Sunday, October 31, 2021

building an all hallows memory box...


The wise and prolific spiritual guide, Christine Valters Paintner, has led a variety of workshops on fresh and time-tested ways to renew the inward/outward journey. I have participated in two online courses with deep satisfaction. In one, the insights and presence of my ancestors as wisdom keepers was our focus in anticipation of the Celtic Triduum of All Hallows: the All Hallows Eve vigil as well as the feasts of All Saints and All Souls days. Her invitation was simple: prayerfully consider those who have gone from this life to life everlasting from that great cloud of witnesses of family and friends. Then find pictures or mementoes of these sacred souls and create a "memory box" as an altar.

This invitation came at the right time for me - a year before the pandemic lock down - and, after creating a list of my "saints," I eagerly explored boxes of old photographs. When I discovered I didn't posses a picture of a loved one, it was time to go online to consult obituaries, blogs, and FB pages. What a great search! A visual pilgrimage of sorts filled with memories, stories, and songs from those who have shaped my heart. I took a used-up wooden planter box, draping it with cloth and added candles and symbols of my journey: a jar of sacred soil from Chimayo in Northern New Mexico, a copper candelabra, and an interfaith decal.

Next came pictures: my siblings - two of whom are gone, and my mother and paternal grandparents - who likewise have crossed over. Our faithful old dog, Casey, who once annoyed me greatly but taught me something of patience. Four generations of Lumsdens including my great grandmother. The chapel of Chimayo where Di and I have prayed for one another and our families often. Dear Michael Daniels of precious memory who introduced me to AA. Mentors Sam Fogal from my home church and Ray and Jane Swartzback of my internship in Jamaica, Queens, NY. Dianne's mom and dad, my sisters, and maternal grandparents. Below, and not seen in this photo, were pictures of my Aunt Donna who was like an older sister to me. Candles graced both levels of memories.

This became my All Hallows altar of personal icons. As I sat quietly before it, memories and songs swelled up within the silence. There were times when I could feel some of these saints with me. And other times when there was just a holy quiet. It's a grand and simple way to reclaim this holiday - and who knows where it will lead.


Sunday, October 24, 2021

preparing for the Celtic triduum: All Hallows Eve

Sunday, October 24: Preparing for the Celtic Triduum
In ways I’ve rarely understood, my soul reverberates with the rhythms of the ancient Celtic year – especially their sense that these are holy in-between days. My Scots Irish ancestors believed that “the transitions between the seasons” were liminal spaces akin to “the shores between land and water, the boundaries between political territories, bridges that cross streams of water, and the twilight between day and night.” (Llewellyn) They sensed that these realities “were neither one thing or another” – mystery more than certainty or both/and as I’m want to say – where physical-ity hugs spirituality in a sacramental way. The poet, Angela Bailey, sings:

Every moment is born from the death of the last moment:
Every spring is born from last year’s autumn, 
every leaf that falls nourishes new life
That will sprout when the earth is warmed again: 
So why do we insist on clinging?
Why do we not let go as easily as a tree 
Lets go of both its leaves and its seeds,
Letting one die so that another will grow? 


Why indeed? Fr. Richard Rohr suggests that part of the answer has to do with the way our spiritualities have been shaped more by ideas and concepts than God’s first incarnated word in nature. Most clergy “were trained for years by going away not into a world of nature and silence and primal relationships, but into a world of books. “

But that’s not biblical spirituality and that’s not where religion begins. St. Paul insists that spiritual formation starts with an encounter with nature: “Ever since the creation of the world,” he writes in the first chapter of Romans, “the invisible essence of God and God’s everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind’s understanding of created things in nature.” We know God through the things that God has made. The first foundation of any true religious seeing is, quite simply, learning how to see and love what is. Contemplation is meeting this reality in its most simple and direct form unjudged, unexplained, and uncontrolled!

The inward journey, as the mystics like to say, is taking a LONG, loving look at what is real. Not the words of Scripture, the study of doctrine and dogma, or even the recitation of liturgical prayer: it is gazing upon what is right in front of us with love. Christine Valters-Paintner, on of my favorite wisdom keepers, suggests that when Jesus sensed his call to an outward and public ministry of sharing love, renewing the prophetic tradition of Judaism, showing people a way to opt out of the status quo, and incarnating the love of God in human flesh: he went into the wilderness.

Why, after thirty years – a span of time when life expectancy in his era was about the same age – did Jesus wait another forty days to begin his public ministry? Where did he go and what was he doing for so long that was so important? NOTHING. Jesus wasn’t even eating… he was not doing a thing except being. He sought out the wilderness so that he could make time to read God’s first “book” of creation… One of the lessons Jesus gives by his example is that before action, contemplation must take place… outside the noise, confusion, and chaos that so often surrounds us… Spending time reading the original scriptures of nature shows us how to step back, truly rest in contemplation before rushing into action. (Earth: Our Original Monastery, pp. 24-25)

This is what I have been stumbling towards over the past 25 years – learning to read God’s first word in nature – and letting that word shape and inform my heart, my being, and my activity. Living consciously into a nature-based Celtic Christian spirituality, however imperfectly, reminds me that since I was a small child I’ve been enraptured with this time of year: mid-October through mid-November and into Advent. I cherish EVERYTHING about it – the sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and activities – even the oblique melancholia that creeps inside of me as the days suddenly shrink after Day Light Savings Time ends evokes a bit of quiet gratitude and has done so for decades.

Intuitively and sensually, autumn is about endings: “the harvest has been gathered indoors,” writes Gertrud Mueller-Nelson. “The garden’s excess has been turned under the earth one last time. And while we return to the earth the riches she shared with us and allow the rotting melons or the bright leaves to be turned back into the soil, we sense something of the interdependence” of creation built into this in-between time. How does the written word of God we often say in our funeral liturgies put it: from dust we came and to dust we shall return? In the beginning, we emerge from the earth and into the hummus we finally return to rest. Whether you garden or not, if you’re awake and watching nature – even in the city – the circle of life dances before us, inviting us to let go and be-come empty so that we might be filled by God’s grace. Creation, the ancient Celts, Christian liturgy as well as the Beatles are clear: let it be, let it be, whispered words of wisdom, let it be.

· This is what the autumnal triduum of All Hallows Eve, All Saints and All Souls Day asks us to practice: letting go in trust that the threshold of darkness will bring new life and light to us in God’s own time. It is a hallowing of our fears and anxieties, an inverted spiritual adventure that seeks to assure us that out of the darkness will come new light in the love of Christ. It is a counter-intuitive faithfulness of the highest order.

· “These three feasts,” writes historian Christopher Hill, “remind us that the roots and branches of Christianity are in the unseen, and that the trunk passes for only the littlest while through this daylight world of time and the five senses. These feasts are intended to be a remedy for our unease with the unseen, to teach us to get along with mystery” and be gentle with our-selves. Sadly, our culture has buried these feasts giving them little attention or significance – leaving only the “popular folk holiday, Halloween,” to do the heavy lifting. (Holidays and Holy Nights, p. 46) Hill adds that now our secularized vigil of All Saints at Halloween acts like “an impish little brother to the former great vigils, offering a small echo of their world-transforming mysteries.”

Once upon a time, however, in both Christian and pre-Christian Celtic practices, these three days of All Hallows Eve nee Samhain practiced living into all types of darkness and anxiety with far more trust than fear. The ancient Celts paid attention to the cross-quarter day of November 1st that arrives halfway between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. These moments looked and felt like in-between time as one season died and another struggled to be born. Meg Llewellyn notes that this experience was “neither one thing nor another, letting human beings step outside their rigid mental boxes to catch a glimpse of mystery… in the old days THIS was the most potent in-between time of all.” (The Celtic Wheel of the Year, p. 19) November 1st was celebrated as the start of the Celtic New Year she adds because:

It was a ‘hinge’ time, marking the transition between summer’s light and winter’s darkness. It was believed that during this “thin time” between the seen and unseen realms, the gate between these worlds swung open and remained so until the gate closed about November 16th… from late October to early November… the past, present, and future became intertwined as the dead walked among the living, the faerie folk danced visibly and solemnity and celebration embraced in festivals of bonfire light to drive back evil spirit while families communed with relatives who had already crossed… Samhain became a time to honor the ancestors, not as the dead and departed, but as the living spirits of loved ones who guarded the root wisdom of the tribe.

I like Christopher Hill’s insight when he writes: “In the more sensuous awareness of time that people had in the absence of precise measuring systems, it was apparent that at these moments, one time had ended. Time would start again, of course, but between the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next there was a gap – and in these gaps it was believed that the world reverted to the way it was before time began – at the creation – dreamtime – much like each day shows us the year in miniature at both noon and midnight suggest a smaller crack in time… where anything is possible. (p. 51) Hill amplifies this saying:

Such occasions are perilous, undetermined, turning points and even crises, where things can go one way or another. This human sense of time is so deep and apparently universal that it has found its way into al-most every religious tradition. It is the root of most holy days and the source of sacred time. The timeless, of course, can break through at any moment; holy days are simply our celebrations and sacraments of that fact.

That is why, in both the Christian and pagan manifestation of these celebrations, these vigils begin at night. Our modern addiction to efficiency has erased much of this practice except at Christmas in the West and Easter in the East. But organic spirituality that is not tamed, homogenized, or sanitized by practicality recognizes that “sacred work takes place in the middle of the night, when the way is open between eternity and this world.” Our Jewish ancestors still mark the start of a “day” when evening falls. And our written Bible tells us that Jesus was born at night, was transformed and resurrected in the darkness, and once told his friends that “what I say to you now in the dark you must share with the world in the light.” Small wonder Jesus taught the skeptic, Nicodemus, about the “mysteries of rebirth and the holy spirit… in that famous nighttime dialogue” in St. John’s third chapter.

It was only about 500 years ago that we in the West gave up night vigils. Those of us from the Reformed tradition know our obsession with rationality and order. Our theological ancestors mistrusted the darkness – metaphorically and literally – both because some post-vigil events became rowdy, but also because intuitively they were excursions into the imagination. And those stolid old Protestants sensed that the imagination was fundamentally pagan. The old vigils that started with All Hallows Eve, however, insisted that the sacred and the human MEET in the imagination in yet another in-between time and place where what was out there – on the border – came close: now we see as through a glass darkly, said St. Paul, only later shall we see face to face. Let’s also note that our Protestant elders were not much for sacramental spirituality either.

They were literalists not poets, shaped by an era which rejected the belief that what could be seen pointed towards holy mysteries that were unseen. That’s one of the reasons I continue to let go of more and more of my Reformed heritage: the baggage is just too heavy to carry. It’s stultifying, wordy, and fearful – heady and abstract without much grounding in the senses – so I find the way of the ancient Celts who reveled in this glorious in-between season much more satisfying. Indeed, in our recent review of St. Mark’s gospel from the Common Lectionary over these past few weeks, I’ve found the Celtic lens and wisdom of Mother Nature to be liberating as it offers us upside-down and in-between stories of Jesus sharing God’s grace with his friends along the way.

Perhaps you know this but each of the four gospels in our canon – and some beyond it, too – not only tell a spiritual story, but organize their tales in such a way as to help us grasp their unique spirituality. St. John collects seven wisdom stories using the I AM formula to link Jesus the restorative powers of the sabbath. St. Matthew describes Jesus as the new Moses utilizing ancient Jewish practices to show Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophetic liberation. And St. Mark shares a three-pronged spirituality that starts close to home with Jesus and the disciples in Galilee, expands along the road where insights and events ripen incrementally, and concludes with a journey to the Cross in Jerusalem where self-emptying and letting go result in resurrection.

Today’s text not only closes part two of St. Mark’s stories of Jesus on the road outside of Galilee, but it also dramatically contrasts two other stories we’ve considered. Two weeks ago, we heard about a wealthy man who kept all of the commandments from his youth -- an obvious sign of God’s blessings in first century Palestine – yet he was unable to let it go and follow Jesus. Today we meet a blind beggar – an outward symbol of sin and the absence of God’s blessings in first century religiosity – but he is able to throw off his cloak, perhaps his only possession, let it go, get up, and follow Jesus on the way to the Cross. Last week James and John, the Sons of thunder, showed up wanting Jesus to give them places of honor and power when he entered his glory.

Today we come upon one sitting in the gutter along the way – hodos – who cries out for mercy. You see the contrasts, right? What’s more, as Bible scholars point out, there are two healing stories about blindness that act as bookends to this second section of St. Mark’s text. The first finds Jesus touching a blind man twice so that he might see and then see more clearly in chapter 8; the second the healing of blind Bartimaeus in chapter 10. Two stories of Jesus healing the blind – one to open, one to close part two of this gospel – with both serving as transitions to the bigger story of what has happened and what is still to occur.

· Looking backwards these stories symbolically emphasize the multiple meanings of darkness: ignorance, fear, physical as well as spiritual blindness where Jesus asks: "Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? Do you not remember?" (8:18).

· They also point to a spirituality of being on the way – hodos – an incremental unfolding of God’s grace and presence. St. Mark wants us to know that rarely do we have just one Damascus Road experience that changes everything. More likely is a lifetime along the way where epiphanies and connecting the small threads of synchronicity add up to a new way of being. Over and over, section two of this gospel shows Jesus and his friends on a journey through the darkness into the light.

Pastor Brian Stoffregen wisely adds that the contrast between Blind Bartimaeus and the disciples: two of the closest allies along the way ask Jesus for positions of power and honor while the blind beggar cries out for mercy and illumination. “Those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus tells both, “While those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Looking ahead, today’s story solidifies its in-between status as Bartimaeus prophetically links Jesus with King David – the Messiah – whom the crowd will celebrate on what we know as Palm Sunday to cries of “Hosanna, hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Reading these texts through the lens of both the ancient Celts and the wisdom made visible by God’s first word in nature have helped me reclaim the new/old vigils of All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. I’ll use one of the oldest All Hallows Eve liturgies next week on October 31st to help get us in the groove and then emphasize a few simple ways to reclaim these forgotten treasures.

It’s been said that All Hallows Eve is like an autumn Carnival or Mardi Gras: playful about mystery, using wild costumes to give shape and form to our dreams and imagination; and like the ancient mummers who went door to door singing and begging treats in the dark, All Hallows Eve invites us to own rather than suppress our fears. Christopher Hill rightly notes that “when we fear and suppress the night, fear and destruction is what we get. When religion, old or new, suppresses the creatures of the night, it ends up chasing witches with horrible literalness – or hunting down perceived enemies – or searching for diabolical mess-ages in children’s books or pop music.”

And this isn’t merely an abstract, intellectual theory: in this weeks’ TIME Magazine there’s an article entitled: Why Everyone Is So RUDE Right Now. It’s a sobering story of Americans snapping and acting out in the worst possible ways towards restaurant workers, flight attendants, and others in the lower echelons of the service industry. 

“The combination of a contagious, life-threatening disease and a series of unprecedented, life-altering changes in the rules of human engagement” numerous studies have found, “have left people anxious, confused and, especially if they do not believe the restrictions were necessary, deeply resentful.” TIME goes on to document that this: “period of threat has been so long that it has had a damaging effect on people’s mental health, which for many has then been further debilitated by isolation, loss of resources, the death of loved ones and reduced social support. “During COVID there has been a marked increase in anxiety, a reported increase in depression, and an increased demand for mental health services. Lots of people, in other words, are on their very last nerve. This is true whether they believe the virus is an existential threat or not. “Half the people fear COVID – and half the people fear being controlled.” We are not a people accustomed to such staggering challenges. What’s more, our culture often refuses to name its fears and is far more practiced in denial than honesty. And lest you think this is an exaggeration, our trauma cuts deeper than manners for: “Impolite interactions are not the only thing that’s on the rise; crimes are too.”

“We’re seeing measurable increases in all kinds of crimes that suggests to that there is something changing,” says Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology and neural science, and co-author of a book on social harmony: The Power of Us. He suggests the reasons for the rise in both are structural and profound; America has lost sense of social cohesion, as a result of the widening gaps between the wealthy and working class. “The more inequality you get—which has gotten worse in the last few decades—the less of a sense of cohesion there are across socioeconomic classes. That’s something that if that’s not addressed is going to continue to cause turmoil.”

Culturally we have a lot of work to do in the spirit of healing – so why not reclaim the liturgically safe space the vigil offers us and start to name what truly terrifies us personally, socially, politically, and spiritually? No one knows exactly what the ancient Celts did at Samhain, but we do know that bonfires played a part – as did feasting and mumming – going house to house in a costume with songs and sometimes a simple drama. So, how might we name our fears, enter the darkness with the new light of illumination, and incarnate this vigil for our era?

I don’t know if children will be trick or treating this year: but if they are in your world, why not meet them in costume and playfully engage them in the night? Or maybe just illumine your home – I’ll use candles but that won’t work every-where – so you might try little fairy lights. And jack-o-lanterns? They can become illuminated gargoyles playfully lighting up the night. So, in this time of fear and uncertainty, let’s incarnate a bit of sacred creativity, yes?

You see, part of the charism of All Hallows Eve is radical hospitality: meeting our darkest fears with trust and light. If we welcome children as they reclaim their role as ancient mummers, why not playfully practice reaching out to them in the darkness as a sacramental act of sharing God’s love and light in a trying time? The two days following vigil, All Saints and All Souls Day, have their own charism. Maybe you could read about them before we regroup next Sunday for Small is Holy. But in anticipation, let me offer a simple sacramental act in making a picture box of your communion of saints – those who are public and important to you – as well as those who are private and a part of your family. It is a way to give shape and form to our prayers – and it can be a whole lot of fun, too.

· Two years ago, I did it: searching for pictures of grandparents, mentors, my mom and dad and two sisters who have gone before me; I also unearthed the secular icons Di made for me when I completed my post-graduate studies – pictures with a gold nimbus behind the head of Rumi, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklyn, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. King, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Marvin Gaye and many, many more.

· Both gathering the pictures and then setting them in a small box was a grand time of remembering those who have shaped and carried me on my journey of faith. As that old TV commercial said: Try it – you’ll like it! I want to close this reflection with an All Hallows Eve prayer shaped by the Celts as preparation for our Eucharist: 

Holy and gracious One, as we move from autumn towards winter, we know that the darkness can be sill and calm, or tempestuous and wild; it can be beautiful to behold, or harsh and frightening. In whatever may meet us on the journey, may we be drawn into your Divine Presence more fully. We pause to go deeper silently…

O God of stillness, ruler over the darkness, we pray for those places within our world which are dark and hurting whether through human actions or natural means. (Take a moment and call those places into your heart.) Now let us say: Lord, have mercy.

· O God of stillness, ruler over the darkness, we pray now for those places within our local communities which are in darkness in one form or another, whether through the actions of local people or broader governmental decisions. (Stillness…) And so we pray: Christ, have mercy.

· O God of stillness, ruler over the darkness, we pray for those places within your church which are in darkness in some way, whether through selfish stubbornness or the political decisions of hierarchy. (Stillness…) And now we pray: Lord, have mercy.

As the darkness of this season ripens and surrounds us, may we know your Divine Presence, O God of the day and the night, trusting that you will bring comfort near to us and sustains us for the journey. O Ground of our Being, may we also find ways to enjoy the rest of this season and enter into it fully. In your precious presence we pray: Creator + Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
(David Hill, The Celtic Year)

CHECK OUT THE LIVE STREAMING HERE: https://fb.watch/8RwRyk5vYM/




 

 

 

 

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

a day of digging, poetry, CRT, and prayer...

On what appears to be the last genuinely warm day of autumn - a high of 71F - I: dug two more garden beds, read a collection of poetry by Scott Cairns, prayed for my brother's surgery, and wrote an honest and respectful critique of a colleague's concerns about critical race theory. By my modest standards, it's been a satisfying day.

+ I wanted to get the two additional beds started before the ground froze. We had such great luck with potatoes this year that one 4 x 8 bed will be devoted to spuds as befits this Scots-Irish gardener. Truth be told, however, it was my beloved Anglo-German-Huguenot partner who brought those tasty little suckers to life. The other bed will try to build on this years pumpkin and bean crop; at least two of the original three sisters will be returned to this once Algonquin/Mahican land. The existing three beds will be given to tomatoes, peas, wild flowers, and probably green leafy vegetables.

+ I wanted to reread Cairns to expand my "Small is Holy" poetry connection. While watching one of the countless European mystery shows we take-in after Di is finished teaching and I've prepared an evening meal, a very secular family found themselves confronted with having to hold a memorial service for a complicated relative. With no clergy available, and no defined spirituality, they turned to poetry and let deep speak to deep. It reminded me of what Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel lecture re: Dostoevsky's assertion that it is beauty that will save the world:

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three?

+ I prayed for my brother simply because I love him.
 He's been hurting for some time and needs a break. So does his dear wife. My prayer is both for his healing short term and over the long haul.

+ And I wrote my reflection on a critique of Critical Race Theory because I am committed to civil discourse. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. It is important to live tenderly and passionately into the truth even when that is uncomfortable. And in this fantastically frantic time of polarization, where opinion is treated like fact and incendiary words are always in search of an argument or fight, I have chosen the road less traveled. Not that I am always right. Far from it. But I want to advance my concerns with love and respect as well as reason an evidence. Here's what I came up with...

REFLECTIONS ON CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND ITS CRITICS
Once again in the United States, a social corrective is being portrayed as a force of national disintegration and mind control. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an analysis of America that highlights the empirical effects race hatred has built into our institutions and worldview since before the founding of our nation. It strives to balance the dominant “color blind” approach to political, economic, social, and spiritual realities that have defined US historiography.

+ CRT focuses on what is often overlooked, misunderstood, or intentionally excluded from traditional American histories: the pain, obstacles, policies, and injustices created by foundational racial discrimination. At its best, CRT avoids demonizing individuals while documenting the staggering costs that white privilege has inflicted upon people of color.

+ To be sure, some advocates paint with a broad brush and create ugly and untrue caricatures along with a shallow and divisive analysis. This is, per-haps, a natural consequence of leveling the playing field, but still deplorable and dangerous. History and social analysis are complicated, nuanced, endeavors as the best scholars – mainstream and alternative – affirm. Mainstream scholars like Arthur Schlessinger, Richard Hofstadter, David Halberstam, Perry Miller, and David Garrow know this as do intellectuals documenting the forgotten or shadow side of our history including Eric Foner, Dee Brown, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Isabelle Wilkerson, William Appleton William, and Howard Zinn. NOTE: I choose not to use the terms “revisionist” historians because it is divisive, inflammatory, and smacks of an implied communist agenda.

+ Demonizing white people, however, is neither the goal nor the desire of CRT and its proponents. Rather, like the young activists who gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement, it is to accurately document human truths that have long been denied and intentionally omitted from our self-understanding. It is to redress what is broken in America and form a more perfect union where equality is normative.

My daughter teaches in the NYC school system where a careful approach to inclusion rules the day: theirs is not the inflated charges of mind-control suggested by the City Journal article, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites.” (Please read it here 2 https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites?) But an age-appropriate introduction to the study of First Nations history and culture before 1492. Or the legacy of Jim Crow laws after Reconstruction. It is a corrective to the sanitized histories I grew up and incorporates the wisdom but not the style of James Loewen’s, Lies My History Teacher Told Me. My takeaway from the City Journal article is not positive. It is well-written albeit with a subtle snark that I find deceitful. Specifically, three things trouble me. 

+ First, it is shaped by the conservative ideology of the foundation who publishes it: The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. They are clearly bright and creative; they are entitled to their own analysis, too. I fundamentally disagree, however, and want to state that from the outset. 

+ Second, the author implies communist motives to CRT advocates which is not only untrue, but a manipulative red herring often used by social conservatives to discredit those they oppose. 

+ And third, the article is only mildly empirical while caustically anecdotal. I was reminded of how Ronald Reagan used this ploy to great advantage when facts did not support his narrative. To be sure, I grasp the discomfort that can be evoked among white elites when learning about what is at stake in repairing the historic wounds of American racism. But I trust the analytical integrity of these articles from mainstream sources more:

· Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/

· Why Conservatives Really Fear Critical Race Theory
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/26/why-conservatives-really-fear-critical-race-theory/

· The Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory
https://time.com/6079716/conservative-case-against-banning-critical-race-theory/

One last point re: spirituality: St. Paul said it best in Romans when he observed “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” He, of course, included himself in this judgment. He also celebrated the superiority of grace over judg-ment – or as Bono put it: “Grace trumps karma.” I cannot see how CRT denies grace nor am I able to grasp how shining the light on social and institutional sin prohibits change. To be sure, I comprehend the discomfort and even the grief. But such is a part of becoming a new being by God’s love: we must all repent – change direction – let go of self so that we might be filled with God’s healing presence. So, that is my take on this thus far. Like St. Paul notes elsewhere: “now I see as through a glass darkly, later I shall see face to face… Three things endure: faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.” Thank you for sharing with me your insights with care, intellectual honesty, and love.


Monday, October 18, 2021

entering the time in-between time...

When I walked out of the house this morning, 
it finally felt like fall: 47F, grey skies with yellow and brown leaves falling all around, and a seasonal transition silently taking shape as autumn slowly dies and winter struggles to be born. Oh, do I love this time of year! The ancient Celts grasped that this is an in-between time, that sacred liminal space that was neither "one thing or another" (The Celtic Wheel of the Year, ed. Meg LLewellyn.) It is the passage from one half of the year to another - and my ancestors in Scotland and Ireland trusted that all of these passages were pregnant with possibilities. 

(These) in-between places and times, whether they are shores between land and water, the boundaries between political territories, bridges that cross streams of water, the twilight between day and night, or the transitions of the seasons, are holy.

All of my life I've felt most alive when the leaves start to show their true colors, the air cools, apple cider flows freely, the pumpkins pop, and sun light shifts from direct to slant. It is Samhain, a cross quarter day, taking shape and form half way between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. "This is the Celtic end of the old year, the beginning of the new, and as such, it is a 'hinge' in time, marking the transition from light into darkness." (Llewellyn) William Palmer puts it like this in a Thanksgiving Prayer:

Lord of the changing seasons,
   of harvest time, frost, and hearth fire,
   I think you for this holy turning of the year.
A hard freeze on All Saint's Day morning.
The russet leaves fall thickly in the still, early light.
Like all men and women who have ever lived, they return to the Earth.
I thank you, Lord, for this moment in time,
   this moment of clear revelation.
I thank you for the faith of my ancestors,
   remembered this day,
   for Halloween candy and pumpkin pie,
   for the Communion of Saints,
   and cozy evenings,
   for the low-angled sun of an autumn afternoon.
I the name of the dead: I thank you.
I the name of the living: I thank you.
I the name of those to come: I thank you.

Two weeks ago, we gathered pumpkins and corn with our children and grand children. This past weekend, we went into the hill town and found mums and apple cider. Today, I finished putting the plants and paraphernalia of gardening away for another season just as a light rain began. I moved our fountain inside, too. Our home, our energies, and our lives are ever more directed by the ebb and flow of the sun and moon as Mother Earth speaks all around us. We are moving towards the inward journey. 


Sunday, October 17, 2021

facing into the apocalypse...

Most days I do not write political posts. To be honest, life is too short and my time on this grand planet is increasingly limited. But let's be clear: these are days that exhaust our souls and break open our hearts. They are an ever-flowing cascade of grief and fear mixed with moments of solace and sometimes even beauty. I currently experience our four horsemen of the apocalypse 
as: the pandemic, the ongoing destruction of Mother Earth, political gridlock in our nation's capitol, and the current know-nothing venom of right-wing activists who hate people of color, creative women, and the LGBTQ+ community with an unholy paranoia.

PANDEMIC
"The coronavirus pandemic" notes the NY Times, "has affected our lives, our economy and nearly every corner of the globe. More than 3.74 billion people worldwide have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, equal to about 48.7 percent of the world population. However, there are stark gaps between richer and poorer nations. The United States has surpassed 700,000 known Covid-19 deaths, making the coronavirus pandemic the deadliest in American history. Diana Butler Bass sensed a connection between these incomprehensible deaths and a new NETFLIX show, "Midnight Mass." She writes: "Over the last few days, I spent seven hours watching "Midnight Mass" (which is) done in the genre of horror (which I generally eschew), Midnight Mass follows a group of (mostly) church people whose world is collapsing - and the choices they make when facing the last things. At its heart are questions: Is Christianity about a sacrifice for the life of the world or a sacrifice for personal salvation? Is it about the power of wisdom or the power of eternal life? And how do faithful people choose the right way when facing apocalypse?" 

MOTHER EARTH'S DESTRUCTION
Climate activist, Greta Thunberg, was recently interviewed by YES Magazine. Her take on the devastation of our planet was characteristically blunt and honest: I think that you can objectively say that the climate crisis is not being treated as an emergency, especially when you compare to COVID in many parts of the world. The climate crisis is not being treated as an emergency, and it never has... We need to change social norms, and we need to change what we perceive as the crisis, and what we perceive as being normal. But one thing that it will take is honesty. We need to be honest about what we are doing and we need to be brave in order to confront that, in order to be able to change things. And it will take the people who have a platform, whether it is media, people in power, or just people who are influential, that they use that platform to communicate that we are in a crisis. Because if we do not start to treat the crisis like a crisis, then the people around us will not understand that we are in an emergency. 

POLIGICAL GRIDLOCK (from Heather Cox Richardson's writing)
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told his colleagues that on Monday evening he plans to bring up the Freedom to Vote Act and to try to get it through the Senate. The Republicans are determined not to let Democrats level the electoral playing field. While Democrats in the House, where legislation can pass with a simple majority vote, have passed voting rights laws, Democrats in the Senate have to deal with the filibuster, which enables senators in the minority to block legislation unless the Democrats can muster 60 votes. Republicans are dead set against voting rights laws. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has called voting reform “a solution in search of a problem,” driven by “coordinated lies about commonsense election laws that various states have passed.” Republicans are trying to regain control of the government by making sure their opponents can’t vote, while Democrats are trying to level a badly tilted playing field. If the Democrats do not succeed in passing a voting rights law, we can expect America to become a one-party state that, at best, will look much like the American South did between 1876 and 1964. Our nation will no longer be a democracy.

RIGHT WING DOMESTIC TERRORISM (from NY Times)
The American flag became a blunt instrument in the bearded man’s hands. Wielding the flagpole like an ax, he swung once, twice, three times, to beat a police officer being dragged down the steps of a United States Capitol under siege. Other officers also fell under mob attack, while the rest fought to keep the hordes from storming the Capitol and upending the routine transfer of power. Sprayed chemicals choked the air, projectiles flew overhead and the unbridled roars formed a battle-cry din — all as a woman lay dying beneath the jostling scrum of the Jan. 6 riot... nine months removed from the mayhem, Republicans bound to former President Donald J. Trump’s unfounded assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from him have all but wished the day away: blocking the creation of a bipartisan investigative commission; blaming antifa, or Democrats, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and minimizing the overwhelming video evidence. Even so, a reckoning is underway, as prosecutors and congressional investigators seek to understand how a political rally devolved into an assault on the citadel of American democracy and those who guard it. They are drilling down on whether the riot was organized and what roles were played by far-right extremist groups, various Trump supporters and Mr. Trump himself.

At the close of the Dr. Bass article, she notes that people of faith often wonder what is the right way to face when staring into the abyss of the apocalypse? She writes:

Some Christians argue there is no choice. That our only choice is to turn our backs on a fraying, fractured, evil world and form an exclusive community of true believers - who can, when called upon, destroy the wicked and restore godly society. That’s the vision laid out by Rod Dreher in a book originally published in 2017, The Benedict Option, where he urges Christians to reimpose “Christian belief and Christian culture” to save the west. (Another choice exists, however as Patrick Henry reiterates in his book Benedictine Options.) It is the call to love and live here and now in a fully human way, “a world-embracing monastic spirit” of faith that is “experimental, rhythmical, communal, ecumenical, and ‘narrational.’” While Dreher sees ours as “a world growing cold, dead, and dark,” Patrick insists that “Benedictine options are for a world of many colors” - aglow with laughter and lightness and love. “What, finally, is the consequence of implementing Benedictine options? It’s the opposite of The Benedict Option’s withdrawal. . . It’s being alert to what God says in Isaiah (43:19): ‘I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?’ The ‘new thing’ appears in the world - the whole world - that Benedict saw in his vision. Benedictines are connoisseurs of surprise.”

Dr. Bass then notes what I have been advocating for the past few years: We can choose to turn away from the end of the world, in the process, turn ourselves into monsters - or turn toward it and see a loving, healing, forgiving, and hospitable God even there. When we fear we’ve reached the end. We have choices. Surprises await.
I rather like the way Carrie Newcomer puts this in a recent poem: "I'm Learning to Sit with Not Knowing."

I'm learning to sit with not knowing.
Even when my restless mind begins jumping
From a worried
What next?
To a frightened
What if?
To a hard edged and impatient,
Why aren't you already there?

I'm learning to sit and listen
To pat myself on the knee,
Lay my hand on my heart,
Take a deep breath,
And laugh at myself.
To befriend my mistakes,
Especially the ones,
That show me how
I most need to change.

I'm learning to sit with whatever comes
*Even though I'm a planner.)
Because so much of this life
Can't be measured or predicted.
Because wonder and suffering visit
When we least expect
And rarely in equal measure.

I'm learning to sit with
What I might never know
Might never learn,
Might never heal.

I'm learning to sit with
What might waltz in and surprise me,
Might crash into my days,
With unspeakable sorrow
Or uncontainable delight.

I'm learning to sit with not knowing.

So, as beloved Walter Croinkite of blessed memory used to say: That's the way it is: Sunday, October 17, 2021.














Monday, October 11, 2021

autumn's call to let go and trust...

NOTE: Each Sunday evening at 4 pm, Small is Holy - my online gathering for prayer, song, silence, spiritual reflection and online Eucharist - meets. This is yesterday's message.

Tonight, I want to playfully consider the appointed Scripture from the gospel of St.
Mark and tease out some of its wisdom about learning to let go like Jesus and Mother Nature. In times past, I’ve heard this text used in a variety of ways – all of which have left me wanting:

+ Liberals tend to use it to encourage greater financial generosity within their congregations, radicals often shame the rich with it for accumulating wealth while others endure excruciating poverty, and conservatives and Biblical literalists do their best to hide these words from any consideration because Jesus is explicit when he says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

+ I’ve even heard preachers from so-called fundamentalist congregations refer to a fabricated and fallacious medieval legend that claims one of the gates leading into the city of Jerusalem was named the “eye of the needle” that was so narrow NO camel could pass through it. Well, that’s an ingenious but untrue manipulation that calls to mind a quip made by Southern preacher and civil rights activist, Will Campbell, who said: “Religion has always been with us - without it there would have been no reason for the coming of a Messiah to put a stop to it.”

And that’s really what I sense Jesus is getting at here: offering a way to end childish and selfish reli-gion that equates blessings with wealth and scrupulosity for spirituality. In the newly published First Nations Version of this New Testament, Jesus – called Creator Sets Free – tells the young man: “The instructions from the lawgiver drawn from water – Moses – are clear. Do not take the life of another, do not be unfaithful in marriage, do not take what is not yours. Never lie or cheat a fellow human being and always give honor to your father and mother.” These are the second half of the 10 Commandments, the relational ones that build loving and just connections between people and are the building blocks for ethical behavior that strengthens the common good.

“Wisdom keeper,” the man replies, “I have followed all of these from my youth.” To which Jesus asks: has doing so helped you live consistently with compassion, joy, and integrity because that’s what eternal life is all about. It’s not a quest to get into heaven when our race is over but a way of being saturated with love in this life. So, don’t confuse your material well-being with spiritual blessings from God, ok?” That was one of the ancient perspectives codified in Deuteronomy – that God blesses the just with abundance and punishes the wicked with poverty - and became standard operating theology in ancient Israel for a time. To identify the well-off with God’s beloved was in the spiritual water of that era. It helped maintain the status quo and has regularly found new life in other cultures, too. During the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin named wealth as one of the signs of God’s eternally elect and Joel Osteen says much the same thing today. But Jesus doesn’t.

+ Immersed in his tradition’s prophetic school, Jesus called out any notion that wealth was God’s reward for anything; same, too, for a rigorous or literal adherence to the commandments. Such is shallow spirituality, childish and self-centered, that leads to nothing except creating God in our own image.

+ It was popular among the Sadducees of Christ’s time who had no grasp of life beyond life: that’s likely why the young man thought he was all set. His religion had trained him to see his status as authentication of God’s blessing. To which Jesus replied: it’s great that you have money and know the Law. What you need to do now, however, is quit trying to get God to be on your side. “With tenderness and love, Jesus said: take all your possessions, invite the poor of your village to a give-away, then let it all go and come walk the good road with me.” This part of the story ends with the young man’s heart falling to the ground and walking empty away because he had great wealth.

"Let it go" is the universal insight Jesus offers: if you grasp, clutch, or brace over anything, it will shrink your heart and compromise your soul. If, however, as Cynthia Bourgeault so persuasively teaches, you release – relinquish, yield, or surrender – you align yourself with the heart of creation and will dwell in the house of eternal love forever. In her little book, Wisdom Way of Knowing, Bourgeault writes:

There are any number of spiritual practices both ancient and universal to bring a person into a state of inner relinquishment, but the most direct and effective one is simply this: in any situation in life, confronted by an outer threat or opportunity notice if you are responding in one of two ways. Either you will brace, harden, and resist, or you will soften, open, and yield. With the for-mer you will be catapulted immediately into your smaller self with its animal instincts and sur-vival responses. If you stay with the later regardless of the outer conditions, you will remain in alignment with the heart of creation and our truest self where the divine can reach and love you. This is spirituality at its no-frills simplest: a moment-by-moment learning NOT to do anything in a state of bracing.


In the particularity of this gospel story, where Jesus is talking with a unique individual, he brings specificity to the universal by advising the wealthy one to let go of his bounty and follow him as a disciple. Intuitively, not ideologically, Jesus offers this soul a way of being that is aligned with his individual situation. It is NOT a blanket solution to poverty, but a personal invitation to surrender everything that might get in the way of living with an open heart. That’s what I missed back in my radical and doctrinaire days: the fact that Jesus NEVER offers a one-size fits all solution to our spiritual journeys. Think back to the young man possessed by demons living in a graveyard infested with swine just outside of Israel. Jesus casts out the demons and tells his disciples to give up some of their clothing to cover the boy’s nakedness.

But, when the one who has been healed asks Jesus in awe and gratitude, if he might join the band of women and men wandering through Palestine, do you recall master’s answers? “No, my child, you need to go home and make peace with your family.” One of my spiritual mentors, the late Clarence Jordan of Koinonia Farms who was the father of Habitat for Humanity, suggests that the healing experience of this person is at the heart of the parable of the Prodigal Son. Interesting, yes? For those you don’t know the tale it’s about a young man who fritters away his inheritance and winds up living among the pigs someplace in Gentile country. When he comes to his senses as a young Jew living among the ritually unclean swine, he thinks he should return to his family and live as a servant. But when his broken-hearted father sees his long absent child walking back all broken and vulnerable, he throws a feast of thanksgiving announcing that once you were lost but now your found. It’s a beautiful and consistently relevant story for all ages.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Jesus was no ideologue: sometimes he encouraged people to join him, other times he offered then another path. I think of Zacchaeus, the despised and wealthy tax collector, whom Jesus embraced and feasted with: he wasn’t asked to leave it all behind – just make right relations with those he’d harmed – so Zacchaeus to let go of half his sav-ings but continued to live in his home community. And let’s not forget Mary Magdalene whom Jesus let make her own choice – he was grateful that she did sign on with the tour and used her resources to help feed the group – but she did so without any pressure and without obligation. Do you hear what I’m saying?

The universal practice of Christ’s spirituality is yielding: pick up your Cross, let distractions go, and trust the path of relinquishment. The way this happens, however, is always personal and unique. That’s one reason why the spirituality of Jesus was first called: the way. It was a way of living, a way of being, a way of the Cross. And St. Mark underscores this throughout his storytelling by using a precise word: hodos. It is the word the early faith community used to define itself: People of the Way (hodos.) Our English translations make it hard to see how St. Mark repeatedly uses this same Greek word, hodos, throughout his story. He wants us to know that trusting God is a journey – hodos – a way of being not a religious institution defined by creed or cult. In the first chapter of his gospel, St. Mark speaks about preparing the way of the Lord: hodos. Later, Jesus is described as the one who teaches us the truth of God’s way: hodos.

+ When Jesus asks his friends, “who do the people say I am?” chapter 8 tells us that he was on the way – hodos – same too when the disciples argue about who is the greatest among them – the story says that they were on the way to Jerusalem – hodos.

+ Tonight’s passage starts by saying that “Jesus was setting out on a journey” – hodos. It is a journey to the Cross, a journey to Jerusalem, a journey of faith – and ALL of these journeys – hodos – have something to do with letting go as the way of Jesus.

Some commentators suggest that St. Mark places tonight’s story directly after Jesus receives and welcomes the little wounded children with healing to contrast the hodos of letting go and sharing love – even at the cost of his life – with the hodos of one so caught up in his possessions that they have become a prison. We spoke of this last week where Jesus proclaims that whoever receives one of these little ones – children who most likely were sick and vulnerable – receives me. Then, speaking from his heart, Jesus adds: for such emptiness and vulnerability is the way – the hodos – that leads to the kingdom of God. Two other texts rooted in prophetic Judaism come to mind about the hodos of Jesus as well: First, the song of Mary, the Magnificat, which she sings in celebration of Christ’s unique birth: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name. God’s mercy is for those who live with awe from generation to generation. God has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away.


Second are the words of Jesus used in Matthew, Mark, and Luke: What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and forfeit their soul? Do hear the connection between letting go and being blessed by God along the way? The way of Jesus lets go of the habits and practices of the status quo in order to trust God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. In this, the way of Jesus is antithetical to institutional religion. So, let’s play with this for a moment and consider how the way of Jesus, one incarnation of God’s word, is linked with God’s first incarnation in creation and nature itself. Right now, in the Northern hemisphere we’re entering the sacramental season of autumn which holds carries a unique spiritual message for us if we have eyes to see. Fr. Richard Rohr recently wrote:

The earth that is) finite manifests the infinite where the physical becomes the doorway to the spiritual. If we can accept this principle called “incarnation,” (where God’s word becomes flesh) then we might see that all we need (in life) is right here and right now—in this world.This is the way to that! Heaven includes earth and earth includes heaven. (For nature shows us that) there are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments, there are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments—and it is we alone who desecrate them by our lack of awareness and reverence. (God has given us) one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it. Rohr then adds: The first act of divine revelation is creation itself. The first Bible is the Bible of nature. It was written at least 13.8 billion years ago, at the moment that we call the Big Bang, long before the Bible of words.

St. Paul celebrates this truth in the opening words of his letter to the Romans: “Ever since God created the world, God’s everlasting power and divinity—however invisible—are there for the mind to see in the things that God has made” (Romans 1:20). One really wonders how we missed that. Words gave us something to argue about, I guess, while nature can only be respected, enjoyed, and looked at with admiration and awe. Don’t dare put the second Bible in the hands of people who have not sat lovingly at the feet of the first Bible. They will invariably manipulate, mangle, and murder the written text.


On the equinox this year I came across a pre-Christian aphorism from ancient
Wales that celebrates the spirituality of autumn like this: “Light and darkness, in equal balance, remind us that hope balances despair, and that all that falls into the dark will one day rise again into the light.” St. Mary Oliver’s poem, “Autumn Song,” posits much the same thing:

In the deep fall don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch the earth 
instead of the nothingness of air
and the endless freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy, warm caves,
begin to think of the birds that will come — 
six, a dozen — to sleep inside their bodies?
And don’t you hear the goldenrod whispering goodbye, 
the everlasting being crowned with the first tuffets of snow? 
The pond vanishes, and the white field over which the fox 
runs so quickly brings out its blue shadows. And the wind pumps 
its bellows. And at evening especially, the piled firewood shifts a little, longing to be on its way.

This is how hope has been rekindled in my heart: by witnessing every day the way of God reveals all that is sacred through the FIRST word of the Lord. God’s witness in nature tells me that faith is about balance, letting go, and trusting that every day starts with a sunrise and ends with a sunset. That each season begins softly, ripens in due course, and then slowly fades into completion before yet another renewal; that spring follows winter and fall follows summer. That each life – and each day – has ups and downs, blessings and troubles, celebrations and sorrows. That the well-ordered unfolding of time is a silent reminder that I can trust God’s steadfast love to endure forever. David Cole, a master of reclaiming ancient Celtic insights for our day, notes that the old calendar had:

… Eight high points each year set six weeks apart with four changing seasons, two solstices as well as two equinoxes… The order and rhythm was obvious – like the seasons where we watch the trees and flowers change in dramatic ways in front of our eyes – and subtle – like the stars shifting in the sky each night and how the sunrise and sunset moves backwards and forwards along the horizon throughout the year. Much of our modern western world has become com-pletely detached from the turnings of the earth, the cycle of the seasons… and in this we have lost the intrinsic relationship the natural world holds for sustaining both physical and spiritual life.

To be sure, there is still suffering and darkness, chaos and even destruction in God’s first word. There is mystery, too, like how the hell DOES a virus like the Delta Variant of COVID flow and ebb in real life. But, as the Jewish wisdom tradition affirms, there is also a sacred balance to rest within:

To everything there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to harvest… a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Now I didn’t grow up noticing Mother Nature, the cycle of the seasons, or the ebb and flow of light and dark. It wasn’t part of my spiritual tradition to look for the holy in ordinary things either. So, like many working- and middle-class kids, I took creation for granted. It’s only been in the past 20 years, as outward events have shaken my faith and weakened my former sources of assurance, that I’ve started to witness and experience the presence of the holy revealed in nature – and a tree in the wetlands behind our home has become my favorite teacher. The insights of some First Nations people have helped. So, too the ancient Celts and some poets. But my tutor has been a big, flaming tree in the wetlands.

+Right now, she’s saturated with shimmering yellows and oranges. But soon, her leaves will fall, and she’ll be naked. Over the course of the winter, there will be times when she’ll look strong and other times that she’ll look dead although I’ve learned that even in this state a lot will be happening under the ground with her root connections.

+ And then, when spring sneaks up on us in these parts, I’ll see the soil around her trunk has melted the snow – a clear sign that nutrition is flowing upwards again and her season of rest will be over – and almost overnight a sudden crop of little red buds will pop out only to be-come green leaves and then white flowers as her sacred cycle starts all over again.

I’ve been watching this wise old friend for almost 15 years now, and she consistently proves to me that God’s steadfast love endures forever. Grace, she tells me, never quits. Holy love can be trusted even when other events cause me to fret or fear. “Light and darkness,” those old wisdom keepers of ancient Wales knew, “remind us that hope balances despair, and that all that falls into the dark will one day rise again into the light.” Another wandering mystic within nature, Herman Hesse, wrote: For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves…

Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth; for they do not preach learning or precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. A tree says: A kernel is hidden within me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life… A tree says: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy; life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your restless thoughts will grow silent.

My mentoring tree tells me what the Psalmist assured us all: be still – and know. Know the way, know the truth, know the life. It’s all connected – and if we listen, we can hear hope in this silence. I like the way Pope Francis put it: “Nothing in nature lives for itself. Rivers don’t drink their own water. Trees don’t eat their own fruit. The Sun doesn’t shine for itself nor is a flower’s fragrance for its own enjoyment. Living for each other is the rule of nature.” This is the first word incarnated by God – and it is as true for each and all of us as for all creation
This season feels like home to me. Beginning back with the autumnal equinox and running through the numinous darkness of All Hollow’s Eve, All Saints Day, the day of the Dead and Advent, I’m awash in the colors, sounds, sights, and spirituality of autumn. They’re a resting place of beauty and solitude that calls me to step back from the exciting, extroverted, and public ways of the summer and take stock of what must be relinquished. Outwardly, the bold greens and harvest bounty incrementally give way to subdued browns and countless shades of nuanced grey that are easy on my eyes. Right now, the wetlands are bursting with bold reds, yellows, browns, greens, and oranges, one last show of outward beauty that will soon let go in a soothing emptiness. And the pumpkins – oh, Lord, let me NEVER forget the blessings of all these pumpkins. The spirituality of this season marks the close of one year on route to the opening of another A prayer from an old Scots-man is a good place to quit: As the trees are stripped of foliage, Lord, may we be stripped of clutter. As the leaves fall to the ground, Sacred Heart, may we fall into your quiet rest. And as the crops ready for harvest are gathered, may the wisdom of our days be garnered.

getting into the holy week groove...

We FINALLY got our seed and wildflower order in! By now we've usually had seedlings started but... my new gig at church, Di's health...