The Truth About Ourselves

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bitterness, compliment, flaws, foibles, gift, hope, humility, love, Macrina Wiederkehr, mirror, nonviolent heart, Peace, self-esteem, seven sacred pauses, strength, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Truth, transform, truth

I often spend time encouraging people to recognize and celebrate what is good about themselves because I find so many of us focusing mainly on our flaws and foibles. In workshops and retreats I have been known to give a piece of advice learned from a friend long ago. She tells groups of women (and sometimes men) to look in the mirror every morning and say, “What a woman!” (“What a guy!”) When I say that the whole room laughs and only once did someone admit practicing something like that compliment! When the laughter subsides, I ask why that was their response and what it says about our self-esteem. If humility is truth, we should be able to give ourselves a compliment without discomfort as long as we credit God for the provenance of the gifts we possess. Our reticence most likely comes from all those influences from childhood that encouraged us to be seen and not heard and never, never to brag. “All in moderation” and “Consider the Source” might have been more helpful.

Having said all this, I was interested in the tiny bit of squeamishness that arose in me as I read Macrina Wiederkehr’s reflection this morning called The Truth. As you do the same, consider your reaction.

I will believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is. I believe in my power to transform indifference into love. I believe I have an amazing gift to keep hope alive in the face of despair. I believe I have the remarkable skill of deleting bitterness from my life. I believe in my budding potential to live with a nonviolent heart. I believe in my passion to speak the truth even when it isn’t popular. I believe I have the strength of will to be peace in a world of violence. I believe in my miraculous capacity for unconditional love. I will believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is.  (Seven Sacred Pauses, p. 109)

Perhaps we would do well to create our own list of beautiful truths. Some of us may have to start small; Macrina must’ve spent a long time developing her list. But if you dug deep and kept looking in that mirror, (honestly try now) what would your list include?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diamonds

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compassionate, diamonds, gracious, kindness, mercifulslow to anger, Psalm 145, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom, words of wisdom

One of the Sisters with whom I live often speaks of what she calls the “diamonds” she remembers from all we were taught in the novitiate or that some great (and usually humble) person has told her by which she tries to live. These sayings, or words of wisdom, have been deeply incorporated in her as a great benefit both to her and to all those she encounters. I was reminded of that this morning as I read the first lines from today’s Psalm response in our lectionary. It seems to me that I could do no better in any effort to mirror God’s ways in my life than the testimony given by the psalmist in those two short sentences. It is more than enough, I think, for today.

The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works. (Ps. 145: 8)

 

 

 

 

 

Whose Law?

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commands, law, laws, psalm 119, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom, wisdom's gift, wise

Sometime during my career as a high school French teacher it occurred to me that my name means laws in French. (The plural of la loi is les lois.) That seems rather obvious and not an earth-shattering revelation but I guess the word must have come up in the singular if used at all in class; for some reason it never dawned on me. When it did, it made me consider how it fit my personality. Although I have continued to be a law-abiding citizen, I have tried to be a bit less strident in taking stands on complicated issues.

And then there is God’s law. This morning’s psalm response (Ps. 119: 97-102) was one of those where each verse is quite brief so that the refrain is repeated many times in quick succession. It began with the following: Lord, I love your commands. How I love your law, O Lord! It is my meditation all the day. Lord, I love your commands. The refrain repeats five more times around the verses in what seemed to me like staccato rhythm. It gave me pause, first because usually the only people I hear speak of loving law are lawyers, but secondly because it seems there is a wide gap sometimes in the law of the world and the law of God. Human laws are not always made these days (it seems) for the good of the whole but rather skewed away from “the common folk.” God’s law of universal love is quite different. To be fair there are many wonderful people who work tirelessly to narrow the gap between the two but it is often a thankless task.

Today I pray that people will come to a better understanding of the words of the psalmist, seen here in a contemporary translation. This is the way I choose to live the law in identification with my name!

My heart and mind are centered on your will. O, how I love to walk in your ways. For as I ponder these my wisdom grows. They make me wise beyond my years. I’m wiser now than many teachers and all the teachings that this world can give, because I hold to wisdom’s gift. I’m stronger than my many foes or fears of them. As you yourself instructed, I’ll turn my feet away from every evil on this path through life. You are the teacher and the teaching, Lord.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moon and Sun

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Hafiz, happiness, heart, light, moon, Sufi, sun, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Here’s a little Sufi wisdom from the mystical poet, Hafiz, that opened to me first thing this morning. See what you think…

FAITHFUL LOVER

The moon came to me last night with a sweet question. She said, “The sun has been my faithful lover for millions of years. Whenever I offer my body to him brilliant light pours from his heart. Thousands then notice my happiness and delight in pointing toward my beauty. Hafiz, is it true that our destiny is to turn into Light Itself?” And I replied, Dear Moon, now that your love is maturing, we need to sit together close like this more often so I might instruct you how to become Who you Are!  (THE GIFT, 159)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Servant to the Servants of God

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abundance, breakfast, calling, Corinthians, generosity, John, love one another, Matthew, meals, message, new commandment, servant, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, welcome

It’s funny how first thoughts upon arising from sleep sometimes fit into the message for the day. That’s one way I know how the concept of inspiration can be defined. Here’s my example. I woke up this morning one minute before my alarm was to sound. (That in itself is always a welcome surprise!) As I rolled out of bed I thought that my first line in today’s message would be: “Short stories this morning, friends; I’m on kitchen duty this weekend and people will be waiting for breakfast!” (We have a weekend workshop here at the Spiritual Center and it’s my turn to prepare the meals for the participants.)

With my first sip of coffee came the first line of the first reading for today (from the first chapter of the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians!): Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters (1COR 1:26). The gospel acclamation reminds me that Jesus gave more than a hint of what that means in his statement – that he called “a new commandment“, saying Love one another as I have loved you. (JN 13:34) And then the gospel (MT 25: 14-30) finishes by warning me not to be like the servant who buried his talent in the ground for fear that he would fail to increase it.

I’m not planning on creative meals this weekend; the menus are already set, tried and true offerings that have been successful here and recipes that are easy to follow. So the service I give needs to spring more from who I am, with and for the people who have come seeking an experience of their “higher selves.” I will have to serve up a full complement of welcome with their pancakes and eggs this morning, a cheerful sense of abundance with the salad bar at noon and an outpouring of love with dinner that includes the sweetness of smiles with dessert. Luckily I have my good friend, Carol, with all her natural generosity and willingness, to help me do the “job.”

So off I go to this welcome task, knowing the secret that service to the servants of God is wonderfully rewarding as long as it’s freely given. In such a mutual exchange, everybody wins!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fullness of Earth, of God and Us

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contemporary chant, Cynthia Bourgeault, Darlene Franz, goodness, psalm 33, the earth is full, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Wisdom Schools

Darlene Franz: Listen to her chant HERE.

As soon as I read today’s psalm response to the lectionary readings, my inner voice began singing a short, repetitious, contemporary chant based on Psalm 33, written by Darlene Franz, a very talented musician from the Pacific Northwest who graces Cynthia Bourgeault’s “Wisdom Schools” with her presence and helps us to go deeper in prayer and inner knowing as we sing. Darlene has a website on which she speaks of the genesis of each of 23 chants and then sings them for the listener (wisdomchant.bandcamp.com). Darlene’s chant based on Ps. 33:5 comes from the  chapter (“The Fecundity of God”) in John Philip Newell’s book, The Book of Creation: An Introduction to Celtic Spirituality which offers the following:

Breathing in and out to repetitions of this phrase while contemplating the goodness of the earth outside of us – “the One who dwells at the heart of all life” – and the goodness within – as you feel your body expanding, be aware of the goodness that you are opening up to from the depths of your being. It is planted in you and can be sensed like the fragrance of the earth’s goodness.

Darlene’s chant, which always evokes for me images of fields full of food and flowers, offers these words repeated over and over until Newell’s practice flourishes in song. The earth is full, full of Your goodness. The earth is full, full of You. Your goodness fills the whole earth. Darlene says: “May this chant assist you to dwell in the goodness of your own earth, this planetary earth we share, and the ‘world without end.’ Amen.” I invite you to visit her website, learn the chant and then approach the world with new eyes today, full of goodness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indra’s Net

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connected, Indra's Net, Meg Wheatley, Rig Veda, sculpture galleries, Spiritual Center, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, threads, Turning To One Another, universe

Yesterday we had an uncharacteristically full day here at the Spiritual Center in Windsor, New York. Not a day just full of activity, we hosted three different groups of people including a faith formation work team, a leadership training group of students from a NY state university and a group of individuals, not related except by their desire to experience the sculpture galleries housed on the property. I was thinking this morning as I settled down to write that in a deeper way these people were/are all connected. One of the faith formation members told me that in the midst of their prayer the exuberance of the college students doing an icebreaker on the lawn outside was not a distraction but flowed seamlessly into their prayer. (Imagine a great sigh of relief on my part!) From that and many other snippets of conversation and observation I now realize the connection as an organic energy of spiritual seeking that was present throughout the day and into the evening.

It seemed natural for me, then, to pull Meg Wheatley’s book, Turning To One Another, for something more to say. On the page I opened to, I saw on the left the title, Indra’s Net from the Rig Veda as described by Anne Adams and, on the right, this brief description:

There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe…At every crossing of the threads there is an individual. And every individual is a crystal bead. And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.

That is a wonderful beginning image. I would encourage you if you are unfamiliar with the concept to go to internet descriptions and images which expand and deepen this wonderful story. For me, it describes what happens when people come here to our center and encounter a sense of peace and/or deeper meaning in their life or work or a connection with the earth so beautifully present on this land. We do not see the whole universe of stars even on the clearest nights but the light show we watch every day from here teaches us to stay awake (as today’s gospel urges us) for the beauty that will surely pass our way.

May your day include recognition of at least one new crystal bead that lets you know the divine light that is everywhere at all times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friends, Maybe?

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12 tribes, Abraham, Bartholomew, beauty support, companions, David, instruments, joy, love, Moses, Nathaniel, pillars, Psalm 145, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is the feast of the apostle, Bartholomew. A commentary reminds me that we know very little about most of these people, the closest companions of Jesus. This is clearly true about Bartholomew who is sometimes known by the name of Nathaniel. (Not even a close guess, right?) That same commentary from http://www.americancatholic.org says the following:

Yet the unknown ones were also foundation stones, the 12 pillars of the new Israel whose 12 tribes now encompass the whole earth. Their personalities were secondary…to their great office of bearing tradition from their firsthand experience, speaking in the name of Jesus, putting the Word made flesh into human words for the enlightenment of the world. Their holiness was not an introverted contemplation of their status before God. It was a gift that they had to share with others.

I found that theme interesting in light of the psalm refrain from today’s lectionary readings, the first thing that caught my attention this morning. Four times as I read the response: Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom, (Ps. 145:12) I was struck by the word friends. So I was already musing on what it means to be a friend of God – similar yet different from a servant or follower. David, the psalm-maker and Moses and Abraham before him and many others named and unnamed in both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures (and in other traditions as well) have been friends of God. Why not me? Why not you? Psalm 145 says in an alternate translation: For we are instruments of beauty that extend your reign; our voices speak of power that is ever yours, till all may know and understand your energies and live within the splendor of your realm. (vs. 11-12)

It seems, therefore, that it’s not important whether or not we are credited with being God’s friend or a favored disciple of the Christ but rather whether we have shared the love, joy, beauty and support of that friendship with others along the way. Why not me? Why not you? Good questions for today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Gnats and Camels

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camels, fidelity, fully human, gnats, hypocrites, injustice, Jesus, judgment, love, Matthew, mercy, Pharisees, Philippians, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tithes

Sometimes in reading the gospels I am really convinced that Jesus was, as St. Paul tells us in the letter to the Philippians, fully human. On some occasions, Jesus gets really frustrated, as today in Matthew 23:23-26, when he takes the “Pharisees and hypocrites” to task for their behavior. No one could miss his point, but some of the images he uses to make those points are downright funny! I can just see him gathering steam as he goes into his condemnatory statement. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, he says. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin (really lightweight spices) and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Sounds like a reasonable speech so far, but wait for it…Here comes the punch line in case they missed the point: Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!

Just picture trying to take that sentence literally. Imagine the exasperation that caused Jesus to resort to such an extreme. It was the injustice of the powerful toward the “lowly ones” that he saw, not unlike some of what is going on today in many quarters. Some days, when the weather is so muggy that bugs abound, I need to remind myself to keep my mouth closed when I’m outside so I don’t inadvertently swallow a bug. It’s more of a mentally unpleasant experience than a difficult physical one but always distasteful nevertheless. Multiply it maybe a thousand times or more to get the size of a camel and it’s easy to see the extent of injustice of which Jesus speaks. No one should be allowed that level of power over another, and Jesus knew it.

May we call out injustice wherever we see it in our society. May we also beware of swallowing camels in our dealings with each other and even try to avoid the gnats of everyday living as we choose to walk the path where the constant measure of things is love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silence

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clamor, election, invitation, love, noise, Olympics, phenomenon, present, quietness, Robert Sardello, silence, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Now that the Olympics are over I will have to find that good “brotherly [& sisterly] love” feeling in another way. I doubt I will find it on television where political messages will be flooding the airwaves in earnest for the next few months. I will be worrying about that, having just read an article about how many people now take in what they hear without reflecting on the validity of the message. Some wild claims will be made that ought to be followed up with references but probably won’t. As I finished the article, my eyes fell (honestly!) on the book Silence by Robert Sardello, which I picked up looking for solace. I read the following that is for me a good reason to return to silence as often as possible today to find out what I’m thinking, where it comes from, and how I feel about it. Just maybe it will also allow me to come back to trusting in a deeper way that God is in charge of the world.

Our choosing to live in the noise of our thoughts and emotions – within the incessant clamor around us – happens almost without our recognition…[Silence] does not go with our hectic lives, with what must be done every day, and with our felt need to accomplish something…But Silence was here before anything else, and it envelops everything else. It is the most primary phenomenon of existence, both palpably something and seemingly nothing. Silence is prior to sound, not the cessation of sound. It is already present. If we drop into quietness for just a moment, we feel the presence of Silence as an invitation.