pondering love

"Let them ponder the love of the Lord..."
(A phrase from Benedictine Daily Prayer that grabbed at me this morning)

Richard Rohr or someone I read recently (been doing my share of reading, you know) said that the grace-filled life, this way of spiritual formation, must be grounded in an experience and awareness of God's unfathomable love.
To ponder this love...would, I think, catapult us into a fuller experience of it - where we are more aware and attentive to His love throughout the day.

Ponder the love of the Lord. Ponder. I love that word!

The love of the Lord - where do I see evidence of it? I could look at various material and circumstantial provisions... perhaps He does show His love for us in this way. But it's got to go far beyond this, or we'd have to say He doesn't much love the child soldiers of Africa or the starving masses in Haiti. Perhaps His love is more evident in the many gifts we overlook. The momentary treasures (He is, afterall, found in the Present Moment) that we take for granted (this may sound romanticized, but bear with me)... the feel of the wind on our cheeks, the warmth of the sun on our backs...the gifts of sight and hearing, color and sound. Breath. Oh, what about this idea that He created our bodies to be as dependent on breath as our souls are dependent on Him? Or the knowledge that His longing for full relationship with me is deeper and more cutting than our most severe pangs of homesickness or any other tension we are forced to embrace.

Here….Nouwen knocks ‘em dead every time:
“This inexhaustible love between the Father and the Son includes and yet transcends all forms of love known to us. It includes the love of a father and mother, a brother and sister, a husband and wife, a teacher and friend. Bit it also goes far beyond the many limited and limiting human experiences of love we know. It is a caring yet demanding love. It is a supportive yet severe love. It is a gentle yet strong love. It is a love that gives life yet accepts death. In this divine love Jesus was sent into the world, to this divine love Jesus offered himself on the cross. This all-embracing love, which epitomizes the relationship between the Father and the Son, is a divine Person, coequal with the Father and the Son. It has a personal name. It is called the Holy Spirit.” (Making All Things New 48-49)

Questions in my journal that I plan to follow up on:
-Where do I see evidence of His love throughout the day – in every moment and place?
-If I were to find or create a picture that represents His love (as best I can understand it), what would it be like? What would it in/exclude? What objects, colors, shapes, textures?

reality check

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take."

A familiar prayer to most. I always thought it was kinda morbid. Tonight I found out there's a second, not-so-popular verse:
"Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span,
And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man."

Ah, sweet dreams, my child. But really....how would we live life differently if we were RAISED with a greater awareness that we are "but a breath"?

Desolation?

Honestly, I have no idea what to write.

There's a lot swirling around inside. The last few days have been characterized by what Ignatius might have called desolation (thank you, Chris, for sharing this link - it's been a lifeline). Without digging too much up - I don't knwo how helpful hashing it all out again would be - here are some of my journalings...perhaps it will be helpful to anyone who might read it.

Hopelessness. Extremely complex thought patterns (trying to figure “me” out). Loss of vision. Emotional ups and downs. Absence of a real sense of His presence. Ick. Desolation? One reason desolation comes is “our own negligence of spiritual discipline. ‘We are tepid and slothful.’” Seems strange to admit this after several weeks of the most deep, life-changing, formational “class” I’ve ever taken. But it’s true, I think.
“In this life there is no finished symphony…”
Has the desolation of the last few days been the fruit of neglecting disciplines that would help me remember this fundamental truth? Disciplines of chastity? In other words, have I been careless in the placement of my hopes and affections?

Bear in mind, Rolheiser (The Holy Longing), isn't looking at chastity as purely to do with sexual abstinence. Rather, he sees it as relating to many and varied aspects of life. Patience is key in his description of chastity. Interestingly, it looks like Ignatius saw patience as key in surviving desolation...

“To be chaste is to experience people, things, places, entertainment, the phases of our lives, and sex in a way that does not violate them or ourselves. To be chaste is to experience things reverently, in such a way that the experience leaves both them and ourselves more, not less, integrated…
…we are chaste when we do not let impatience, irreverence, or selfishness ruin what is a gift by somehow violating it. Conversely, we lack chastity when we cross boundaries prematurely or irreverently, when we violate anything and somehow reduce what it is. Chastity is respect, reverence, and patience. Its fruits are integration, gratitude and joy. Lack of chastity is impatience, irreverence, and violation. Its fruits are disintegration of soul, bitterness, and cynicism” (The Holy Longing 202).
I’m really thinking this is at the root of the complexity of my thought life, the fear of not changing….being driven by desires for my future, becoming the “right” sort of person by the time such-and-such happens. Discontent now to become what I should be by then, if that makes any sense. But…then there’s the nagging question: If I am so discontent now, will it be any different when that time (whatever it may be) comes?

As I'm continuing the readings for class this week, I'm beginning to see that this time of desolation has carried purpose. I have a feeling there will be more blog posts on this topic....

Broken record

Been thinking more about the whole "letting go" thing (yeah, still). Sounds like a broken record - but a good one.

Got home from work and played around some with Bunter (my brother's English bulldog puppy) in the hallway. He's got this toy...he loves it. It's (was) a green plastic ball. Bunter lost no time in crushing it into a flat, chewed, crumpled thing. Anyway. Home from work. Hallway. We play this game - he's standing midway through the hall with Green Thing in his mouth (can't really get his teeth into it 'cause it's hard plastic). I'm at the open end of the hall.....creeping toward him, saying slowly, "I...gonna...gets...it....!" (yeah, it has to be those words) - and he freaks out and goes running as fast and far away from me as he can (to other side of the hall...oops, dead end). Hides his face in the corner and waits for me to get close enough to slip around me and go to the other end of the hall. He must be thinking, "Yeah the heck you're gonna gets it! Victory!!!" And the game begins again. If at any point in the game I decide to grab a different toy out of his basket, watch out!

I wonder if we, like Bunter, have our little toys and want to keep them safe in the confines of our slobbering jowls. The toys really aren't worth a whole lot....but they're ours. And we'll do whatever we have to do to keep them like that.

Thinking back on some discussion in class....we're wondering why? Why are we soooo intrigued with this idea of running the cosmos? Could it be simply that we, like Adam and Eve, have this screwball impulse to play God? It seems soooooo stupid to try managing all these little things of our lives, somehow imagining that we can do it better than He can. It makes so much sense to hand it over to someone big enough to take care of it all. So why? Why do we hang on to our control of things? Maybe Fenelon's words are helpful here...

After a rain shower

Sitting out on the front porch for the tail end of a rain shower...spent some time in silent prayer and just listening to the sounds...Jesus, of course, was sitting in the chair next to me. :o)
When the rain was falling, everything actually seemed quieter. As it stopped, the sounds of traffic on the highway (motors running and tires swishing over the wet pavement) and chainsaws running (at the new "bear mall" across the street) took over. But even with that it's possible to find silence. Listening carefully....you can "peel back" a layer of sound to reveal another and another and another....until you really can hear the silence from which all these sounds emerge. This sounds crazy, doesn't it? Oh well. If I gotta loose my mind, it'd be better to loose it on the front porch in God's Presence than anxious and busy on the job or...whatever.
Back to the layers...
Peel back the most obvious sounds...and you can hear the phone ringing in the house and water coming off the roof to splash rather noisily into the grass. Peel that back...you can hear birds twittering. Peel that back....you hear your own breathing. Take it deeper and deeper...until you're finally aware of this constant undertone of silence. It's really there! Listen to it for a minute or two and you'll find your body relaxing, your mind and heart opening up....and there's peace. And joy. And contentment.
...then a motorcycle brooooooooommmmms through the quiet.
But can the body, mind, and heart continue to rest in the silence in the midst of outward noise?

...treasure from an Irish poet.

On its way through the innocent night,

The moth is ambushed by the light,

Becomes glued to a window

Where a candle burns; its whole self,

Its dreams of flight and all desire

Trapped in one glazed gaze;

Now nothing else can satisfy

But the deadly beauty of flame.

When you lose the feel

For all other belonging

And what is truly near

Becomes distant and ghostly,

And you are visited

And claimed by a simplicity

Sinister in its singularity,

No longer yourself, your mind

And will owned and steered

From elsewhere now,

You would sacrifice anything

To dance once more to the haunted

Music with your fatal beloved

Who owns the eyes of your heart.

These words of blessing cannot

Reach, even as echoes,

To the shore of where you are,

Yet may they work without you

To soften some slight line through

To the white cave where

Your soul is captive.

May some glimmer

Of outside light reach your eyes

To help you recognize how

You have fallen for a vampire.

May you crash hard and soon

Onto real ground again

Where this fundamentalist

Shell might start to crack

For you to hear

Again your own echo.

That your lost lonesome heart

Might learn to cry out

For the true intimacy

Of love that waits

To take you home

To where you are known

And seen and where

Your life is treasured

Beyond every frontier

Of despair you have crossed.

(The blessing: John O'Donohue's "For an Addict" ~ The image: my creation, symbolic of so many thoughts swirling in my mind this week)

Faith

In an ongoing conversation with friends, I've been thinking some about faith. What is faith?
Hebrews 11:1 is typically the verse cited when a definition is needed. So I looked it up in several versions...
When we read words like substance, evidence, assurance, conviction, and proof, do we assume that faith = certainty, absence of doubt? If this is faith, then either we must admit we are a hopeless cause or we must deny simple facts of reality.
What if faith is more than this? We may say it is, but do our lives reflact that reality?

"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see."

Hebrews 11:1, the Message

What if faith is trust? There will probably still be darkness, and perhaps nothing - not even the smallest light - to lead us on. But it does not shake our confidence that the Lord is my shepherd. In Waking, Matthew Sanford writes, "Stop moving...let the eyes adust...allow for stillness...then see what's possible."

Believing Abba is big enough to work within our current limitations...

Christ's words to me...

(Put your name in place of mine...I'm pretty sure He'd like to say this to you as well.)


Barbara, I love you. Not "if" or "but." I love you more fully, more deeply than you will ever imagine. Being with you constantly and teaching you, helping you to be increasingly sensitive to those inner leanings - the whisperings of Holy Spirit - brings such joy to my heart. I'm not mad at you or even wishing you could be other than what you are. I only see you and love you as you are and am so excited to be with you as you grow in your likeness to our Father.
I love you, Barbara...I love you! And I soooo deeply desire your growth and transformation. This is our journey together. You're not alone. Hold my hand. Be in me. Let me wrap myself around you and be in you. Don't try to change yourself. You are precious to me, and I know you inside and out. I see the reality and fullness of what you are and I still love and hold you. So when you see something in yourself that is frightening and sinful...don't turn to resistance and rejection...but to prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, humility.
This is your life. Accept it. Receive it. And rest in me. Together we'll see your heart come to glorious union with our Father.

Afternoon thoughts....still at work.

I'm unsettled. Or maybe I'm settled....in a distracted, disjointed, not-here sort of place. I haven't kept my "God-appointments" today. Sorry, Abba. You are near me. You always stay so near, loving and guiding and healing and speaking...and I, like a teather-ball, just keep spinning and pulling and bouncing around. Stop the motion, constant action, constant thought. Just be. Breathe. What am I resisting? Staying later at work...the feeling of distraction or failure...the irritating habits of those around me. What gifts am I overlooking? A few moments alone and quiet to recollect...an easy job that provides financial resources...a clean, warm jacket to wear in a cold office...blueberry white tea...family keeping in touch with me throughout the day...so many, many gifts. Breath. Sight. Thought. How might I be abusing these gifts? By inattention... misdirection...or just plain laziness.
Here I am, Abba. Can I really just accept this moment as it is...without demanding that it be something else?
"Let your face shine on us, O Lord, and we shall be saved."

Desire

Ronald Rolheiser, in The Holy Longing, says that all of creation is driven by desire. That desire is the driving force behind all of life's happenings. Desire. And our "spirituality" is what we do with that desire - how we channel it.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight; in all your ways acknowledge him..."

This is all about directing/channeling desire God-ward. It would be helpful, then (and perhaps critical), to entertain the ongoing question:
What desire is driving me in this very moment?
What drives a beetle to scritch across the patio and puch through the grass to some mystery destination (have you ever wondered where they go?)? What drives a bird to weave a nest? We can dismiss this as mere instinct...but isn't it really some form of desire? What drives my dogs to to get excited and crazy when they think it's time to go for a walk? Desire. What drives a child to clean his/her bedroom (even under compulsion)? Desire. Why am I here right now, writing this? Desire.

It's easy.

Yesterday was non-stop at the theater. Oof. We're doing free "family shows" this summer, so that's bringing in a lot of people...in addition to the normal summer crowds. We'd get cleaned up after one set for the normal show times and it would be time for another family show....finished that and folks started showing up for the next normal show...and on and on. There was one point when I really lost focus - but a large part of the day I was somehow (call it grace) able to continue turning scripture over in mouth and mind. Proverbs 3:5-6 has been my "mantra" of late. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight; In all your ways ackowledge him and he will make straight your paths.
Going upstairs between sets to thread and start the movies gave me regular opportunities to have some alone time...short, focused bursts of meditation! As I was restocking the concession counter (about two-thirds through the shift), the words came to me:
Barbara, it's easy. Much easier than you think. Just trust. It's simple. Just let it go, whatever "it" is, and trust me.

It's easy. Why do I complicate it?

Lessons from the garden...

I had the day off at both jobs....so I stayed home most of the day and got to work with Dad in our 50'x50' garden. It's beautiful! He's worked so hard on it since before school was even out (he teaches 4th grade on the Mescalero Apache reservation). We're gonna have more squash, melons, peas, onions, and potatoes than we'll know what to do with!

Anyway...so I spent some time pulling weeds today. We're trying to grow it all organically, so no weed-killer allowed - which means that we spend plenty of time pulling the sneaky little things up! Some of them were actually quite pretty...green topped leaves with red-purple undersides.

As I pecked at the damp soil with my mud-crusted fingers, getting as many of the little ones as I could....I thought about two things:

1)Weeds, no matter how big or small, consume space and nutrients needed by the garden plants. If the garden is to bear fruit as the gardener intends, the plants must have room to grow and adaquate nutrients. The weeds must be pulled. What in my life needs to be weeded out?

2)Dad has set up a system of soaker hoses until we can afford to put in drip irrigation. One thing is certain.....weeds love to grow right underneath the hose. It's wet and protected, I guess....and that's where I found most of them. You can't say, "Oh! Weeds like water....so we'll stop watering the garden!" The garden would die. The water is necessary...thus the hoses are necessary. But when weeding, it's good to check underneath the hose often and well....pull the weeds while they're still small.

There are good things set in place in my life - disciplines, routines. But it's important to look under the surface of these things - to check for little things that might be growing that could be harmful in the future. Pride, fear, and works-based salvation (a very sneaky weed, that one)...things like that. This requires attention...time....care...and lots of grace.

The happening...

Well, with (now...starting today!) two part-time jobs, church work, house work, and occasional graphic design jobs....I've been going non-stop. Except for my quiet times in the mornings and my fairly relazed evenings. And there are moments of quiet throughout the day - if not in my circumstances, then at least in my heart.

From this morning's meditation:
In God alone be at rest, O my soul. There is no rest to be found in others' approval. There is no rest to be found in productivity...accomplishments...a "perfect" schedule...money...an "attractive" body...In God alone.

In God alone be at rest, O my soul.

O my soul.

In God alone be at rest.

At rest.

In God alone be...be. Be.

In God alone...alone. Alone.

In God.

....when you're alone.

Mom and Dad went to an awards banquet for the school...I just dropped Sam off at work...and I'm at home. Dinner is warming up. I am so used to being around other people - even in my quiet times, I'm not alone in the house. There's a quality of reaching out to God when you're the only person around. It's born out of a feeling of loneliness....but rather than immediately reaching for the phone or the tv remote, I can sit here and know that I am not alone. Almost sounds cliche, doesn't it?
I used to have panic attacks when left alone someplace. So now when I'm left alone, there's still a hint of that - just a hint. Just enough to force me to search for something...Someone to hold me.

"You are a hiding place for me; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah." ~Psalm 32:7

Swimming in God

Sitting quietly this morning, medidating on Psalm 41:6 -- "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble..." -- something occured to me. Everything...everything I think, say, and do....is thought, spoken, and done in the context of God. That sounds simplistic. But it's not, really! It's HUGE!
He is my refuge (around me, protecting me), my strength (surging up from deep within me), and a very present help (near me, as a friend, to assist and encourage and love). Every word that comes out of my mouth originates from, is formed in, and goes tumbling out into a sea of God's presence. Every thought. Every little motion of my body.

I've been playing around with Laubach's Game with Minutes, training my mind to settle more continually in God's presence. I have found it helpful today to remind myself as I type out emails, answer phone calls, trudge through tasks in Photoshop....that all is done in the context of God. Swimming in God. That gives all deeper meaning to the workd of the song: "In him we live and move and have our being..."

What to do with a lazy mind?

"I am perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person.."

I don't know how often or for how long I turn my thoughts to God during an "average day," but I do know that the last two days I have done so even less. A lot of things going on and I guess my assumption is that I must be fully absorbed in all that's going on in order to deal with it effectively. But in Laubach's experience, the more effort he poured into this Game, the easier every other "outside" activity became. But it's hard work to change habitual patterns of thought. And I find that I am, like Laubach, "perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person..." I seem to lack the ability to articulate my thoughts or the small, seemingly insignificant things of my life in clear and creative ways. I envy those who can. What seems to come so naturally to them takes so much effort for me. But I feel this is a hurdle that I can overcome. Laubach's words are so fitting....

" The experiment which I am trying is the most strenuous discipline which any man ever attempted. I am not succeeding in keeping God in my mind very many hours of the day...
...The moment I turn to Him it is like turning on an electric current which I feel through my whole being. I find also that the effort to keep God in my mind does something to my mind which every mind needs to have done to it. I am given something difficult enough to keep my mind with a keen edge. The constant temptation of every man is to allow his mind to grow old and lose its edge. I feel that I am perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person, and I require the very mental discipline which this constant effort affords."

(Frank Laubach, June 15, 1930 - Letters by a Modern Mystic)

Laubach said that one way to win this "Game with Minutes" is to tell friends about it. So I will. I'll share it with you. How many minutes can you spend with Him today? Can you think of him for one second this minute?

"All day long we are contented, whatever our lot may be, for He is with us.
'When Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere.'"
~Frank Laubach, The Game with Minutes

Scribblings...

Fully grounded.
Deeply rooted.
Holding strongly.
Tightly held.
Shhhh... All is well. All is well. All is well.
His table is here.
In darkness, Light.
In hunger, a feast.
Near me,
About me,
Within me,
Through me.
Hold, fill, quiet fears.
Shhhh... All is well. All is well. All is well.
All in Him.
All from Him.
Immersed,
Filled,
Shadowed,
Turned.
The path is here.
At my feet.
At hand.
In heart.
Shhhh... All is well. All is well. All is well.


(Not a great literary work....just heart-thoughts scribbled during church yesterday.)

For God alone my soul waits...

"For God alone my soul waits in silence..."





This business of waiting is intertwined with Jesus' words "Let your light shine before others." I am a light to the world only insofar as I am attentive to the Light within. That's what it is to wait "for God alone" in silence.


So I sit, stand, wait in His Light...and become filled with Light...to then be Light to the world around me. To go into the world, seeing it in a new way--through the sheen of His Light, causing it to be seen in a new way, and causing it to change--to be new in some small (yet somehow very great) way.



Jesus called us the Light of the world.


"...You are the One in charge and You have all the power; and the glory, too, is all Yours forever, which is just the way we want it." (from Dallas Willard's paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer)

YOU (being God) have ALL the power and ALL the glory. Which means that none of it is mine.

None of it is mine.

None of it is mine. No power, no glory.

I have no power, I have no glory. None of my own. It's all His. Yours, Abba.

This frees me from two things that plague me (though my guess is that I'm not alone in this):
1) Thinking I am/should be omnipotent. All powerful. That I can/must do everything. "Everything" includes controlling schedules and destinies (my own, of course, and others' if they'll let me!).
2)Trying to appear "glorious" to others -- opinion/impression management.
These are not what God created me to do or be. Meditating on the reality that He has ALL the power and glory...will gradually change deep-seated beliefs, and I will at last be free to live Life as God intended it. Waiting on Him. Walking with Him. Being filled with His Light.


What's your idea of a practicing Christian? I mean, what images come to mind when you hear the words "practicing Christian"? Be honest and attentive.

"A practicing Christian must above all be one who practices the perpetual return of the soul into the inner sanctuary, who brings the world into its Light and rejudges it, who brings the Light into the world with all its turmoil and its fitfullness and re-creates it..."
~Thomas Kelly

You are the Light of the world.

"Let your Light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven."
~Jesus (in Matthew 5:16)

Letting go...

"Uncrowd my heart, O God
'Til silence speaks
in your still, small voice.
Turn me away from
the hearing of words,
the making of words,
and the confusion of much speaking
to listening,
waiting,
stillness,
and silence..."
~From Esther DeWaal's "Lost in Wonder"

Listening...waiting...stillness...silence. These require relinquishment. Letting go. Releasing the many, many things that tear at my heart and constantly demand all thought, full attention. Turning away from my own "wisdom"...that nagging urge to figure it out. Abandoning myself, instead, to God's power. His grace. His generative life-giving Spirit that gives all life and meaning and depth...and defies description. Being cheerfully expectant of the next glimpse I catch of his work in my life and in the world around me.