals that are felt by others. I convey that what happens to them matters to me in a personal way and there is a sense between us of a deep connectedness. It is in being attentive that I seek to be a good neighbor with humanity and the earth from which we are made. I experience the Eucharist as “uniting heaven and earth” especially in the consecration and prayer. My stance before the Eucharist is one of holding my heart open and letting its contents flow into the Body and Blood of Christ consecrated on the altar. I let the troubles and trials within my soul flow into those of the rest of the world and receive into my heart what the concerns conveyed back to me through the Eucharist. In this stance, connected to all of creation, my heart weeps with the Blessed Mother before the crucified Lord, nourished by the Body and washed by the Blood in prayer.
At this moment in my life I feel keenly a loss of my youth, of the strong, confident, easy going woman I used to be. My body is aging noticeably and I feel weaker and achier after doing the physical exercises that I know I need. Still I do them and let myself ache. I feel a loss at work too. I am gradually giving up the work I have been doing to other ministers. This is a loss that I accept willingly in order to make space in my life for another type of work next year. But, what that work will be I do not know. I am measuring the pace at which this turn over happens so that I can feel more comfortable with the way it is occurring. There is a loss of authority and power involved and I recognize that and feel it. There are some hurts involved and some fears. The aging is happening in the same way, gradually, in a managed and paced way. I am willingly taking these losses as a natural. I have a rich understanding of the ebb and flow of life that gives me courage to accept all losses as vital preparation for gain. I trust in God to lead me in the way I need to go next.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
MSA Annual Meeting 2011 - The Virgin Mary in the United States and Canada
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Monday, February 7, 2011
Religious Life Discernment
Is God calling you to consider Consecrated Life as a Dominican sister? Come and join our Discernment Retreat [Single Catholic women (18-40)] Friday and Saturday, February 11-12, 2011 Friday 6 PM- Saturday 7PM Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose Motherhouse 43326 Mission Blvd. Fremont, CA 94539-5829 (entrance on Mission Tierra Pl.) Freewill offering. RSVP by Monday, February 7: vocations@msjdominicans.org or call 510 933-6335.
Friday, January 7, 2011
World Cafe
Today I am going deeper in the World Cafe. I have been reading two books contemplatively for the past few months. One is an Anthology of Christian Mysticism by Harvey Egan, SJ. and the other is Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block. The first is nourishing my sense of God and God's way of being within and with me in love as love. Inspiration from the lives and writings of the mystics is breathing life into my ministry as Director of Information Technology and Prioress at St. Joseph's Priory. Yesterday the idea of "seasoning one another" from St. Catherine's letter to her Spiritual Companion, Raymond de Capua kept rising up in my imagination like something rising to the surface of a still pool. What a beautiful thought that is to me! When we are at our best we season one another's lives. This is what Jesus refers to in reminding us we are the salt of the earth, and warning about what we risk when that salt loses its flavor. How can we add flavor when our own flavor has been lost? We either keep our own true flavor or become something artificial that benefits no one, least of all ourselves. I am resolved to being true and sharing what I know to be true with others. This is why the World Cafe appeals to me. I've known about it for a few years and like the idea, but I am signing up for it today. We will be using it at our Gathering of Prioresses this weekend. I see great possibility for it and hope it really takes off in our community as a way of connecting more deeply with each other and with people in other communities...not just religious communities, but other kinds of communities too, across many different cultures and generations.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
The Heavens are Telling
Today I am preparing an Evening Prayer and Reflection on Care for Creation based on the Universe Story and the book Radical Amazement by Judy Cannato. On Friday evenings we gather in our local community and one of our sisters volunteers to share something that is part of her own prayer life. My retreat last summer has brought me into a deeper awareness of the cosmic connection between the inner life, the common life, and the cosmic life. Our Congregational Justice Committee gave each of our Prioresses a prayer to use in community and a book with ideas for prayers on Care for Creation. I volunteered two weeks ago to lead our prayer, and now this idea has providentially landed in my mail. After I worked out how I would set the environment and tone, how to lead off the reading and invite contemplation and start off the sharing, I began to look for music to move us into the social hour that typically follows our prayer. I found on my shelf a used CD I found on the Free Table. Its called The Heavens are Sounding: Favorite Choruses by Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Handel, Bach, Gounod, Haydn & Brahms. I chose Track 13 The Creation: The Heaven's are Telling by Joseph Haydn. This sent me into a search to know the lyrics in English and I found some beautiful things online about the entire work. It is about the story of Creation from Genesis and Paradise Lost.Cosmic images put to the music.
I invite you to marvel at them and ask yourself as we will be asking ourselves this evening, what is it about the story of the universe that amazes me to my depths? How can I treasure creation more lovingly? How can I give thanks more truly for all that surrounds me with light?
English Lyrics
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Newman Symposium
We sponsored a symposium on John Henry Newman at Stanford University and our Motherhouse over the weekend. It was a huge success! I never knew so many people have a devotion to Cardinal Newman. Father Ted Ross, S.J. and Father Michael Barber, S.J presented on Newman's life and writings. There are so many lessons we can learn from him about development of doctrine, preaching, the role of the laity, conscience and morality. I have been especially inspired by Newman's writing about the stirrings in his own conscience in his teen years and later as a adult. I am moved by the integrity and relentlessness of his pursuit of the truth through the study of Catholic teaching through the centuries. The quality of his writing and the sincerity of his belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist make me want to know more about him. Bishop John Cummins and Timothy Eden, SM joined Father Ted and Father Michael to answer questions here and at Stanford. I am reading the authorized biography by Beaumont and a book on his Inner Life by Father Zeno, OFM,Cap. His doctoral dissertation was on the works of Newman and he is now considered one of the foremost Newman Scholars in the world. I recommend both books highly. I want to read some of his sermons and the Apologia next. If want to find out more about him or his works go to newmanreader.org.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Al di lÃ
Today I went to the funeral of a man who lived in the parish in San Francisco where I studied as a novice. The Mass was a simple and beautiful testimony to a loving dad and family man who lived a good long life and now has gone on to heaven "filled with our love" as the program said. One of the blessings of wakes and funerals is that they call us to revisit places we once worked and lived and prayed. Most of us move about so frequently within the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, that it is hard for us to build the kind of lifelong friendships that these dear old parishioners know. To me it is so touching to meet people who have been friends and neighbors for over 50 years, whose children and grandchildren now are friends. The homily was sincerely affectionate and filled with the kind of tender insights a priest can only have when he has known the family through thick and thin times. The testimony given by the man's grand daughter gave us glimpses into the life of a family man growing up in Italy and San Francisco from 1922 to 2010. This is the kind of old neighborhood many of us remember fondly and long for even though we many not be Italian. We all had them, German, French, Mexican, Irish, Russian, Polish, even English immigrants. We still have that desire for connectedness in the neighborhoods where we live in now but it is harder to find it, harder to build it. There are places we might find it in a parish, a coffee shop and a family business, but we have to look past all the chain stores and evangelical entertainment centers to find it. The closing song, Al di là , must have been the favorite love song of this man and wife when they were young. Now the husband has gone to heaven and his tearful wife is surrounded by neighbors who know how much she will miss him. How blessed she is to have this neighborhood to keep her memories alive and well. My sisters and I didn't know what the words to the song meant, but we could tell it was a love song. I looked the words up and now I like it even more! Here they are for when you are mourning someone a loved one who has gone beyond:
Italian
Al di lÃ
Non credevo possibile,
Se potessero dire queste parole:
Al di lá del bene più prezioso, ci sei tu.
Al di lá del sogno più ambizioso, ci sei tu.
Al di lá delle cose più belle.
Al di lá delle stelle, ci sei tu.
Al di lá, ci sei tu per me, per me, soltanto per me.
Al di lá del mare più profondo, ci sei tu.
Al di lá de i limiti del mondo, ci sei tu.
Al di lá della volta infinita, al di la della vita.
Ci sei tu, al di la, ci sei tu per me.
La la la la la...
La la la...
(Ci sei tu...)
English
Beyond
I couldn't believe it was possible
For these words to be said:
Beyond the most precious good, there you are.
Beyond the most ambitious dream, there you are.
Beyond the most beautiful things, there you are.
Beyond the stars, there you are.
Beyond, there you are for me, for me, just for me.
Beyond the deepest sea, there you are.
Beyond the borders of the world, there you are.
Beyond the infinite vault (=the sky), beyond life.
There you are, beyond, there you are for me.
la la la...
(There you are).
Italian
Al di lÃ
Non credevo possibile,
Se potessero dire queste parole:
Al di lá del bene più prezioso, ci sei tu.
Al di lá del sogno più ambizioso, ci sei tu.
Al di lá delle cose più belle.
Al di lá delle stelle, ci sei tu.
Al di lá, ci sei tu per me, per me, soltanto per me.
Al di lá del mare più profondo, ci sei tu.
Al di lá de i limiti del mondo, ci sei tu.
Al di lá della volta infinita, al di la della vita.
Ci sei tu, al di la, ci sei tu per me.
La la la la la...
La la la...
(Ci sei tu...)
English
Beyond
I couldn't believe it was possible
For these words to be said:
Beyond the most precious good, there you are.
Beyond the most ambitious dream, there you are.
Beyond the most beautiful things, there you are.
Beyond the stars, there you are.
Beyond, there you are for me, for me, just for me.
Beyond the deepest sea, there you are.
Beyond the borders of the world, there you are.
Beyond the infinite vault (=the sky), beyond life.
There you are, beyond, there you are for me.
la la la...
(There you are).
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Meeting with the Dalai Lama
I attended the teaching of the Dalai Lama on the eight verses of training the mind in the San Jose Convention Center and the interfaith gathering of clergy afterward. The eight verses are all centered on building compassion. They are similar to the Beatitudes in the way they recommend specific practices that lead away from self and toward love and humility. One of the assets of the Buddhist tradition I really appreciate is that because they have no belief in God, they concentrate all their study and practice on developing the human characteristics that most other faiths attribute to God. This is something very practical about Buddhism that admire, and I think many other people do too. We concentrate a lot of study and practice on identifying and defining God and establishing rules for being in right relationship with God. This can have the effect of drawing us away from instilling the attributes of God we most admire.The Dalai Lama pointed out that an asset we Christians have is because we believe in God, we do not have to work so hard at avoiding taking credit for our own growth in perfection. We know it is all grace and that it is God alone who deserves praise. We know we are subject to God and not in charge of the universe. Buddhist teaching places great emphasis on humility so that the monks and priests who seek to progress on the spiritual path do not do so for their own sake. The ultimate goal is spiritual union with all that is. We seek this too in our own way. For us, our personal relationship with God, Jesus, Mary and the Saints is woven into the spiritual path. We look for different signs and assurances along the way than our Buddhist brothers and sisters, and we have a rich heritage of stories to guide us.
The Christian mystics teach us that the path moves through stages of purification, illumination and contemplation...all of which require discipline and devotion. The mystic way is not for the faint-hearted or feeble-minded.... although meekness and simplicity are most welcome. These are the lessons I am pondering today as I go about my daily business of photo editing, website administration, data security and coordinating senior transportation options. I am grateful for the eight verses today. They help me with ordering daily life in accordance with what really matters. If you are interested in learning more about them and the Dalai Lama's visit, you can find more online at teaching the mind.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Typical Day
Enjoyment of a daily life that is punctuated by regular periods of communal prayer is characteristic of a Dominican Sister of Mission San Jose. Early in the morning (between 4:00 and 6:00am) we have individual routines. We drink coffee or have a light breakfast. We pray, do spiritual reading or journal. We jog, walk, do yoga, aerobics, swim or do some other kind of physical exercise. We read the newspaper, listen to the radio or the television to become informed about the news of the day. It is customary for us not to talk much during these hours except to greet each other to be polite. This is to keep a prayerful quiet atmosphere in community in the early morning. Each community sets a prayer schedule that works best with the ministry schedules of the sisters in that community. Generally morning prayer (liturgy of the hours sung chorally) is prayed between 6:00 and 7:00 am. followed by Eucharist. Then we eat breakfast together and converse about something we read, our activities, events in the parish or other news of the day. After breakfast we go to our various ministries. We sometimes each lunch together and sometimes not depending on the ministry and the other events going on. Typically evening prayer (between 5:00 and 6:00 pm) is liturgy of the hours sung chorally. Our prayers in common usually happen in the convent chapel.
We celebrate all the major feasts and solemnities of the Church as well as all the Dominican feasts. After evening prayer we gather together for dinner and conversation. After dinner we spend time in community with our sisters. We do not have formal recreation, but we do recreate in a variety of ways, by watching movies, reading books, playing cards or other games, doing handcrafts or art, practicing music, exercising or going out for a walk. Usually after 8:00 it is quiet again. It is a fairly regular schedule, but sometimes we change it to accommodates special events. In the summer we have a more relaxed schedule to allow vacation time or visiting with family for extended periods. I like the gentle rhythm of our life. It makes for a well-balanced and healthy daily life. We are not bound by a strict rule to keep to what is scheduled, but we abide by it voluntarily as we are able.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Harvest Moon
Tonight the nights will begin to get longer and the Harvest Moon will be there to greet us and remind us that even though there will be longer periods of darkness, the moon and stars are there to keep us from losing our way. I love the Harvest Moon. It is always so much larger and prettier than usual. I'm not sure why that is. I know it has something to do with the fact that it appears lower on the horizon and the atmosphere has some interesting effect on the reds and blues in the light.
I love the autumn sky the best because my old friend Orion, the hunter is always visible with his broad shoulders hovering over us. Also tonight Jupiter will be very visible near the moon shining brightly all night long. I read that this is the only time in our lifetime we will be able to see Jupiter and moon together all night long. Cassiopeia (the Queen) will also be in the northern sky (above Polaris, the North Star) and in the northwest before dawn. She is easy to find because she is shaped like a big letter W or M if you are looking at her upside down. To add to the excitement in the autumn sky this year, Comet Hartley 2 possibly 2010’s brightest comet should be bright enough to see with binoculars by now. It may be visible to the unaided eye by October. Shine on Harvest Moon!!
I love the autumn sky the best because my old friend Orion, the hunter is always visible with his broad shoulders hovering over us. Also tonight Jupiter will be very visible near the moon shining brightly all night long. I read that this is the only time in our lifetime we will be able to see Jupiter and moon together all night long. Cassiopeia (the Queen) will also be in the northern sky (above Polaris, the North Star) and in the northwest before dawn. She is easy to find because she is shaped like a big letter W or M if you are looking at her upside down. To add to the excitement in the autumn sky this year, Comet Hartley 2 possibly 2010’s brightest comet should be bright enough to see with binoculars by now. It may be visible to the unaided eye by October. Shine on Harvest Moon!!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Prioressing
In our communities we have a role called Prioress, which means "first among equals." The Prioress is not exactly in charge because our Dominican life is not ordered that way. We are a democratic community. The community as a whole makes all the important decisions, but the Prioresses help that to happen.
The main responsibility of Prioress is to act as the spiritual leader and ensure that the community as a whole is spiritually unified and functioning in a positive way for the common good. This year I have been appointed to serve as Prioress for a community of 27 sisters together with my Assistant Prioress, our Health Care Coordinator, a Treasurer and two Community Councilors.
Being Prioress is a way of caring for and about people and using my gifts in building community. It is a challenge because a lot of little things come up all day long needing my consideration and advice. I'm working on adjusting my balance of community, prayer, ministry and study and am grateful to have great mentors and sisters who help me keep a sense of humor. Despite the challenges, I think this new responsibility might just be my "cup of tea".
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Common Life
The past month I've taken a break for all my online pursuits to tend other relationships in real time and build community with my sisters at Saint Joseph Priory. Every year our Congregation begins anew in August or September forming community with the sisters assigned to a particular Priory or Convent that is near where they have been commissioned in a variety of ministries. This year I am doing that at Saint Joseph Priory at our Motherhouse in Fremont. Since I entered in 1997 I have lived in eight of our communities, each of them very different from each other. Each community has its own personality and its own history. The Priory is a community of 27 sisters. It is the largest of our 30 communities in the United States, Mexico, Germany and Guatemala.
When I was a postulant (now we call them candidates), I lived at Immaculate Conception Priory in San Francisco and taught at Saint James School in the Mission District. Then I moved to Siena Community, our novitiate house in Mission San Jose. After profession I was sent to Immaculate Conception Convent, a smaller convent that we used to own near San Francisco to finish my doctoral studies at the University of San Francisco and teach at Immaculate Conception Academy. Then I moved to convent in Warm Springs dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe and served as project manager for the relocation of 52 of our sisters in St. Martins and St. Josephs prior to the renovation of the chapel and care center. After that I served for two years as admissions director and college counselor at Saint Elizabeth High School and lived at Saint Elizabeth Convent. I was a lecturer at Saint Mary's College and Santa Clara University when I lived at Saint Simon's Convent in Los Altos. I lived and taught for a short period at Santa Teresita in Los Angeles before arriving at my present assignment as Director of Information Technology and Prioress of Saint Joseph Priory in Fremont.
We have a few sisters who live alone in an apartment for the sake of ministry or are caring for an aging parent, but all our sisters are affiliated with a community. Our community life sustains us spiritually and keeps us centered in the relational life that is the heart of Christ's preaching. We believe like our founder Saint Dominic that community is the preaching. We challenge each other to be loving, authentic, compassionate, well-balanced and generous. Every one of my sisters is an inspiration to me in her daily human striving for Jesus, the way, the truth and the life. I love what we call our Common Life. There is always someone home to exchange ideas with if you want to talk, and people will leave you alone if you just want some peace and quiet. We have many celebrations and deep discussions about life, the universe and everthing of interest. I have come to realize that even though they are truly humble and would never point this out themselves, I live with some of the most well-read, well-educated women in the world. My sisters are women who make a difference in people's lives, laboring quietly and praying constantly to make the world a better place.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
In Our Keeping
I attended the Dominican Archivists and Historians Conference in River Forest, Illinois on the campus of Dominican University. Janet Welsh, OP (Sinsinawa) Director of the McGreal Center for Dominican Historical Studies has been such a gracious and joyful host, ready to lend a hand and lighten us with cheer at every juncture. Everywhere we went on campus and off .... even on the local scene on the waterfront in Chicago, the people were so hospitable and engaging. I never knew Chicago was such a friendly city! Suzanne Noffke, OP (Racine) set the tone for the conference with her opening presentation on History as Sacramental Remembrance and our responsibility to help others to gain respectful access to the archival material we treasure with such fidelity and help them to enter into those sacred remembrances within the eternal presence of God. This freed us from feeling that our job was just keeping the dust off the collection, to looking at new ways of breaking it open sacramentally.
We held a Skype conversation with Barbara Beaumont, OP (Fanjeaux) about the Sister Historians of the Order of Preachers (SHOP) and their international distance learning that allows students from parts of the world where advanced learning is inaccessible to study theology by correspondence or online toward degrees in divinity soon to be co-sponsored by the Angelicum. In the afternoon we discussed Cynthia Folquer, OP's (Tucaman) work on the mystical experience of the indigenous peoples of the high mountains and the interweaving of politics and religion in Argentina.
We had a preview of Kathleen Sprows Cummings new book, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender in American Catholicism, about the many valiant ways that Catholic women overcame sexism and forged new ground for women in every field. We discovered new ways for Sister historians and archivists can relate to each other more productively and help to preserve and share the story of Dominican congregations. We reviewed software and hardware available for conserving space, preserving and sharing documents and artifacts. We visited the McGreal Center and talked with the volunteer staff of Library and Information Science Students from Dom U. Then we heard an insightful and stimulating panel of young Dominican friars, sisters, nuns, volunteers, associates, and students talk about what the Dominican family has meant to them and how they understand their role in shaping its future. Our own former volunteer and friend of the congregation, Sara Brabec represented DVUSA and spoke eloquently of the joys, supports and challenges of living in an intergenerational Dominican community and her desire to continue to grow in faith seeking understanding through formal study at GTU Berkeley and teaching. We closed the conference with Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist and Mary Ellen O'Grady (Sinsinawa) preaching on the scholar's call, after learning the answer, to go and do likewise.
I will stayed on at the McGreal Center to update our MSJ file of documents in the archives and insert 10 pages of key dates from our own Congregational history into the 10 page timeline of the California Chronology for Volume II of Dominicans in the US. As a member of the OPUS project I am offering to help with writing and editing of Vol. II while working on my own writing about Dominican Mothers and Mystics funded by the Mariological Society of America.
The truth is in our keeping and telling. I leave here with the awareness deep in my soul that God is eternally present as we tend the sacramental remembrances of the past. Because of this sacred work those who come after us will be able to live in its light and find hope and peace and joy.
We held a Skype conversation with Barbara Beaumont, OP (Fanjeaux) about the Sister Historians of the Order of Preachers (SHOP) and their international distance learning that allows students from parts of the world where advanced learning is inaccessible to study theology by correspondence or online toward degrees in divinity soon to be co-sponsored by the Angelicum. In the afternoon we discussed Cynthia Folquer, OP's (Tucaman) work on the mystical experience of the indigenous peoples of the high mountains and the interweaving of politics and religion in Argentina.
We had a preview of Kathleen Sprows Cummings new book, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender in American Catholicism, about the many valiant ways that Catholic women overcame sexism and forged new ground for women in every field. We discovered new ways for Sister historians and archivists can relate to each other more productively and help to preserve and share the story of Dominican congregations. We reviewed software and hardware available for conserving space, preserving and sharing documents and artifacts. We visited the McGreal Center and talked with the volunteer staff of Library and Information Science Students from Dom U. Then we heard an insightful and stimulating panel of young Dominican friars, sisters, nuns, volunteers, associates, and students talk about what the Dominican family has meant to them and how they understand their role in shaping its future. Our own former volunteer and friend of the congregation, Sara Brabec represented DVUSA and spoke eloquently of the joys, supports and challenges of living in an intergenerational Dominican community and her desire to continue to grow in faith seeking understanding through formal study at GTU Berkeley and teaching. We closed the conference with Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist and Mary Ellen O'Grady (Sinsinawa) preaching on the scholar's call, after learning the answer, to go and do likewise.
I will stayed on at the McGreal Center to update our MSJ file of documents in the archives and insert 10 pages of key dates from our own Congregational history into the 10 page timeline of the California Chronology for Volume II of Dominicans in the US. As a member of the OPUS project I am offering to help with writing and editing of Vol. II while working on my own writing about Dominican Mothers and Mystics funded by the Mariological Society of America.
The truth is in our keeping and telling. I leave here with the awareness deep in my soul that God is eternally present as we tend the sacramental remembrances of the past. Because of this sacred work those who come after us will be able to live in its light and find hope and peace and joy.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Faust's Wager
Ever since my German Professor treated me to Gounod's Faust at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco earlier this month, I've had "Le veau d'or est toujour debout" running through my head. Goethe's story of a man willing to wager his soul for an experience of Divine Wisdom, and the epic struggle that ensues, is my favorite book. In the French version by Goundod, Faust gambles his soul in exchange for wine, women and song instead. In the English version by Marlowe, the exchange is for power and glory. It is interesting how the different cultures interpreted the story of Faust differently. The opera has multiple endings ... sometimes Faust loses and sometimes he wins. You never know how it will turn out until you see it. Th experience at the opera has reignited my passion for truly great music. While on home visit in New Hampshire, I picked up a second hand set of Opera Collection I by EMI Classics with arias from Cosi fan tutte, Carmen, Aida, La Traviata, Madame Butterfly, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, the Magic Flute, Norma, Tosca, Romeo and Juliette, Werther, Les Troyens, Samson and Tristan and Isolde filling the room while I work on Info Tech. These powerful songs remind me to enjoy even the moments of tension in life as part of the great drama of being fully human. We are in the midst of preparing for our 24th General Chapter and tension has begun to mount around the preparations .... discussing the upcoming elections of a new Congregational Prioress and Council, listening to the voices that challenge us from the margins,and identifying key areas on which we will choose to concentrate our collective energy in the coming 5 years. Meanwhile, this magnificent music is animating my days and nights. It puts me in a positive frame of mind and helps me to enjoy life as an unfolding love story of epic proportions, with bits of romantic comedy, intrigue, tragic undoings, and elevating acts of transcendant nobility all woven together in creative ways by our loving creative God. Treat yourself to a good recording of one of your favorite operas, and you'll see (or hear) it for yourself. I like to imagine God as a singer especially today as the thunder storms mount around us rumbling and crashing their cymbals. Now which of the SATB parts do you imagine God would be singing? I'm favoring the Baritone today.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Meta Family
One of the highlights of visiting family this year was spending time at the NH Museum of History and canoeing on Bear Brook Lake with my 11 yr old cousin Bailey. This year I realized that my family, like many in the United States, has metamorphosed into something quite different from what I remember it to be. While I do have relatives who are blood relations, I have many more who are related by marriage, adoption, foster or surrogate family, friendly and neighborly association. So, looking around the family circle at the evening barbecues with my cousin and her children, we found it hard to name the exact relationship of some people present even though we call them family. For instance, Pete, if I have this right, is the former husband of the daughter of the ex-mother-in-law from the 1st marriage of my cousin's brother. Others have similar complicated connections, but this one was the hardest to describe, although the man himself was an obvious fit in the family circle. More to the point, he has a son the same age as her son, and they like each other. Someone who can muster up with a playmate of the suitable age for the children comes with a premium! I think we are not alone in this new shape of family. This is a common metamorphosis happening to many American families. I grew up in the age when the nuclear family was the norm, so I still try to categorize people as brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grammas, grampas etc. In my mind I think of people as unclish, auntish, cousinish, brotherish...etc. I am a celibate religious, but I am also gramma to two delighful Korean American children who need one ... and who think I seem to fit the part. The positive side of all this is that it frees us to be the relation that best fits who we are. But, what does this new reality do to a child's understanding of the Holy Trinity? Can we fathom a Holy Trinity made up of the Stepfather of the Bride to Be, the Son of the 1st Cousin of the Ex-Mother-in-Law, and the Holy Spirit? What would it mean if we really began to think of each other in terms of who we need to be for one another rather than who we happen to be by circumstance? Does this new reality free us to be the mother, brother, sister, father that hears the Word and puts it into action...just Jesus intended?
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Home Visit
Our Constitutions provide for us to make a home visit to see our family once a year. If they live out of state, we typically do not do this every year. Most of my family lives in NH and I visit them about once every three years. I also have a Korean American family who live in upperstate New York. This is because I helped to raise who a girl named Song who was an international student at Notre Dame High School when I taught there before I entered. Now she is grown up and has two children of her own. Her two little children are Samantha, age 4, and Noah, age 3. They call me grandma. This makes me feel very old, but I like it because it sounds so cute the waya they say it...even when they say it over and over again. Their other grandparents are in Korea, but they never get to see them because it is so far away. So, they love having a grandma who can come visit and do things with them. They cried a lot today when I had to leave to go visit my family in New Hampshire. Even though Song and I tried to make it as smooth as possible. We had a great weekend together! The picture here is of Boldt Castle in Alex Bay. We took a boat ride out to see the castle and went to the Food & Wine festival. They both are too little for school and need a lot of attention! They tend to do the opposite of what they are asked to do. The person who invented reverse psychology must have been thinking about children like these two! Samantha is the little girl who asked why all the time. Every question is Why? Even after the answer is given, she's right back to you with Why? again. I forgot how persistent little children can be! I am praying for Song to have patience and a good sense of humor. Those two characteristics can get you through a lot of challenges! I'm glad she has a nice home and a good job and supportive friends nearby, and a boss who understands the challenge of raising little children. Today I'm on my way to New Hampshire to see the rest of my family.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Being
At the end of my retreat in the Redwood Mountains I find myself in a deeper state of consciousness and fuller sense of being. I am abiding under the wings of the Alpha and Omega. Even though my excursion to the beach did not lead to the breathing in one with the rhythm of the ocean I had hoped for, my breathing is attuned to God as the plenum out of which all things come and to which all things return. I have an artistic visualization of that as the wings of the Alpha and Omega, a cosmic reality embodied by a new consciousness rising up in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a new image of the spirit taking wing, in humanity. There is a freedom and a bold creativity in that new understanding. I do not need to travel to the ocean to connect with it. God is indeed all around me and within me, breathing in and through me. Christ, the Alpha and Omega, the Mystical Body is our Catholic way of naming this cosmic understanding of the creation of all that is. We are not lightyears away from this reality, it is our being. We are that which is, the I am. But we can only sense this when we can gently set aside the "little" me, the "ego" who wants to claim and control us. I can let the deeper truer me be the gentle mother who sees my own little self kindly like a little child pulling at my skirts saying, "Me, me, me! Watch me, mommy!" Although this new image of the Alpha and Omega stretches my imagination, I have deep faith in its goodness and its truth because I know that it yields the fruits of the Spirit by which I have learned to recognize the Truth. Where there is love (agape); joy (chara); peace (eirene); patience (makrothumia); kindness (chrestotes); goodness (agathosune); faithfulness (pistis); gentleness (prautes); and self-control (egkrateia), there is Truth. My prayer is that all can find their way to being in this Truth for the greater good of all that is and healing of all that divides and dissembles. Here is a good site to learn more about the fruits of the Spirit http://www.spirithome.com/fruitssp.html.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Understanding
The big bang theory has implications for a new way of understanding God as the plenum, or the ground of all being. Our retreat director proposed that we are part of that ground of being that is in a continual state of expansion as a result of the initial explosion of the big bang. Because of this we have an innate sense of oneness that comes from our understanding of the way it was before the explosion of the big bang and resulting expansion. None of this is contrary to a theological understanding of the origin of the universe, if we consider that all that is expanding is God. As many mystics have said in different ways, we are in God and God is in us. We might expand that idea to a belief that all of matter is God too. We do not know enough about space and much of what we think we know is untrue. The truth is we do not know the shape, size, actions or essence of space. There are many theories, some popularly accepted and some wildly speculative. I sense that the shape of space is more organic than geometric and that it fluctuates or ripples. There are some recurring patterns, but the pattern of the big picture is beyond our present ability to discover. We know that it is both contracting and expanding. It appears to be infinite in capacity, but may have limitations beyond what we can discover. I imagine that space, or what we are calling the "plenum" has all the senses we have and some we have yet to discover. I can accept that the plenum from which we come and into which we return is the source of all grace. I believe all its actions are good even those that might appear not to be good to us. I think it is made of fire interacting with all the elements we know, and those we do not. But, I know that the Hubble Telescope found indications in space of celestial activity before the big bang. This has led to speculation that there may be waves of big bangs before the birth of the universe that appear as ripples or ribbons in space. There is no popular consensus yet about this pre-bang space although there are numerous theories. There may be multiple universes or a multiverse. Some of the theories are briefly explained here: http://universe-review.ca/F02-cosmicbg.htm#prebigbang. What we are beginning to find in space discovery is series of big bang points, like portals through which multiple universes appear to be expanding and contracting . . . a breathing or birthing motion. The question that I have is this. “If God is the plenum and the big bang through which God became manifest did not only happen once, but rather is preceded by countless other contractions and expansions; is it then also true that God is not the fecund emptiness out of which all comes and to which all returns, but rather a process of birthing or breathing that continually manifests and transforms all that is?”
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Seeing
Today I focus my awareness on seeing. A blue heron flies overhead. I return to the duck pond again to contemplate the patterns in the duckweed. Circling it again and again, I observe it from a distance, from above, from the edges. It is roughly oval in shape and about the size of a soccer field. The plant I am calling duckweed covers most of the surface, it shifts slowly during the day sometimes being like a thin veil over the entire surface, sometimes in patches speckling the surface and sometimes it all moves to one end or the other. The father duck is no longer there, but the mother duck and ducklings are still feeding on the duckweed as they glide slowly along the surface. For the past three days the father duck has been nowhere to be found. The rest of the family hides in the tall reeds, but he is not there. Today after feeding for a while, the mother duck takes up the place of the father duck on the stump in the middle of the pond and preens herself. The little ducklings continue feeding, braver now to move further away from her. They come close to where I am standing by the edge of the pond making gentle little quacking sounds. I continue circling and turtle jumps into the water disguising itself with duckweed. It pokes its head out occasionally to see if I’m still there. The water is very clear but the bottom is covered with thick brown silt. The green plant and brown silt make it uninviting for humans to swim in. I do not see any fish, but the heron had been fishing here for something. There is an occasional bubble on the surface from something breathing underneath. The patches of duckweed must look like clouds from underneath. I see their reflection on the bottom of the pond, creating shady places. The turtle’s experience of the pond reminds me of our experience of the cosmos. It cannot explore too far and much of what it sees is a mystery. The mother duck leads her ducklings for their first venture out of the pond to feed on the grass. They get bolder and move further away from her as they explore this new food. She shows them how to pull down the blades of grass and eat the tips where the seeds are. They try to mimic her but are not as adept at it, stumbling and shaking their heads as they try. Occasionally, one of them is able to pull something up and eat it making a great display of their success. I marvel at how quickly they are growing and wonder about where the father duck has gone. I think he must have flown away. Soon the ducklings learn to fly too. I hope I am here to see it . . . and that the cat is not.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Feeling
All the senses have both an exterior and interior reality. I hear, taste, see and smell many things at once, but I register only a few of my perceptions in a given moment and select which ones to think about and store in my memory. The locus of each of four of these senses is in my head. My ears, mouth, eyes and nose send information directly to my brain. The rest of my body remains relatively uninvolved in what I hear, taste, see and smell unless I choose to involve it. With feeling it is right away obvious it is different because my entire body is covered with the organ that feels. My skin is the largest organ in my body and sends more messages to my brain in a given second than any of my other senses. This creates a challenge when I become conscious of what I am feeling. I am a bundle of nerves! It takes more for this organ to get my attention than the other three senses because it would be information overload to register all of it at once. Starting out on a hike in the redwood forest that is adjacent to the retreat center, I notice there is precipitation in the air. Thousands of tiny little droplets are pummeling my skin. I see the cat has caught a bird and is prancing around with it very proudly. I feel sad for the bird, but feel no blame for the cat. That is its way. It looks so proud of itself. Overhead a hawk is circling. It has a lizard in its beak. I wonder about the coincidence of two proud hunters showing off their catch and think it must be the time of day that makes this a good time for hunting. The overcast skies means the hunters have no shadows to forewarn the prey. A breeze begins to whirl out of the northwest. I have only gone a few meters down the trail when I feel a sharp vibration under my feet and the air thrums with some deep \ loud creaking noise. My feelings serve to alert me to look and listen to discover more about what I am feeling. The vibration continues but grows fainter. I take a few more steps and there is another trembling under foot followed by a loud creak. This time I realize that it is the sound of a large tree creaking in the wind. All the trees are swaying in the wind and I don’t know which one is pushing against another to make the sound. The vibration I feel must be from the ground where the roots are. The wind picks up, the ground quakes under my feet and the air begins to vibrate around me. Birds swirl overhead. One more creak, prolonged this time, and the tops of some of the trees in the forest begin to tumble away from me, down into the ravine. Crash, crash, crash, boom! A tree has fallen and the ground is still. Inside I have a new feeling of reverent awe at being present at the death of a tree. Chickadees and Jays come swirling around me. They look in my eyes and sing out as if to say “Did you see that?!” They swirl ahead of me down trail and off in the direction of the tree that fell. I cannot follow them although they seem to invite me to go deeper into the woods off the trail into the ravine. I know in my bones it would unsafe. All is still and I feel grateful to be alive.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Smelling
I’m out with my nose in the air, actively sniffing what is around. It feels like a comical thing to me, but I’m determined to awaken my senses and be with the wonder of creation through them more fully. Like some kind of animal other than human, I’m sniffing around in the air. I have to say, except when there is a powerful smell that might mean food or danger, my nose usually just takes it as comes and doesn’t exert itself much in doing its job. Walking the perimeter I find that the air here is sweet almost everywhere I go. There is a seemingly infinite variety of sweetness. God is blanketing the earth with sweet smelling flowers, even the trees rotting on the warm forest floor smell sweet. Following my nose I find a greenhouse, an organic garden and an arbor with honeysuckle and grape vines with a bench to sit and take in the aroma. On my contemplative walk, I stop to admire the scent of every plant and tree. Later in the day, I go to the beach to let my nose smell the ocean. I begin to wonder if it is only my nose that smells. It feels like more than to me, my throat, sinuses, lungs and stomach are involved in smelling too. Maybe even my heart smells in the midst of all that. At the beach, the first thing I smell is the decaying flesh of a poor sea lion laid out dead in the sand. Many people are sitting all around it as if it doesn’t exist. A couple nearly stumbles upon it and look at it curiously expecting it to be alive. I steer clear of it and head upwind. The ocean has a less clean smell than I hoped. I remember the Atlantic sea air and the salt marshes. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has research on “Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World.” I’m drawn to the research on how the sense of smell is powerfully linked to memory: http://www.hhmi.org/senses/d110.html. I notice this ocean does not have the nice salty smell at all compared to the ones I remember from my childhood. This is a disappointment to me every time I come to the Pacific. I still have my nose in the air when it dawns on me that my nose is more judgmental than my other senses. Of course this ocean is just as great and the air is just as fresh, but I rank it lower because of the way it compares to a smell in my memory. I notice that I am far more willing to suspend judgment about whether or not a thing tastes, looks, feels or sounds good than I am about whether something smells good or bad. My nose makes snap judgments that I react to automatically and rate with interior pleasure or disgust. I am dismissive about smells. I notice this today and muse on the connection between making automatic smell judgments and what we mean when we say someone has her nose in the air.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Tasting
After savoring a lunch of wild rice and mushrooms, cucumber salad, and a strawberry sundae, the duck pond draws my attention because I notice the ducks are making an odd little slurping sound. A brown and black father duck sits on a stump in the middle of the pond surveying his duckdom with diffident grace. On the other side of the pond a whitish mother duck wanders all over the pond nonchalantly with six rambling ducklings who take after dad right behind, more or less. As they move through the water they are slurping up the green plants on the surface of the water. Soon dad slips into the water and joins them in the feasting. He stays a distance from them and they move away from him as he moves forward. They do not look at one another. The ducklings follow the mother duck but resemble the dad. They have no interest in him or what he is doing. From one end of the pond to the other the ducks leave an intricate lacework of trails in the green plant. I begin to wonder what the green plant is and why they like it so much. My intuition tells me it must be good because they look healthy and content. I search online for green algae and ducks and find a link to The Charms of Duckweed. It is easily confused with algae because it is so tiny, but it is actually the world’s smallest flowering plant and produces the world’s smallest fruit. It is higher in protein per square foot than soybeans and easier to grow. It is edible for humans and is being used by environmentalists to reduce nitrates in waste water. Here is the site http://www.mobot.org/jwcross/duckweed/duckweed.htm. It is fascinating to me! So much so that I find that I can’t get the duckweed out of my mind. All day duckweed keeps coming to mind. I want to shift to something new, but for some reason it keeps coming back. I am aware of this and try to let it come and go. But even in the middle of the night it comes back. At 2:30 am, I begin to call it “stuckweed.” It is very interesting and I’m grateful for it, but I’d like to think about something else … like God maybe. What message is there in this duckweed for me? The retreat director encourages me to stay with it although I’d rather not. It seems silly to be thinking about duckweed all the time. We’ll see.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Listening
It is the birds that first become so noticeable when I open my ears to all around me. But soon, my thoughts take me off to recent studies in neurology that has proven birds regenerate neurons in their brains seasonally. Like humans they learn their first repertoire for communication from their parents through listening and repeating. The listening and responding centers of their brains are much like ours. Scientists say they now know that birds generate new neurons in the brain for song learning in the autumn and put them into use in the spring as they try out new songs to attract mates and compete for territory. This gives medical researchers hope for finding a way to people suffering from Alzheimer and Parkinson’s to grow new neurons for communication to replace those destroyed by disease. Each bird has the song of its family, but with its own unique additions that can be detected electronically. I am listening to the songs of the purple finches trying to detect individuality among them but also marveling at them and enjoying. Floating on my back in the swimming pool, I am trying to listen to the birds’ listening. Suddenly a fledgling finch comes and lands on the fence looking at me curiously. She is all covered in tufts of fluff from her nest and looks a bit tuckered out from this early attempt at flight. She sings nothing, but she is listening as her mother and father both sing out encouragement and possibly a cautionary song to her. Then, poor thing, she flies off straight into a window with a little boom. But she is quickly up again and off. I think, this is a good early lesson for a bird, before she can get up much speed or confidence in her flight. No damage done. Her parents seem not at all alarmed. Perhaps they brought her to this fence for that purpose. After a bit more bird brain thinking, I return to rest in God. The Smithsonian has more on bird brains http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/birdbrain.html.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Contemplative Retreat
This week I am making a Contemplative Eco-Spirituality Retreat at the Presentation Center in Los Gatos with Jan Novotka. My plan is to spend time in silence listening to God through the melodies of the universe open to the metaphysical mystery of God present in all of creation. More about Jan and her music can be found here: http://www.jannovotka.com/. My only goal this week is to attune my breathing to the rhythm of the cosmos and to pray for special intentions. On this retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains there are ten sisters from our congregation and ten from other congregations. What follows are some of the highlights of these days as I focus on awakening my senses and deepening my cosmic understand of God. I promise to pray for all of you venturing in this new communal realm of creativity that the Spirit of Wisdom will speak to you clearly and effectively through your interactions on the web and that God will protect you from all harm.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
God Give Me Time
I have many different roles and tasks that require concentrated time and energy. I use a fairly simple organizational system to manage my time that you might find helpful too. Here it is: Make three shelves in your mind. One for the things you have to finish by the end of the day. One for the things you hope to finish by the end of the week. And one for things which, if God ever gives you the time, you will try to get back to. This week God has given me time! That rarely happens, so I'm very happy to be able to work on two back burner projects I've been wanting to get back to for some time. I found a good user-friendly study of the two newest generations: Millennials (b. 1980-2000)and Generation X (b. 1965-181)and applied it to our Congregational profile to learn how to understand and support my younger sisters better. And I am creating a searchable online database to organize all of our sisters' preaching and make it available for future use. I feel very happy to be able to work on these two Congregational projects and bring them to completion!
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