waiting yet again...

So part two (and now part three) of my reflection on brokenness is taking its own sweet time in being born. That's as it should be. I am enjoying the wait and being patient with the words. A favorite and often quoted (by me) verse from Gertud Mueller-Nelson about the feminine wisdom of Advent spirituality reminds me that:

As in a pregnancy, nothing of value comes into being without a period of quiet incubation: not a healthy baby, not a loving relationship, not a reconciliation, a new understanding, a work of art, never a transfor- mation. Rather, a shortened period of incubation brings forth that which is not whole or strong or even alive. Brewing, baking, simmering, fermenting, ripening, germinating, gestating are the feminine processes of become and they are the symbolic states of being which belong in a live of value, necessary to real transformation...

(To Dance with God)

Having been blessed with delivering both of my wonderful daughters (with the wise and tender assistance of some Earth Momma midwives in California and a fiercely independent and strong woman partner back in the day) - and being a part of at least a hundred plus other births during my days in ministry to say nothing of the joys and sorrows of praying/waiting,listening/holding my breath that took place with the births of our grandchildren - I know that Diana Ross and the Supremes were right: you can't hurry love! 

So, I wrote today - and then ran errands. I edited and washed the kitchen floor. I took a nap and let my thoughts bubble up from below. Then I spent a long time taking in the hills behind our home. There is clearly a shift in this realm and autumn is in the air. Poet, Erik Nixon, touched me with his "Peak Summer" because I, too have been aware that some leaves have now become red and each evening demands a blanket on the bed.

We're steeped deep in summer

And everything around me
Seems to indicate it'll never end
But still I'm spending time
Looking for the subtle signs
Trying to figure out when
We've reached peak summer
When the billion green trees
Start to dull ever so slightly
When the bounty of vegetables
Found at all the local farm stands
Start thinning in quantity and quality
When the Halloween candy
Appears in the supermarkets
And the Back To School! signs
Show up in the big box stores
When the sun sets a little earlier
And gets a little more noticeable
Each night, night after night
Until you start thinking about
How much daylight you've lost
All of the signs and all of the things
I've been noticing are telling me
That we're right in the midst of
Peak summer and if I'm not careful
It'll be completely over
And I'll have missed it entirely
As the season folds into fall

One of the tiny blessings that has accrued from my back porch contemplation is an awareness that life according to God's order is relentless. Nothing stays the same. The only things that don't change are things that are dead. Also, the non-stop nature of the movement I see and feel all around me is towards life. Not death. Decay and loss have their place, to be sure, but it is always so that greater life might flourish. Take a look. 

In December, the view from my deck looked like this.

By February, this is what I saw.

In late March, it looked like this.

And when we returned from Ross and Jennifer's wedding in California - and seeing Phil and Julie in SF in mid-May - here's what was going on.

By late July, the place was bursting with fecund wonder.

And now in Mid-August, the browns and oranges are gathering strength as the green fades to grey and the air whispers a quiet invitation to "hold on."

This morning I started an online course at the Center for Contemplation and Action featuring Cynthia Bourgeault. She is unpacking the perennial truths of the Wisdom School. Part of the experience is intellectual, but most of it is experiential - especially this week's chant. As I started to learn it and pray it, my tears returned. The same thing happened earlier as I sat watching the beauty on our deck. If I have absorbed anything from this gazing it is that our current political and cultural madness will not last forever. Yes, it will likely be worse before it gets better. Ugly and harsh before the beauty returns, too. But the way of God suggests that creation's drive for life is built into ever fiber of the planet and life is relentless. 

In these later days of waiting - and watching - writing and cleaning floors, I trust the life that God has imbued into every ounce of creation with much more life than any of the spin doctors or merchants of doom. And as I wait, I find myself trusting it even more. This poem, "Problem" by George Bilger, obliquely posits the choices before us all. 

Jerry is at his usual table this morning
with his cup of coffee and his laptop,
working on his science fiction/fantasy novel.

In every café in America
men and women are hard at work
on their science fiction/fantasy novels.
Perhaps you are one of them. If so,
I salute you; it's a very competitive field.

Forty years, says Jerry, I sold life insurance.
Now I can do what I really want to do.

The planet where his story takes place
has three suns, and the problem he's working on
is how do the people there tell time.

I suggest having everyone wear three watches,
which Jerry doesn't think is funny.
This is a serious novel, he's taking it seriously,
and he wants to get everything just right.

Forty years I sold life insurance, he says.
Now I can do what I really want to do.