New Thoughts on Old Knees

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Autumn Equinox, awareness, body of Christ, Corinthians, insight, intuitions, one body, patterns, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, weather

There’s been a subtle but predictable shift in weather patterns over the past week here in upstate New York. Coming close to the Autumn Equinox usually brings warm days with cool nights – and sometimes, if we’re lucky, glorious blue skies and lovely fresh air. We have been that kind of lucky for the past two days but there has also been some heavy morning fog and muggy stickiness to deal with on other mornings. I’m starting to feel my age as my knees and some of my fingers begin to react to these conditions, singing to me as I type and then stand up from my morning tasks. I have been lucky to stave off these signs of aging for as long as I have and I am still grateful that they do not cause any real limitation even now.

As I read 1COR 12:12, this morning’s very familiar beginning of two often quoted chapters from St. Paul, I had the flash of a new insight, one more new way of looking at Paul’s words that as a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. I have always seen that as a great analogy of our diversity as well as our connections to one another. This morning, however, I was aware of my knees as a vehicle of awareness – a way to remember and pray for those people in the world who have trouble walking or who cannot walk at all. It’s difficult to ignore the small intuitions of the onset of arthritis but recognizing the solidarity that can flow from that recognition could be beneficial to others in the same or a more serious condition.

I’m always grateful for my legs and feet that serve me so well each day. This morning I am even more grateful for this new way to pay attention in a positive way to their speaking, for the good of the whole body of Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Time Passages

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Autumn Equinox, celebrations, dream, families, friends, grace, graciousness, limit, picnics, psalm 90, summer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time's passing, wisdom's voice

This is the weekend that we call the end of summer even though the calendar says we have some weeks still before the Autumn Equinox. People all over the USA are planning picnics and traffic has been heavy on the highways since Friday as families and friends celebrate the passing of yet another season that, for many, includes some slow down and vacation time. How can this be? In some ways it appears that the children just finished the past school year, and yet some of the events of a month or two ago seem like a faint memory. Time’s passing has a way of confounding us. It’s like that old adage from Henry Van Dyke that time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice…

Psalm 90 says this morning: Time for you is as nothing, Lord, a thousand years of it, your yesterday, passing as a watch of the night. We are your dream; we’re briefly here then simply gone, like grass in the morning green and growing and at sunset withered, dry. Not such an upbeat thought for those of us feeling the press of getting older by the minute. Later in the psalm, however, comes focus on a stance we ought to take, perhaps, going forward today:

So teach us the limit of our days that we may give our hearts to wisdom’s voice. And turn a gracious face toward us for we are here on earth to serve. Each morning let us rise to eat compassion’s bread. And even in the midst of dread, and years of deepest pain, make us glad for these. For there especially you are ever present as the guide. You show us secret splendors through your works and ways. You teach our hands new crafts, new handiwork through these. So may this grace, this graciousness be ours, and rest upon us now and evermore we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change of Seasons

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Autumn Equinox, innocence, love, praise God, respect, The Sign of Jonas, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, transition

I have been slow to notice – or perhaps just to admit – that we are close to the Autumn Equinox, yet this morning I cannot ignore the fact that things are changing.

It’s 6:30AM and the sun is nowhere to be seen; mist still lies heavy outside veiling the trees in shadow. The lamp in my bedroom still shines brightly and necessarily if I am to see what I’m reading. We have begun to feel the transition in cool nights that follow warm, sunny days and mowing the lawn is a challenge as the grass is thick in some areas and just patches of brown in others. There is some wistfulness in the recognition of this shift; it calls for those who would wish to still be engaged in the lighter activities of summer to “buckle down” and return to routine. I can always count on Thomas Merton to put a good spin on any morning, encouraging me to look at the day with new eyes and gratitude for the God who offers it to us with an aura of possibility. Today I read the following:

The Lord God passes suddenly, in the wind, at the moment when night ebbs into the ground. He Who is infinitely great has given to His children a share in His own innocence. His is the gentlest of loves: whose pure flame respects all things…He keeps giving to them, giving them all that they are, asking no thanks of them save that they should receive from Him to be loved and nurtured by Him, that they should increase and multiply, and so praise Him. (The Sign of Jonas)