do few things but do them well...

This past Sunday, when I went to do a sound check for my Sabbath live-streaming

gig on Face Book (check it out @ https://www.facebook.com/Be-Still-and-Know-913217865701531/) I could not find the "live" link. Earlier in the week, FB had made changes to the layout of the page, something that happens from time to time ostensibly in the name of improvements, but often up for debate. I rather

liked the new look so I left it at that. What I had not planned for, and what startled me 25 minutes before I was scheduled to go live, was the rearranging of options: specifically, where in God's name had the link to the live streaming option gone? 

To be sure, this was a First World problem. I could have easily posted a note saying either I was cancelling for the day or would go live later. Hardly a matter of life or death. Still, in that frantic moment of disorientation, two realizations hit me. One, as in all matters of personal importance, I need more preparation time before I have to stand and deliver than I usually anticipate. This is true whether I am packing, praying, or preparing pasta with fresh pesto. To stay grounded, I need to give myself ample set-up time in order to receive surprises with something like equanimity. If I build-in adequate time on the front end, I can handle getting lost on my way to an appointment. Or discovering I need to make a last minute substitution in a recipe. Without the space to slow down and reconsider, anxiety is sure to follow. Sheltering in place has given me this gift of awareness: I require twice as much time on the front end of a project than I usually allow. By building extra lead time into my activities I have found I can be fully present to others and myself in the grocery store, the hardware shop, Wal-Mart, or just tending to the chores in our home in the company of Di and Lucie. A small blessing, indeed. 

The second insight is similar: if I am to move through each day with a measure of tender awareness I cannot over schedule. Too many activities on any given day makes life feel unsettled. As a recovering workaholic I am grateful to grasp yet another layer of my mania. I always used to feel worn out: as an introvert, being "on" in public was already wearisome, yet I regularly jammed my schedule to stay "productive." This added insult to injury to say nothing of resentment. Life in retirement coupled with the rigors of the pandemic, however, has become a season of self-discovery. Like the Donovan tune from "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" puts it: "Do few things but do them well, take your time go slowly..." The genius of Franciscan spirituality is embodied wisdom simply lived.

            

Christine Valters Paintner speaks of these realizations as "choosing the way of life over death." My anxiety and the disorientation I experience whenever rushed or without ample time to embrace life's surprises, is a hard master. The ways of death are always harsh even though they have helped me seek alternatives. Jung used to teach that if we greet our wounds and shadows with hospitality - treating them as the naked, alone and imprisoned beings Jesus called us to love in solidarity - then even the ways of death can lead us into greater life. Valters-Paintner writes:

The divine is that power which disrupts everything: it is at heart a great mystery at work. So what if our pilgrimage practice courted holy disruption? What if we welcomed in everything that challenges our perspectives on how the world works, which upsets all the plans we made for ourselves and turns them on their heads? What if we embraced the unknown as sacred wisdom for the unfolding of our lives? What if when life started falling apart, we opened our hearts to welcome the grief and fear that arrived... and considered them as holy guides and windows into the immensity of God? (The Soul of a Pilgrim, p. 111) 

I am a slow learner. I recall reading Henri Nouwen saying something like: we already have all the time that there is. What we must learn is how to use it to grow into God's rest. What Jesus calls "the unforced rhythms of grace." And some 30 years later, I am starting to get a little better at living into this truth. I find that my changes are ever so incremental: small, but significant; inward, yet always touching the lives of those we love in the world. Cynthia Bourgeault got it right when she said that "the goal of our spiritual practice is to empower us to live as low maintenance, gentle souls in a harsh world." Certainly these past four months have not been wasted. I have discovered at a new level what Valters-Paintner calls the archetype of the inner monk and artist alive and well within:

The inner monk is that aspect of us which seeks out a whole-hearted connection to God and cultivates the ability to see the sacred shimmering presence everywhere. The inner artist seeks to give form to our inner longings and create beauty in the world. Both the inner monk and inner artist are border-dwellers. Neither fit neatly into mainstream society as they both call for new ways of seeing. The monk calls the world to presence rather than productivity. The monk takes the demanding path of inner work and growth... The monk chooses a simple life in the midst of an abundance of riches (and distractions. Both are outcasts.) For to be an outcast means that we don't align ourselves with the dominant way of thinking. It means we live on the lush and fertile edges of life. (p. 117)

Last night I awoke startled from a deep sleep. In a way I have known in the past

my soul was shaking me to pay more attention to the choices I make each day for life so that I might let go of the ways of death. Distraction. Disorientation. I silently prayed through this unsettling time saying over and over, "Lord Jesus, grant me peace" and in time found my grounding in grace. During the hour of the wolf, I read another chapter in The Soul of the Pilgrim. "Instead of rushing into the resurrection, we can dwell in the space of unknowing. We must hold death and life in tension. (Like the wisdom of the Triduum) we can be fully present to both the starkness of Friday and the Saturday space between before we can really experience the Resurrection (on Sunday.) So much of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday places as we spend energy resisting and longing for resolution and closure." (p. 123)

Moving slowly, finding that small is holy, doing few things but doing them well, is what feeds me. It allows me to be grounded and tender. Even in this raging contagion, it is the way of the outcast. As I fast this morning in anticipation of a few medical procedures tomorrow I am going to de-clutter my study yet again. I am sorting through my library, too so that after 13 years I can actually find the books I am looking for. As I said before, I am a very slow learner. But, given enough time, I can learn a new way.

going deeper during this next phase of sheltering in place...

Since it has become abundantly clear that we will be "sheltering in place" for the

foreseeable future - the current regime's blathering, self-promotion, and lies not withstanding - I want to use the next few months to: 1) reconnect with my upright bass, 2) do some work with Quebecois French, and 3) create a new personal ritual of morning contemplation that includes chanting the psalms, centering prayer, honoring the rhythms of creation, and taking in new poetry. The other night I read in Richard Rohr's  From Wild Man to Wise Man - an insightful, modest book about male initiation which I apparently read when it first came out but found it to be new to me this time, too - that older men on the journey into wisdom find we can "no longer fake prayer, but need prayer to survive." 

That rings true to me - especially because I finished Christine Valters Paintner's The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practice for the Journey Within last night, too. I started it in February, before the lock down, read parts of it in March and then put it aside for three months. This happens to me a lot - a repeating pattern and/or broken record for over 30 years - that is in play once again. Returning to the text, I read: 

As creative people, we are filled with the best of intentions. We are inspired with big visions and a longing to express ourselves in the fullest possible way. We begin a project - whether writing a book, painting a canvas, composing a song, planting a new flower bed, or starting a new project at work - with enthusiasm and full of confidence. Somewhere along the way, our energy starts to wane and our creative inspirations become a source of frustration. It hangs over our head as a symbol of our failure as an artist... (So what) are the circumstances of life that seem to conspire against your best laid plans? What are the thoughts which rise up in response? What are the judgments you hold about yourself... that seem to sabotage your ability to recommit to the journey?

I know that I get bored easily. My spiritual director in Tucson used to tell me to quit being so scattered - stop searching for new ways of going deeper - and work through the boredom. He was right, of course, but I still liked to experiment as more of a dabbler rather than a disciple. The upside of monkey mind is a wide path of creativity; the downside is a lack of depth. Paintner's notes that "the pilgrim's and monk's path is to always begin again - even when we keep falling back to sleep." Such is the charism in the parable of the Prodigal Child (Luke 15: 11-32.) The call to return, the joy of God's welcome, and the reality of beginning again - and again - is built upon the image of a feast. Bounty. Celebration. What I am starting to sense in my heart, and have known intuitively for decades, is that when the "student is ready, the Buddha appears." I have had to wander in the desert of my own creative distractions until I was ready to come home. It has been a LONG season of wandering. Not wasted time, but not as life-giving as going deep. Or maybe I should say deeper.

Last year at this time, I began an on-line course with Cynthia Bourgeault. Her

introduction to the "wisdom way of knowing" was the catalyst for making this shift a year later. So was getting my second tattoo in Montreal: it was all about the balance of creation. Together these experiences made it clear that to grow into the blessings of sacred wisdom I must use the time-tested tools of those who have made the journey before us. These include: 

1) Practicing the "three-centered awareness" of integrating the heart, with the mind and body. In the Benedictine realm this is called ora et labora ( prayer and work). "If balanced heart is your goal, it's a good idea to spend an intentional part of each day doing some simple physical labor... so that we come back in touch with the physical earth all around you and inside of you." For me, this would include tending the earth in our yard and garden, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and making simple but necessary home repairs. I know I need this and have made it foundational.

2) Meditation. Here's where I have been both lazy and scattered. I used to sit in meditation twice a day for 20+ minutes 20 years ago, but have only engaged in this discipline intermittently over the past five years. Sometimes, yes, but not consistently. Bourgeault writes, "centering prayer is based entirely on patterning into the subconscious the gesture of surrender, which is the most direct and powerful way known to awaken the heart." So true - and now is a good time to use the solitude and quiet to head back home.

3) Sacred chanting. All sacred traditions include a way of embodying the soul of meditation. "What meditation accomplishes in silence, chanting accomplishes in sound: it wakes up the emotional center and sets it vibrating to the frequency of love and adoration while feeding the body with that mysterious higher "food" of divine live." (Cynthia Bourgeault, p. 105, The Wisdom Way of Knowing) One of the realities I have missed since retirement has been our weekly Eucharist where we sang and prayed the Psalms. I have not done this in solitude, so it will be new.

4) Lectio divina. And this is where I am still a Maverick because in addition to the Scriptures I want to add poetry to the mix. It would do me well to ponder poetically the lectionary readings for the week. But without the addition of some NEW poetry I sense my need for the novel would short-circuit this time of going deeper. So it will be both/and rather than either/or.

Add some bass playing and French into the mix!? Both Di and I are aching to get back to Canada and this time I may even be better able to communicate.  Nous verrons!

 

 

reflections on sharing, singing and silence in the humility of a child...

SUNDAY, JULY 12, 2020 REFLECTION: Unless you change and become like a child…

One of the hardest things about living fully into this moment of uncertainty shaped by sheltering in place, social distancing, the ever-changing descriptions of how the coronavirus is transmitted to say nothing of the angst and turmoil it has created is: trusting God to be God. Our culture is so shaped by a rush to activity rather than balanced embodied reflection that we feel we must fix everything. We are a go-get-‘em people who thrive on the pulse of productivity, groove to the vibe of bodies in motion, and ache for activity of almost any variety. We always want to get the job done, close the deal, and grab all the gusto we can with precious little consideration of the consequences.

The so-called “reopening of America” is a case in point. Our nearly manic naivete asserts the triumph of desire and will over intellect and evidence yet again. Currently we are challenging all constraints on time and science to hastily pump up our short-term economic bottom line. This hubris has caused both the needless infection of innocent people – nearly 80% of the three million confirmed cases of coronavirus in America could have been avoided – as well as demoralizing and destabilizing the economic business needs of businesses in California, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Florida that are having to pause or shut down a second time. We’re even talking about sacrificing our children and their educators in an imprudent rush to open schools in the fall.

In 1990 I was moved to read Sr. Joan Chittister’s words that, “the sacred in life is what holds our world together and the lack of awareness and sacred care is what is tearing it apart.” 30 years later her words have become prophetic: 

We have covered the earth with concrete and wonder why children have little respect for the land. We spill refuse into our rivers and wonder why boaters drop their paper plates, plastic bags, old rubber shoes and beer cans overboard. We pump pollution into our skies and question the rising incidence of lung cancer. We produce items that do not decay and package things in containers that cannot be recycled. We fill our foods with preservatives that poison the human body and wonder why we’re not as well as we used to be. We make earth and heaven one large garbage dump and wonder why whole species of animals are becoming extinct and forests have disappeared, and the ozone shield is shriveling. We are a people who lack awareness.

Spirituality, you see, is supposed to offer alternatives to our obsession with naïve activity by giving us time-tested, embodied tools to practice; these tools train us to behave differently and then incrementally alter the way we think. North American theologian, Douglas John Hall of McGill University in Montreal, was clear that: “In the Jesus society there is a new way for people to live.”

We show wisdom by trusting others; we handle leadership by serving; we handle offenders by forgiving; we handle money by sharing; we handle enemies by loving; and we handle violence by suffering. In fact, we have a new attitude toward everything and everybody. Toward nature, toward gender, toward the vulnerable and wounded, toward all and every single thing. Because in the Jesus society we practice repenting not by feeling bad, but by thinking different.

Well, that’s what was supposed to happen. Our Western religious tradition, however, has historic-ally been so abstractly disembodied – and recently so polluted with get-holy-and-rich quick schemes that mirror the mania of our marketplace – that most people have tossed religion into the dustbin of history. In his day, Jesus offered clear albeit challenging spiritual practices to help us open our hearts to the love of God. Sadly, the West chose to intellectualize the way of the heart with doctrines designed to explain and then control spirituality. This fixation on intellectual assent and conformity, what theologians call ortho-doxy – right doctrine and belief – rather than ortho-praxis – right action – defiles the way of Jesus who invited us to incarnate the upside-down, radical reversals of the Beloved Community in our everyday routines. He asked some of his friends who were first in their world to choose to become last on purpose so that those who have always been forgotten might taste the joy of being cherished as the privileged learn to taste the bitter fruit of oppression.

He asked all of us to intentionally listen to the wisdom of our children rather than always giving-in to the experts. And, over and over Jesus asked us to rest into the blessings of the Sabbath so that we might practice trusting that God is God and we are not. The Hebrew Bible reading for today is clear in the prophetic poetry of Isaiah: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty.” Apparently only the poets grasp that we can never adequately describe the essence of the Lord. Our words are too puny to capture God’s enormity. 

· That’s the problem with our sacred catechisms and credos. They try to explain the mystical. When I was young, I had to learn the Apostle’s Creed: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son and our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Piltate, was crucified, died and buried, descended into Hell and on the third day rose again from the dead.

· I have to confess that these while I understand our obsession with explanations, these days I prefer to ponder the love of God by looking at an icon – a visual prayer without words – or singing Carrie Newcomer’s poem, “I Believe,” that says: I believe in socks and gloves knit out of soft grey wool, and that there's a special place in heaven for those who teach in public school. And I know I get some things right, but mostly I'm a fool… I believe in a good strong cup of ginger tea, and that all these shoots and roots will someday become a tree. All I know is I can't help but see that all of this is so very holy. So, I believe in jars of jelly put up by careful hands, and I believe most folks are doing about the best they can; and I know there are some things that I will never understand… 

My heart tells me that the time has come to reclaim the sacramental way of Jesus and practice trusting the presence of the holy already within and among us. St. Paul was so wise in telling the early church that if you want to ready your hearts for an encounter with God’s blessings, here’s what you to do: 

With God as your guide, take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for the Lord. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 

Paul wanted us to look for the sacred in the secular, to notice the presence of the holy in our humanity and honor the countless small blessings of the Lord that happen throughout our ordinary, everyday walking around lives. Jesus called this having eyes to see and ears to hear – and today’s reading from St. Matthew finds him giving his friends three ways to practice this: “When asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus called a child from the crowd, placed her on his lap and said: ‘Unless you change and become more child-like you will never live into the blessings of the kingdom.’” (Matthew 18: 1-5)

This is the practice of humility: choosing to honor and then love the lower status of a child. You see, in first century Palestine, children did not have many choices. Not only did most little ones die of disease or hunger before age five; if they lived, they were at the bottom of the pecking order. To celebrate a child as a model of the greatest in God’s kingdom was a provocative and upsetting reversal. It advised believers to practice joyfully “yielding their social precedence to another, gladly ceding their inherited status too, and patiently bearing with whatever inappropriate or undeserving treatment might follow because of this reversal.” (Malina and Rohrbaugh, p. 92) Great reversals were a core spiritual practice for those embracing the way of Jesus.

And the New Testament is filled with wonderful examples: take up your Cross and follow, if you are struck on the right cheek turn and offer your left as well, if you are at a feast don’t go to the head table but grab a plate and share some stories with the kitchen help, whatsoever you do unto the least of my sisters and brothers you do unto me, here is my new commandment: love one another by serving them. The practice of humility gratefully engages in private acts of quiet com-passion with those most in need. It is not about recognition but rather healing one another’s hearts in love.

St. Benedict of Nursia used to say that, “humility is also about learning to bear bad things, even evil things, well.” That small child in a crowd of status conscious adults personified the clear difference between God’s way and the ways of our culture. So many of our goals involve getting credit for fixing every pain, “ordering every inefficiency, toppling all obstacles, ending stress and waiting for nothing…. We easily become people without patience who can stomach no delay and are unable to persist. Persevere. And endure.” Jesus made it clear that before we can think differently about life – before we can see with the eyes of our heart – we must practice becoming like a child.

You see, cultivating a child-like humility helps us bear bad things well and find our place in the world with modesty. It also shows us how to greet each day with awe. I’m not talking about being childish, but child-like: trusting, open, ready to be stunned by the beauty all around you. It is a way of being that quits trying to climb any social ladder and learns to “love life where we are, in what we have,” so that our souls have room to ripen and experience the holy from the inside out. The American poet, Billy Collins, captured part of what it means to consciously live into this child-like humility and awe in a poem he dedicated to his mother called, “The Lanyard.”

The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room, lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead, and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim, and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said, and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied, which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother, but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand, I was as sure as any boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

The practice of living into the humility of a child is about patience and awe in a small life filled with modest acts of tenderness. Rabbi Heschel used to say:

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement...get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

That’s the first practice. The second has to do with finding our own voices and

learning to trust it – even in conflict. Jesus puts it like this later in chapter 18:

If another member of the community sins against you – hurts you or troubles you – go and point out the problem when the two of you are alone. If this doesn’t help, bring another trusted elder with you and talk some more. And keep talking until some agreement is achieved… For I tell you if even two within the community agree then there within and among you I will be with you as two or three gather in my name. (Matthew 18: 15-20)

The context of these words is important: Jesus was teaching his friends how to handle conflict in community when one member harms another. And the first thing he says is: go to the hurtful soul by yourself and talk it through in private. Be respectful. Be humble. Be childlike not childish: don’t get all huffy, pull in others to take your side and concentrate on blaming. Just go and talk about the problem together. No tweets. No cancel culture. No public shaming. Just keep talking together over time. Don’t bury the problem. Don’t be afraid of it. And don’t deny it. And if, after some time passes, you can’t seem to resolve it by yourselves, then let the community try to help you find agreement. This carries the conflict into the open and invites a shared decision – not a judgment handed down by one person, or a compromise cooked up by key leaders or even, God forbid, the anonymous pronouncements of some faceless HR department – but a choice made by the whole community. This is how spirituality mature practices become prophetic: by carefully, prayerfully, and intentionally taking the time to seek reconciliation, not winning, humiliating, or punishing. Like the hymn says: I will weep when you are weeping, when you laugh, I’ll laugh with you; I will share your joys and sorrows til we’ve seen this journey through?

Now I want you to notice a few important details in this little passage. If you are going to go and talk through a hard thing with someone in conflict, the implication is that you already know your own voice. You know what is important to you. You know from the inside out that you are God’s beloved, so you don’t have to try and manipulate the conversation. If you want to repair the broken relationship, you can’t be either a doormat or a bully. Knowing what is important and why empowers you to move in humility and love rather than self-righteous retribution. Knowing your voice, your story, and your soul is crucial.

So is choosing to operate according to God’s time rather than some artificially imposed market-driven calendar. And here’s why: sometimes our best efforts don’t work, right? That’s just life. Mary Chapin Carpenter used to sing: “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug!” When you run into a wall, Jesus urges us to check-in with some trusted elders because elders are supposed to have perspective and see the bigger picture. Age isn’t a guarantee for wisdom – we all know some old people who are just cranky, worn-out fools – but time-tested and humble elders can bring a lot to the table. If they choose to sign-on to help you then you can be reasonably sure you have spoken with your true voice.

Time-tested wisdom keepers are those who have mother-wit or know how to use “the smell test.” If something stinks, they’ll tell you and ask you to go back to the drawing board and clean it up. Such mentors can help us discern whether you just have to learn to live with a problem or if the time to act is right. The Serenity Prayer, crafted by one such time-tested elderly wisdom keeper, teaches us to pray: Grant me, O God, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Now, after you’ve done your work, clarified your own voice, sought the input of trusted elders and the conflict persists, then you need to involve the whole community. As I was trying to grasp what this really meant, I did some word study and discovered that one little word holds a big meaning here: agree.

In the Greek New Testament, the word translated as agree is sumphóneó meaning to use our voices to call out to another in harmony. Isn’t that fascinating? To agree in community with the spirit of Jesus is to harmonize together – and this takes practice, listening, and time. If you’ve ever sung in a choir or a band you know you must pay careful attention to the song and the other musicians before you can make harmony. And just think of all the various types of harmonies we can make: one size does not fit all. I love singing Celtic harmonies – they’re big and open and edgy sounding – but as an instrumentalist I like playing guitar or bass with jazz harmonies because musically they don’t always go where you think they should. Jazz is surprising and playful. I like church chorale harmonies. I love singing simple harmony with my grandchildren’s folk songs. And I have come to appreciate those harmonies that sound jarring or dissonant to my ear because the composer wanted to create an impression of busyness or city life or even conflict and war.

Using our true voices to harmonize with one another in community like a symphony is a creative image and goal for seeking agreement. But let’s be clear playing in a symphony is never simple, automatic, or obvious. It takes practice - and patience. It takes knowing, trusting, and training your own voice before you can share it well with other voices. And sometimes harmonizing in community involves taking risks so that you discover together what is beautiful, true and real. All that from one little word: agree.

Now, I don’t know if this is true for you, but there have been times in my life when I have been in community and something hard or tense has happened: a conflict, a fight, an abuse, or some dis-agreement. I’ve learned that I don’t like conflict. And I really don’t like people getting angry or upset with me. So, sometimes, if I feel shaky or unsafe, I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t shared my true voice or gifts because it feels like I should just go along to get along. Do you know what I mean?

What I’ve discovered over the years, however, is that while it makes sense to keep still for a little while – to gather information, to take my concerns to the Lord in prayer, and not rush into a hasty judgment call by shooting my mouth off (and God knows I’ve learned this the hard way) – if something still does not feel right, as hard as it is for me to do this, I have to speak up and speak out. That’s part of what harmonizing in the way of God’s agreement means. Hiding my voice doesn’t help me or the community. Denying the truth or looking the other way doesn’t make it go away either. Like the song says: “Hide it under a bushel? NO! I’m going to let it shine.” Because, and this is important, if I don’t harmonize by speaking up, the hurt and pain keeps growing. By staying silent, I contribute to the pain. For me to harmonize and agree in the spirit of the holy in com-munity, I need to feel safe and respected and trusted and valued before I will take the risk to add my true voice to the community choir – but I have to do it. In this instance, silence becomes unholy.

Finding common ground – harmonizing in community – is hard work. But all love is hard work and takes practice. Taking care of my baby daughters was hard work in love. Stepping back and loving them as autonomous adults is hard work, too. Caring for a loved one who often gets sick a lot is hard work in love. Staying present when a cherished person is dying is hard work in love. And loving a country like the United States right now that is so cruel and confused and uncertain about how to move forward is hard work in love, too. We could say the same for the broken and wounded body of Christ we call the church. It is ALL hard work in love and there are no short cuts. What’s more, there are no guarantees that we’ll always get it right. That’s why Jesus encourages us at the end of this passage to forgive one another at least 70 times 7.

We will get it wrong at least as often as we get it right – probably more. But when we consciously choose to repair what is broken, honoring our truest voice and nourishing our most beautiful, tender, honest and respected selves; when we do the hard work of love it creates the chance for harmony, and then Jesus says: there am I in the midst of you. In the harmony – In the hard work – in the love. You don’t have to do this hard thing all by yourself – I will be with you – always – he tells us: my Spirit will come to you in your weakness and intercede for you with sighs too deep for human words. That’s the second practice: finding our true voice to share in love even in times of conflict.

And third there is the upside-down reversal of engaging with those who have hurt

us as Gentiles and tax collectors. Often this has been used to justify shunning or excluding those who offend us. And God knows the Church has done it since the beginning of time. Bu that not how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors. He’s the real gold standard for authentic Christian spirituality. So, if we’re honest, we know that:

· Jesus healed the daughter of the Gentile Syrophoenician woman from Canaan. He healed the boy servant of the Roman centurion, too. He gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan as well as the unclean mustard seed to show that we often experience the kingdom of God through unexpected people in the most unexpected places. His own witness to Gentiles is NOT to exclude, but to embrace and learn, to love, listen and offer tender compassion.

· And tax-collectors? Do you know the story of Zacchaeus? A crooked revenue man for the hated occupation troops of Rome who cheated his own people? Jesus recognized in this traitor a hungry heart and broke bread with him on his own turf. Jesus listened to him. And loved him so authentically that Zack had a change of heart. And to make certain that this conversion was not simply abstract fluff, Jesus encouraged Zacchaeus to his money where his mouth was: to honor God’s inward generosity by restoring the money he had swindled by four-fold and giving away another half of his wealth to the hungry poor. Jesus partied with tax-collectors and sinners which got him into trouble with the holy rollers and even called a tax collector to become one of the original disciples: St. Matthew was a tax collector.

What I see Jesus doing throughout the Scriptures is bringing very different groups of people together, teaching them to find their own true voice in humility, pushing them to eat together regularly so that they can listen to one another’s stories of joys and sorrows, heartaches, worries and blessings. I am sure that on more than one occasion he broke up the inevitable fights between Matthew the tax collector and Simon the zealot (who was a sworn enemy of tax collectors and whose political party often assassinated their opponents). That happens when you’re learning to harmonize in community. It was slow going – and some have said that the Jesus community did not really accomplish a lot when Christ was alive. Apparently, Jesus refused to measure progress by bottom lines and business metrics.

· But carefully – and patiently – being together in the small and ordinary things of life, learning how to harmonize even through their conflicts, God’s love unlocked their hearts – and made a way for peace in an otherwise hate-filled culture.

· That’s what I sense we are being called to do, too: live quietly as women and men who know from the inside out something of God’s healing love so that we can embody the alternative of childlike humility, harmony and hope in this crazy culture.

The way I see it the core of the first practice is to live as a child awed by the world who is ready, willing, and able to share. The second practice, finding our true voice, might be called learning to sing in harmony. And the third, going the extra mile with those who have been discarded and abandoned, is to know when to be silent. To listen with the heart of love. How might you explore sharing? Singing? Or silence in your world this week? Trusting that God IS God and we are not gives us permission to move according to God's time not artificial deadlines. Pierre

Teilhard de Chardin put it like this:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

I invite you to try – and we’ll talk about it together when we meet here next Sunday – same time, same place. Let’s be still and then be in prayer together… 

this is how we grow: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings...

The more I read of Rilke, the more I want to read. Last night I came upon Richard Rohr's translation of "The Watcher."

How small are the things we choose to fight.

What fights us is so great!

If only we could let ourselves be overcome,

As nature is overcome by a great storm.

Because if we do win, it is a small victory,

And the victory itself makes us small.

Whoever is defeated by an angel,

Always goes away proud and upright, full of strength,

And greater still for having felt his power.

This is how we grow:

By being decisively defeated by ever greater forces.

Fr. Richard uses it in the context of initiation rites for men - how male spirituality needs a unique encounter with powers greater than self that compel some form of loss, surrender, yielding, or relinquishment as the door into wisdom - all the while knowing that the poet resonates with others, too. In my favorite poetry anthology, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, one of my soul mentors, Robert Bly, shares his own translation of "The Man Watching" from start to finish.

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after

so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes

that a storm is coming,

and I hear the far-off fields say things

I can't bear without a friend,

I can't love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on

across the woods and across time,

and the world looks as if it had no age:

the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,

is seriousness and weight and eternity.

(Bly then plays with the middle stanza as follows)

When we win it's with small things,

and the triumph itself makes us small.

What is extraordinary and eternal

does not want to be bent by us.

I mean the Angel who appeared

to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:

when the wrestlers' sinews

grew long like metal strings,

he felt them under his fingers 

like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel

(who often simply declined the fight)

went away proud and strengthened

and great from that harsh hand,

that kneaded him as if to change his shape.

Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how we grow: by being defeated, decisively

by constantly greater beings.

This afternoon a storm is brewing just over our Berkshire hilltops. It is brewing in the soul of America, too. Both storms are wilder than anything in my imagination and offer a needed cleansing - maybe a measure of chaos that could be creative as well - but there are no guarantees. From my little corner of creation, where the day lilies are abundant and the air saturated, when it will break feels uncertain and tense. "But this is how we grow" the poet assures me, "by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings." I believe, I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.

to everything there is a season... even death

A few weeks back a local colleague posted a reflection wherein it was stated: the

Covid-19 crisis has pushed culture ahead by at least 20 years - and many of our churches are not equipped to catch up. That's a streamlined version of the post but accurate concerning the core assertion: many of our local churches have been drifting in days gone by and are now so obsolete as to be unable to adapt to our new reality. This rings true to me organizationally - and to my experience, too.

I know from decades in the ecclesiastical trenches that there is precious little value left in many of our local churches as they currently exist. Please do not misunderstand: wherever one-on-one compassion happens in this bottom line culture, that is truly holy ground. Same is true for experiential worship that feeds body, soul, mind and heart. What eventually wore me out - and will bury most congregations in this brave new world - are the stagnant imaginations and small hearts that have turned ministry into just another business. I read today in the NY Times a sobering article by David Leonhardt: In 2022 - What Will Life Look Like? It is worth the effort for all its clarity about our experience on the other side of the covid virus (check it out here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/

opinion/sunday/coronavirus-economy-two-years.html)

“It’s only when the tide goes out,” Warren Buffett likes to say, “that you learn who’s been swimming naked.” His point is that companies with flawed business models can look healthy in good times. Out of habit, many customers continue to buy from them. But when the economy weakens, people have to make decisions about where to pull back. They often start with products and services that they find the least valuable or that they can replace with a cheaper alternative. A downturn, says Emily Oster, a Brown University economist, “is an opportunity to revisit inefficiencies.” And the coronavirus is likely to cause a larger version of this phenomenon than a typical recession.

Local newspapers will be one casualty. They were already struggling, because Google, Facebook and Craigslist had taken away their main source of revenue: print advertising. Between 2008 and 2019, American newspapers eliminated about half of all newsroom jobs.Traditional department stores are another example. In recent years, they have lost significant business to online retailers and quietly lost even more to big-box stores. Many Americans have decided they prefer either specialty stores (like Home Depot) or discount stores (like Costco) over the one-stop-shopping experience that Sears, Macy’s and J.C. Penney have long offered...

Traditional department stores are another example. In recent years, they have lost significant business to online retailers and quietly lost even more to big-box stores. Many Americans have decided they prefer either specialty stores (like Home Depot) or discount stores (like Costco) over the one-stop-shopping experience that Sears, Macy’s and J.C. Penney have long offered. Now the virus has interrupted in-person shopping and caused many consumers to shift even more business online, to Amazon, Target and Walmart. “The retailers doing fair to poorly are absolutely not coming out of this,” said Mark Cohen, a former executive at Sears and Federated Department Stores who teaches at Columbia Business School. “Many, many of them are going to fail, have already failed or will fail when they reopen.” If they do, they will create spillover victims — the hundreds of malls that rely on department stores for rent and foot traffic. The roughly 250 fancier malls around the country, like The Westchester in suburban New York and The Galleria in Houston, are likely to survive, Mr. Cohen predicted. Some will convert old stores into spaces for experiences, like dining, bowling, medical care or a golf driving range. But many of the country’s remaining 1,100 or so traditional malls are at risk of failing. Even before the virus, Amazon turned two former malls near Cleveland into warehouses, a physical manifestation of changing shopping habits. A third at-risk industry — higher education — is a bit different from the others, because it’s so heavily subsidized by the government. Yet dozens of colleges, both private and public, are facing real trouble.

It was not the purview of Leonhardt to consider faith communities but they, too will be whittled away and transformed by the leveling of this virus. There was a time in my life when I would have been sad about this, but not any more. I will grieve for the faithful old-timers who have been unable to become the body of Christ for the 21st century. I HATE that congregational singing will be banned for the next few years for public health reasons. And I physically hurt at times as we are still unable to sit with our extended family and partake of Eucharist. Or the passing of the peace. Or the sacred music that has held God's people together for centuries. I wonder how my Jewish colleagues will figure out how to address their High Holy Days in the fall? So many questions...

... but that doesn't change the fact that most of the church closures are already

too late in coming. That truth kept gnawing at me over the past few weeks as I was working on my homily for our L'Arche Ottawa community retreat this week (via Zoom) as well as my live-streaming reflection for this Sunday on Be Still and Know (facebook - Sundays ! 9:55 am - https://www.facebook.com/Be-Still-and-Know-913217865701531/). These two places, both virtual at the present, have become my community of practice, my prayer center, and my focus in listening for God's ever still speaking albeit still, small voice. I suspect that is true for millions of other North Americans. We may miss being physically present in community, yet we've also made an important transition. To be sure, whenever it is both physically possible and medically safe, I plan to hold some type of feast/Eucharist on our deck for all who are able to be present. But most weeks, I rather like the quiet informality of gathering online. I am curious to know what you are thinking? And feeling? And praying? So shoot me a note if you are able, ok? You will be in my prayers for sure.

at day's end...

Tonight I am about to make fresh basil pesto from our garden. This was NOT the day I had hoped for, but it was the hand I was dealt. We had some serious router issues to resolve, so... searching for cables, rewiring the sun room and cleaning up the unexpected dog hair became the order of the day. Thanks be to God it helps! Tomorrow, therefore, becomes a massive writing day both for the L'Arche Ottawa  zoom retreat on Thursday and Friday, but also for my Sunday live-streaming gig. On Wednesday our Brooklyn family travels north for a socially distanced visit - and I am thrilled with seeing my loved ones who have been close in prayer since March 7. Four months. Too freakin' long, but absolutely necessary - and we'll be masked for this reunion, too.

That said, at twilight all is well in our small world. I stepped outside to take some pictures. Two years ago I worked hard for our then emerging band to do a house concert on our back deck: not only did we need to get before a live audience, but the view at this time of year is just ecstatic. What follows are visual prayers at the end of an annoying but holy day.

  

the blessings of small things in the age of contagion...

Today's live streaming video and written text...

This Fourth of July – and more honestly the whole second half of 2020 thus far – has been unsettling – for me for sure – but for all people of the heart. When we entered this era of physical distancing, solidarity, and the ever-morphing rules of life in the corona contagion, like many of you I prayed it would wake us up as a nation. That it would break our hearts open and we would begin to reclaim our deepest dreams of the Beloved Community. A poem at the start of the pandemic by Lynn Ungar put it like this – and it felt right.

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath —
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

That was March. A few weeks later this poem surfaced and rang true:

When this is over, may we never again take for granted: A handshake with a stranger, Full shelves at the store, Conversations with neighbors, A crowded theater, Friday night out, The taste of communion, A routine checkup, The school rush each morning, Coffee with a friend, The stadium roaring, Each deep breath. A boring Tuesday, Life itself. When this ends may we find that we have become more like the people we wanted to be - we were called to be - we hoped to be and may we stay that way — better for each other - because of the worst.

I still hold THAT prayer in my heart although currently there is not much evidence that it has captured the national imagination. A month later, in April 2020, James Parker shared this prayer in The Atlantic and notice the more somber and sobering tone.

Dear Lord,
In this our hour of doorknobs and droplets, when masks have canceled our personalities;in this our hour of prickling perimeters, sinister surfaces, defeated bodies, and victorious abstractions, when some of us are stepping into rooms humid with contagion,and some of us are standing in the pasta aisle; in this our hour of vacant parks and boarded-up hoops, when we miss the sky-high roar of the city and hear instead the tarp that flaps on the unfinished roof, the squirrel giving his hinge-like cry, and the siren constantly passing, to You we send up our prayer, as follows: Let not heebie-jeebies become our religion,our new ideology, with its own jargon. Fortify us, Lord. Show us how. What would your saints be doing now? Saint Francis, he was a fan of the human.
He’d be rolling naked on Boston Common. He’d be sharing a bottle. No mask, no gloves, shielded only by burning love. But I don’t think we’re in the mood for feats of antic beatitude. In New York City, and in Madrid, the saints maintain the rumbling grid. Bless the mailman, and equally bless the bus driver, vector of steadfastness. Protect the bravest, the best we’ve got. Protect the rest of us, why not. And if the virus that took John Prine comes, as it may, for me and mine, although we’ve mostly stayed indoors, well—then, as ever, we’re all Yours. Until further notice, AMEN.

Today we must confess that our hopes and dreams for the revitalization of America spiritually, politically, and socially were premature. The four months of solitude, fear, prayer, and modest sacrifice that some of us committed to living has been undone – and violated. Forty of our fifty states quit trying to overcome the pandemic. They gave in to the shallow promises of economic renewal, a little fun, and a night on the town. And now more than 50,000 of our sisters and brothers are coming down with the plague every day and our national death count is starting to soar. The New York Times columnist, David Brooks, said it best: "We Americans enter the July 4 weekend of 2020 humiliated as almost never before. We had one collective project this year and that was to crush Covid-19, and we failed."

This failure will lead to other failures. A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression according to the Census Bureau. Suspected drug overdose deaths surged by 42 percent in May. Small businesses, colleges and community hubs will close. (The good news is that at least we Americans are not in denial about the nation’s turmoil…. According to a Pew survey, 71 percent of Americans are angry about the state of the country right now, 66 percent are fearful and only 17 percent are proud.

I’m with Brother Brooks on this today: we as a nation have failed. We should be humiliated. We must own that our bruising sense of entitlement and our inflated collective stupidity has created a monster that is devouring us. It is bigger than the belligerent arrogance and ignorance of the President – although he loves to throw gasoline on this fire. Brooks hit the nail on the head when he wrote: It wasn’t Trump who went out to bars in Tempe, Austin, and Los Angeles in June.

It wasn’t Trump who put on hospital gowns and told the American people you could suspend the lockdown if your cause was just. Once you told people they could suspend the lockdown for one thing, they were going to suspend it for others. Our fixation on the awfulness of Donald Trump has distracted us from the larger problems and rendered us strangely passive in the face of them. Sure, this was a Republican failure, but it was also a collective failure, and it follows a few decades of collective failures.

When I started to share Sunday reflections with you at the very outset of this era, it was with love. I realized in my heart that there was very little I could do outside of my home during the lockdown – but given the peculiar blessing of the Internet I could be prayerful, hopeful and tender with those who chose to tune-in. And now that we are facing the moral and social failure of this moment with a brutal honesty, I trust in my soul that there is a small place for us to play in staying grounded, being prayerful, and encouraging one another to live into a tender alternative to the fear, greed, and selfishness that currently feels so overwhelming. Because, you see, if you trust by faith that humiliation, anguish, and even death are NOT the end of the story, but yet another moment when God’s grace can – and will – break through the darkness, then you will join with me and millions of others who are quietly and intentionally renewing our practice of claiming the blessing sof small things.

All week long I avoided making time to get focused on today’s reflection. Thankfully, there were a few birthdays to celebrate – and my commitment to the L’Arche Ottawa community, too – and we’re making plans to finally visit with our children and grandchildren later this week. So, I let myself be in those realities even as my heart inwardly wept. Truth be told, I thought about cancelling sharing anything today because I felt empty and bereft of soul. That’s part of the spiritual journey, right? Living into and through the darkness? Trusting a love greater than my own doubt? Well, even though I KNOW that, I still wrestle with it.

And hate it at times, too. I can’t help but think of Jesus on the Cross screaming into the darkness: My God, my God WHY hast Thou forsaken me? That’s part of what we must do – personally and together – own and honor the darkness within and among us. Our despair, you see, is our descent – it is how we get honest and grounded – so that we might have eyes to see the blessings of small things. So, almost against my will, I went into that space this week. The closer we drew to July 4th the deeper the darkness in my heart. And then three small things happened that gave me a slightly different vision for today:

First, I happened to read a short reflection by Melissa Kuipers, director of family ministries at Central Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ontario, she called, "The Gift of Nurturing Small Things.” It had been in my email’s in-box for at least 10 days, but I didn’t bother with it until my heart was ready. She used part of the Creation story to consider the blessing of nurturing small things. Our tradition, she notes, celebrates a cultural mandate “that posits that the very first human calling is not just to literally make more people but to build culture.”

To be fruitful and multiply, to have dominion and influence, means to be given the gift of taking the raw elements of the world around us, elements fecund with potential, and to make beauty: to cultivate relationships, build connections, design structures, and shape the created world into new concepts and constructs. Everything from sourdough starter to just business practices and video conferences can be considered products of this first calling, to make good things of this good good world. God gives us the gift of caring for what God has already made. We, too have been given many good good things to prune and knead and raise and nurture. In the beginning this is a response to the holy, a joyous gift of raw materials we can use to imitate a generous Creator.

When I finished reading her words, I said out loud in my study: Thank you, Lord, I needed that. I didn’t know what I would DO with it, but I knew it was food for the journey. So I just sat with this insight, prayerfully letting the call to be fruitful and multiply grow in my imagination

That’s when the second surprise popped up: one night I picked up my guitar and started to play Cat Stevens’ old song, “The Wind,” in an entirely new way. I’m not kidding. I hadn’t planned on playing it with jazz chords, but they just felt right. Not in a mechanical or creepy way. Not at all. I LOVE that song, but the old way didn’t feel right for this moment in time.

Ok, so it’s a little cheesy – kinda soft jazz – and the LAST place I would usually go in trying to rework an old tune. But I gotta tell you: it just felt right. It felt playful and real. And the more I sang it, the more I liked it – I even wound up using it as my prayer last week. “I listen to my words but they fall far below…” ain’t that the truth? So I literally let my music take me where my heart wants to go. Into love. Into trust. Into compassion and solidarity. That’s where MY heart wants me to go. As I reworked that old song, I was reminded of what I must do to awaken my heart. I have to feed it. I have to nourish it. I have to treat my heart like a wounded lover in need of tenderness. And when I started to consciously remind myself of this truth, what popped up in my poetry email but the words of Walt Whitman who wrote in Leaves of Grass:

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

It was deep speaking to deep. It was the holy whispering to my humanity about the blessings of small things. It was the consolation of my calling reminding me that the story isn’t over yet. So, obviously, I didn’t hang it up for today and I won’t for the foreseeable future. We’re going to be in this weird place with all its shifting sand for a long time to time – and I trust that we’ll need one another to stay grounded.

And that word grounded is probably the right one for us. In the creation story we’re told that God made all of creation from the earth – from the ground – all the animals, all the green matter, even male and female God created us from the soil. Both etymologically and spiritually the word human is related to the word humus. And hummus – that rich decaying soil nourished by garbage – is related to both humor and humility. So being grounded is vital for this moment in time, yes?

And it seems to me that Jesus took being grounded in a humble, humorous humanity quite seriously as he walked about the dusty roads of ancient Palestine speaking of seeds and shrubs and kernels of wheat falling into the earth to die before they yield new life.

When “a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,” he said, “it bears much fruit.” “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,” he said, “which is the smallest of seeds.” “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast,” and “the kingdom of God is like when a man sows seeds.” Jesus knew plants. The small, organic, everyday, life-giving elements of creation were ripe with holy potential for him. The smallest of plants, of microbes, of organisms, can bring great meaning to our lives. Some say Jesus chose these images for a reason: he spoke in metaphors people in his agrarian culture would recognize. I believe this to be the case, that his images were down to earth. But I also think the Son of God, who came to earth as a tiny baby who was shared with animals and shepherds, simply took delight in the little living things around him. “Consider the lilies,” says Jesus, and we do.

Staying grounded in the blessing of small things is, I am coming to trust yet again, both the sacred charism of this moment for many of us – and one of the hardest things to do. We WANT to be part of the healing of this nation. We ACHE to do something meaningful. We YEARN to be active in our solidarity with Black Lives Matter and the Healing the Breach movement of the Poor People’s Campaign. And… and we know that there is precious little action that we can manifest right now. So, let me put it to you like this: could it be that our very impotence is an invitation from God to nourish the blessing of small things? A time to cultivate a deeper trust that God is active even when we are not? That God is greater than this moment of uncertainty and despair? And that even this descent and confusion is working within us and our culture to create something holy from out of our humbling humilation? The Sufi poet, Rumi, put it like this:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweet your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

When I scour the Scriptures, I find that most of what Jesus taught involved practicing seeing the small blessings all around us – even during the vicious occupation of Israel by Rome – and then honoring these small gifts by becoming a small blessing to another. Two texts are important: in St. Luke’s gospel, Jesus says: “The one who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and if we are dishonest in a very little thing we are likely to be unrighteous in larger matters.” (Luke 16: 10) This is a call to practice the blessing of small things – to notice them and honor them. The other passage that I find compelling is St. Matthew 18 where Jesus tells his friends: Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for that person to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. It is a call to share small blessings particularly among the vulnerable, the tender, the wounded and heart-broken.

I trust by faith that this moment of national failure and disgrace is not the end of the story. Clearly we must be humbled as a nation in order to get grounded. And we have a small part to play in the redemption of this moment – not in any grandiose way – but as allies and servants – who are at home in the humus because we’re grounded in humility. The poet Naomi Shihab Nye wrote that “before you can know kindness, you must lose things…” Let me close with her wisdom:

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Let’s be silent together for a moment of prayer…

resting into the slow and small rhythm of the holy...

"I listen to the wind, the wind of my soul - I let my music take me where my heart wants to go..."

That's always been one of my favorite Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam songs,"The Wind," in any iteration. Last night, quite by accident, I started playing with a radically deconstructed jazz take on it that may yet see the light of day. It may even fit with the theme of this week's Sunday live streaming on Be Still and Know @ 9:55 am (go to: https://www.facebook.com/Be-Still-and-Know-913217865701531/ and scroll down.)

One of the wandering thoughts blowing around my soul is how everything can be a gift - and I want to include every thing - like this poem by Rumi suggests.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows

who violently sweet your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, 

meet them at the door laughing, 

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

This is where I want to live - not that I am anywhere close - but just knowing where I want to go moves me in the right direction. I wonder if this is part of what Jesus meant in St. Matthew's gospel when he told his friends: 

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Become mature and balanced just like the Lord your God is in harmony with all of creation. (My rephrased last verse. "Perfect" in this context in Greek, teleios - τέλειος, means to become complete and whole as God intended; thus, it has been rendered perfect, but mature and balanced is more accurate.)

Jung used to encourage us to love our "enemy feelings" - all our wounded, naked, imprisoned, and frightening truths within that we would rather hide or deny - for as we befriend them, we become peace-makers. And Jesus called the peace makers "children of God" - women and men who bear the image of the holy in their humanity as we move into balance and a measure of humility. Parker Palmer wrote: "When sharing among peers, we sometimes tend to give advice to solve a person's problem. But we must keep in mind one simple thing: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard." I like the how Teilhard de Chardin puts it: "Above all, trust in the slow work of God."

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Resting into the slow and small rhythm of the holy is my birthday prayer this year.