In Honor of the Foot

 Before I injured my foot, I didn't pay much attention to walking or to climbing stairs or to pressing the gas pedal or the brake pedal or to kneeling or standing. But for the past three weeks, I have been acutely aware of what part of the foot stands, walks, climbs, presses, and kneels. It amazes me how many muscles and nerves and tendons are all intricately connected and dependent on one another, and how focused I must be to walk or do anything involving my foot.

How easily I used to walk. How unconcerned I was with how my foot landed or with which toes were touching where or with what part pushed off the ground. Not so now. Now, I must think about it. I take care. I concentrate. I am aware. I notice what my feet are doing, how they do it, and what it feels like when they are doing it.

This new awareness strikes me as important, and I wonder what I have been missing as I go through my habitual life, doing this, doing that, without noticing the how, the what, the where, the why. Paying attention to my feet has encouraged a kind of wholeness, body wholeness. It is as though my feet want to be noticed for what they do and how they do it. And oddly, I want to notice them. I want to feel them, to know what it is they do, and how they contribute to my experience of life.

I have the sense that noticing my feet these past weeks honors God. I have had to slow down and notice something that is part of me, something that God gave me. The gift of walking, climbing, running, standing, pressing, and stepping. My feet are part of the kingdom, and they deserve a bit of recognition. So here's to my feet, and to my right foot in particular. May you recover fully and be all that God has for you in the kingdom.

Re-Purposed

Magazine Plant Stand

I was "stumbling" today. What I mean is I was using Stumble Upon to surf the net. In the process, I came across some interesting upcycling projects and creative reuse of throw-away-able items. The idea of reusing things and imagining them as something other than their original purpose intrigues me. It stretches the imagination and probably connects brain neurons in new ways. One problem is that it takes time to re-imagine a thing and then it takes time to re-make the thing. So much easier to just go buy a thing that serves the need and to throw away what doesn't. Sad. My "stumbling" challenged me, caused me to consider what could be reused, salvaged, remade, renewed, and redone. I think of God's re-creating me, re-making me, re-newing me, re-doing me. I've not been thrown on the garbage heap. Instead, God re-imagined me and is the process of upcycling me. I am one of those creative projects that is being re-purposed. I like that about God and me. We're goin' green together.

Godly Opals and The Oregon Sunstone

Rough Opal

Oregon Sunstone

Rocks fascinate me. And I looked at lots of them today at the Gem and Mineral Show in Canby. Two of my favorites are the raw opals and the Oregon sunstones. The opals are milky, translucent and iridescent. They are sleek and smooth, like glass, but better. I love God for creating them. It's not the only reason I love God, but opals sure make it easier. I gotta love a God who designed such a naturally beautiful thing. Opals are wonderful just as God made them. Then there are the sunstones. Lovely in the raw, but stunning when polished. They are a collaboration between God and humans. A partnership in a finished product. I imagine God and I smiling together when I admire the Godly opal and the Oregon sunstone polished by a created hand.

God-Love

Yesterday, I watched the sunset on the beach. The day was chilly and windy. But the time spent with my daughters and grandson was splendid. The love I feel for them is a God-love. It is a love that simply is. I felt love for them freely. No expectations. No commitments. No oughts or shoulds. Their presence was enough. It was a connected love that needed no words. We were together, in love, sharing the sunset, sharing the wind, sharing the chill, sharing the beach, sharing ourselves. A God-love.

Teeth-Cleaning Meditation

This might sound odd, but whenever I have my teeth cleaned, I meditate. It is my teeth-cleaning meditation. I think it developed out of two practices. First, I have a habit of meditating while lying in bed. I lie on my back, cross my arms over my chest, close my eyes, and focus on breathing or on being quiet with myself. Second, when my teeth are being cleaned, I have a habit of tightening all the muscles in my body, as though this tightening will somehow prevent the picking, poking, and scraping.

As a way to relax my muscles, I began to use my meditation techniques. I am already on my back in the chair. I just add the crossed arms, close my eyes, and focus on being quiet and at rest. It works. I have been doing this for years now. I became more aware of it today as my teeth were being cleaned. For some reason, I had the curious thought that my teeth were happy. I focused on the cleaning. I felt the tugging, the chipping, the scratching, the washing, the sucking, the pulling, and the nicking. And it felt good. I noticed it all.

My body remained relaxed and still, but my mind was alert to the process. I knew each tooth. And weird as it sounds, my teeth knew me. I felt united to them and we were glad. I imagine this created body wants to be recognized as worthy and honorable. A body to be noticed. Even those teeth touched by the hand of God deserve some notice. I wonder if their happiness was increased because I noticed.

Copper Sunlight

 
I spent the day hiking with my daughter around the Ten Falls Trail at Silver Creek. For most of the 9 miles, we had cloudy overcast skies. But near the end of our hike, copper sunlight shone at selected places on the trail, on the water, and in the trees. This was not pure sunlight because the sun was still covered by clouds. The light was filtered. The effect of this cloudy filter caused the sunlight to appear copperish. Oddly, the light did not land everywhere. It lay in patches here and there. Soft copper sunlight patches. The appearance of it reminded me of Tolkien's description of Lothlorien.

They felt like gentle touches from heaven. Soft places of peace. A reaching by God into creation and brushing lightly the forested places. A glimpse of God's love for nature. A glimpse of God's tenderness and care for created things. Brief tales of God's beauty. Brief messages of wonder and awe. Coppery worship among the trees and undergrowth. Blessed be the copper sunlight.

Clamor

Today I went to the State Fair. I had a great time with my daughter. We viewed calligraphy, watched glass blowers and bead makers, listened to music, cheered for Chinese acrobats, clapped for the horses pulling carriages, ate fair food, shopped through multiple vendors, and laughed at those who'd been hypnotized.

In every place, there were things to see, to touch, to smell, and people talking, laughing, eating, clapping, and selling. They were selling vacuums, filters, sheets, blenders, shears, candy, popcorn, necklaces, rings, hats, T-shirts, shoes, stuff and more stuff.
 

In one building, there were sales people with microphones so the crowds could hear them talk about chopping, blending, scrubbing, wiping, spinning, cooking, or sewing. My eyes and ears were full of the clamor. Once I felt it try to get inside me. Odd feeling. I kept it at bay, and it stayed out.

I wonder how many people unaware allow it to climb inside and take it with them. Unwittingly, accepting the clamorous gift of non-stop unrest. Taking home the unquiet notion that the life lived is not enough, not exciting enough, not full enough, not easy enough.
 

The clamor of the fair was fun for the day, but I left it there. I have enough.

Lightening Up

 Yesterday, I ate only vegetables and fruit. Today, I ate only vegetables and fruit. Tomorrow, I intend to eat only vegetables and fruit. And the day after that, vegetables and fruit. Until Easter, vegetables and fruit. I wanted to try it because sometimes I feel too heavy. Not like I weigh too much, but weighted with heavy foods. For Lent, I refrained from refined sugar and felt lighter. But resorting to veggies and fruit feels even lighter, like dumping weights that pull one down. It is like the letting go of things that prevent the rising up. And with Easter coming, I want to rise up. I want to be lighter than I was before Easter. For some reason, it feels dark and heavy just before Resurrection Day. So I guess what I am doing is preparing, trying to ditch the dark and the heavy in a physical way so that I can leap on Sunday and really celebrate with lightness.

The Ferris Wheel Mood

Today I am reflecting on mood. So many things can affect mood--the weather, food, circumstances, situations, people, health, movies, music, exercise, work, clutter, thoughts, dreams, fatigue, too much of, lack of. I've been trying to discern why it is that for two weeks I can feel childlike and free and then fall into the I-feel-old-and-tired mood and wonder what it is I am trying to do with myself.

This mood has the bad habit of feeding off of rotating thoughts about life in general. It likes the Ferris wheel thought process. The same empty seats keep coming back around, stuck in place, going nowhere. A bothersome mood. A dizzy-ing mood. Yoga helps. Kick-boxing helps. Step aerobics helps. Walking helps. But mostly, talking out loud to God in the car while driving helps a lot.

God's ears fly down the road at 55 mph, sometimes 65 or 70, and they hear all the Ferris wheel junk. God just listens. Maybe that is what helps, the listening. Or maybe it is that what I say bounces around inside the car long enough for it to break free of the wheel and be sucked out the air vents into the atmosphere where it no longer bothers me. Or maybe just maybe, it is that God's ears absorb those Ferris wheel vibes so that it comes to a creaking halt. Then I can fill those seats with different thoughts and regain my balance.

CPE Art

This is a piece that my CPE cohort created one morning for our group dynamics exercise. There were five of us who created it together. It is 3 feet by 4 feet and now hangs in our student office.

Secret Pleasure

 There is something tantalizing about having a wonderful secret that will eventually be revealed. It is like finding a small treasure in an antique shop and hiding it in a bag until it can be pulled out and displayed. It is like saving Dove's dark chocolate for the moment when it can be enjoyed with classical music and a glass of wine. There is pleasure in the knowing of it, pleasure in the keeping of it, and pleasure in the moment of revealing it. It is mischievous.

This is what it is like to hold that Divine inner secret, the secret of Christ in me. Only I know the transforming work of the Spirit in me. Only I can say what my experience of God has been in my deepest self. It is a private work that I know and keep and hold sacred. My pleasure is that one day the Christ in me will be revealed and the Divine secret will be fully known in my complete transformation. I guess I could also call this hope, but having a secret feels more mischievous. And right now, I am feeling quite that way.

Photo by Lisa Barnes taken in the Port Angeles Outdoor Art Gallery.

Grief in the Kingdom

 Over the past three weeks, I worked on the preparations for a memorial service. And something that I noticed was how deeply I was affected by that process. As a chaplain, I met with a diverse group of people in order to work out the details of the service. I was struck by how each person dealt with their grief. I was not close to the deceased, but I felt the intensity of all the emotions. I held a grieving space for all who were affected by this patient's death. I felt their pain, their loss, their darkness. The experience brought Romans 12:15 into stark reality. "Weep with those who weep." I think this is what it is like to have the mind of Christ and to be united with humanity in pain and suffering. As I suffered with this community of people, I participated in the Kingdom of God. I offered a sacred space of peace, comfort, and hope in the midst of tears. Definitely a God moment.

Feline Meditation

 We have two cats. Neither one belongs to me. Nevertheless, I enjoy them. One of them is a lap napper. He will climb on my lap, or rather my chest because I slouch on the sofa, curl up, and snooze. I receive a few benefits from his habit. He is warm, he is soft and touchable, and he purrs and purrs and purrs.

His purring vibrates through my abdomen and chest and causes a settling sensation. It relaxes me. It is like a small motor that turns down my internal energy level and evens out my breathing. Frankly, it is meditation with a cat.

And rather than being odd, I think it is as God would have it. It is a symbiosis of creation. A simple purring cat brings to life the shalom of God. I like the idea of embracing the kingdom of God with my feline friends. They bring a lovely gift for the healing of my soul and spirit.

For more on the healing purr of cats, go here:
http://www.healingmusic.org/Library/Newsroom/ACatsHealingPurr.asp

Yo-Yo Ma and the Shallow Song

I have been listening to Yo-Yo Ma the past couple of days. One of his songs is called Trad: Yanzi (Shallow Song). I love this piece because it is on the verge of the deep.

In the beginning of the song, the cello resonates and sinks deeply into my being. It stirs something mysterious within me. It stirs some unnameable thing. Then the flute floats me. The flute is like the surface of deep water. It teases, it ripples, and then comes the cello's dark waters. The notes draw me down into a soul place. A dark place.

One might think that this dark place is frightening, but it is just the opposite. The cello invites me into this place and I want to go there. I want to feel that deep place. I want to know that deep place. I want to experience that dark place. But the cello takes me there only teasingly. Just when I am about to be submerged into the notes and the deep and the dark, the cello rises to the surface and submits to the flute.

It creates in me a longing, a longing for deepness, the deepness and the darkness of the spirit, of my soul. It creates in me longing for the Divine Darkness, the Divine Deepness. My soul longs to be united with that Divineness.

So this Shallow Song reminds me that I am shallow, that my soul never quite reaches into the Deep Divine, that there is a deepness that defies me. And yet that is where my soul's deepest desires lie.

On Annoying Thoughts

 I am amazed at how thoughts can be so disruptive and annoying. It seems that no matter how many times I try to quiet my mind, they slowly and sneakily creep back into my silence. Consciously, I put them aside and for a brief time, I am quiet. But then without realizing what has happened, they are there and have been there before I am again consciously aware that they have sneaked into my quiet.

They seem to have a force all their own. They do what they want, go where they want, be what they want. They seem to embody that which I do not want. They pursue me. And the problem is that I carry them with me. They are inside me, hiding or presiding. Annoying me when I want peace. When I want to shake them, they cling. I send them away, but they keep coming back like a bad dream.

The more I fight them, the more tenacious they become. The more I swear at them, the louder they become. The more I hate them, the more fitful they become. They are like rebellious children who scream and roll around on grocery aisle floors when their mothers do not buy them a piece of gum. They want attention. So they get annoying.

Thus, the solution seems to be in allowing them their day, their time, their space. I need to give them their hour of annoyance and then wave and walk away. I need to tell them that I see them, I see what they are doing, I hear what they are saying. And then tell them that I want no part of what they offer. I may have to do this out loud and in public. Eegads!

But something must be done about these sneaking thoughts. It is time for them to know what is what and what is not.

Rhythm

I am out of rhythm these days. I stop and start. There is no flow. It feels jerky. Unsettled. Thoughts are mixed in my mind. They elude capture. The thing about lacking rhythm is that there is nothing to do but live in the moment. To live with whatever presents itself. But I find that the moment feels edgy and sharp when there is no rhythm. The moment begs for peace, for flow, for a sense of stability.

Rhythm requires will and self-discipline. But in the midst of out-of-rhythm comes a weak will and no desire to discipline oneself. It is the paradox of rhythm. No rhythm reinforces no rhythm. Rhythm reinforces rhythm.

Upon reflection, I realize that I do have a rhythm. But it is of the kind that reaches into old habits, old ways of thinking, old ways of doing, unproductive ways, unhealthy ways. I suppose when I have had enough, I will make the jump into a rhythm of healing and peace.

I think that leap must be made today, always today.

Behold, the Spider

The other day I was watching a spider weave her web. Around and around she went. Her legs constantly in motion. The thin thread forming a fragile circle of connections. A breeze lifted her work, yet despite the constant movement, she persisted. Finally, she finished and settled herself in the center of her web. It was perfected and lovely to see.

About thirty seconds after she had arranged herself in the centered position, my daughter's cat walked beneath the web and his tail snagged an anchor thread. The bottom half of the perfected circle sprung up and became a tangled mess just below the central part of the web.

I anticipated that the spider would frantically begin to remake the section of web that had been ruined. Instead, she simply created another anchor thread and in a different location from where the first one had been. It took her about thirty seconds to make this simple repair. She then resettled herself in the center of the web above the sticky tangled threads.

This maneuver took me by surprise. I was somewhat annoyed that her beautiful work had been ruined by a cat's tail. But she was unperturbed. She did what was necessary to sustain herself. She didn't need a perfect web. She learned that the former anchor was a problem and relocated it. She adapted to the hazards of being a webweaver. She taught me a lesson. More than one.

She taught me not to be overly concerned with perfected work. She taught me that as a minister, my work might snag, become messy, untidy, imperfect, but that it is okay. She taught me to be unperturbed. She taught me to learn from what might prove to be problem areas, to learn how to re-anchor and work with and around the mess. She taught me to permit the mess to co-exist with the perfect. And she taught me to always return to center.

Laptop and Prayer

How is it that we become so dependent on "things"? Okay, so I admit it. How is it that I have become so dependent on things? I am referring to my computer. My laptop, specifically. One day it just wouldn't boot up. No power. Not a sound. One day it was running perfectly, the next, gone. Dark. Dead.

It was then I realized that I wanted it back.But I have to wait and use other computers. Computers that are not the same. Computers that run slowly. Computers that do not have my documents, my files, my writings, my poems, my pictures, my words, my self. How did this happen? Slowly, as most things seem to happen.

This has happened to my prayer self. Slowly, it has gone dark. It seems dead. One day all was running smoothly, the next, gone. I miss it. How long must I wait for what is broken to be repaired? I have had to use other ways of praying than what is familiar. Does this mean that God is stretching me? Inviting me to discover something that I need to know about myself? Does God want me to reexamine our relationship? To reset my priorities? Or am I to do without in order to appreciate what was?

As I have had to do without my friendly laptop, I realize that I am able to manage my affairs without it. I adjust. I realign. I find new ways to do what would have been done. In all my reading about creativity, this is what is needed to get the creative energies moving, flowing. There is the need to be jarred out of routinized behaviors. I can appreciate this as I learn to accommodate my lack of a reliable computer.

So, perhaps, this whole dark prayer thing is an invitation to some creative thinking, creative doing, creative ways of being in relationship with God. After all, as a spiritual formation guru, isn't that what drives my passion, my heart, my love of all things sacred? I thrive on that which shakes me out of my comfortable way of being and into places of growing, changing, transforming.

So, I guess, I can thank my laptop for going dark and offering me a bit of reflective thinking on the darkness of prayer.

Lyric 12

 

 

I believe in myself slowly.
It takes all of the doubt I’ve got.
It takes my wonder.

Lyric 12 by Primus St. John from Communion: Poems 1976 – 1998

 

Pentecost Dream

 This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, a day to remember the flaming fire of the Holy Spirit. The Friday and Saturday night before, I dreamed about fire. In the first dream on Friday, I was told, "Don't be afraid." And in the second dream on Saturday, I walked right into a consuming but nonconsuming fire.

After waking Sunday morning, I started to reflect on my dreams when I suddenly remembered that it was Pentecost Sunday. The dream's images became extremely powerful. Since then, I have been thinking about this consuming but nonconsuming fire.

This is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit consumes but does not consume. I can stand in the Presence of a fire that has the power to burn all that can be burned and not be burned. Not be hurt. Not be reduced to ashes. It is a fire that knows what to consume and how to consume it.

As I stood in the middle of that consuming fire in my dream, I distinctly knew that this fire was powerful and that it was consuming. But I was not afraid, instead I was safe and unconsumed. What was consumed? My fear.

My fear of those things that would hinder the work of the Spirit was consumed. I was empowered when this fear was consumed. It was the perfect beginning for a day to remember the flaming fire of the Holy Spirit. It was a Pentecost Dream.