Hidden Blessings

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challenges, hidden blessings, Lynn Bauman, psalm 128, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Psalm 128 tells us quite clearly today (in the translation of Lynn Bauman): Your life is filled with hidden blessings which overflow from your hands—the gift of many labors. For it is God, the center of the heart, who prospers life until its end.

We might not feel that this season is full to overflowing with blessings but if we can look more deeply into things and take the long view we might agree with St. Paul. Speaking for myself, if I look at the rhythm of my days, I see that my work has changed significantly during the pandemic. It has become, at the same time, more simple and more challenging. Simpler in the tasks of service to my housemates: trips to the post office and the bank with proper precautions, time at home together praying and even planning and executing new menus for meals which teaches me that the challenges are not as daunting as I thought and the results and benefits of a successful meal are better than I expected.

The more challenging side of life is trying to maintain a work schedule that keeps the Sophia Center going. Challenge is primarily in the realm of technology so I have learned to admit what I can and cannot manage and it becomes easier to ask for help. I am blessed with wonderful women who provide that. The upside of navigating the shifts in how we present and participate is the depth of sharing as well as the fact that participants can attend whether from downtown Binghamton or in the far reaches of Florida or the Northwest USA. Our zoom calls keep digging the roots of our sharing deeper and our recognition of our oneness beating in our hearts.

All in all, I am reminded by Psalm 128 to look for the “hidden blessings” and remember that I will surely find God in the search.

What Can One Do?

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Awakened, awareness, caring, challenges, concern, mindful, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Last night we had a thunderstorm that rumbled for quite awhile and poured torrents of rain on our land as if every cloud was ripped open and burst all at once. I had a moment of wishing to go out and stand under the rain to be washed clean but the lightning convinced me to take a safer path. Looking out the window into the dark was not as fulfilling but definitely a more adult option.

Suddenly there was a thunderclap that woke those who were asleep and called us all to gather in one place in the house. Had a tree fallen? Was there an electrical outage? It truly sounded like two giant boulders smashing into one another. There was nothing to do but sit in the dark and wait. After some moments we expected nothing more than a continuation of the rain, the weakened effort of the the thunder and lightning, and a surrender to the night. But were we changed?

Anything can be a call to awareness. There are places in our country where the storm that disturbed us for a moment was wreaking havoc for inhabitants as a hurricane. Were we concerned for their safety last night? If we had been living in one of the war zones in the world, that moment might have been catastrophic. Are we mindful of the “hotspots” in the world? Do we consider the dangers that some people face every day of their lives? We are living now in the midst of a pandemic. Has it changed us for the better, made us more mindful and caring of people less fortunate than we are? How do we meet the challenges of each day now?

I wonder what one thing I will do, one thought I will think today to make someone happier…to care for someone in need…to be grateful for my life.

Contemplating Hercules

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action, challenges, crisis, heroism, Optimize, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today feels so much like a Saturday I’m tempted to go back to bed! Don’t ask me why. It could be the weather that promises more snow and sleet. It might be the result of so many events already come and gone this week, or the energy it took to achieve their completion. It’s interesting that Brian Johnson’s “Optimize” sounds today the way I feel but he’s such a cheerleader for moving forward that I should have expected his rather colorful post. It made me smile and he does have a point. Entitled “Getting Out of Bed and High-Fiving Hercules – Aka: Moving from Theory to Practice,” he quotes Epictetus (paraphrasing, I presume.)

What would have become of Hercules, do you think, if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar? — and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of those challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul without crises or conditions to stir him into action? (www.optimize.me)

So, Johnson says: “Let’s not roll over and go back to sleep!” and then he asks: “Got any heroic choices you need to make today?”

And your answer is…?

Changing Times, Changing Challenges…

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challenges, Eleazar, faithful, Maccabees, sacrifice, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

It’s easy sometimes to dismiss some of the archaic practices of Old Testament times that are recounted in Scripture. Today, for example there is the story in the Second Book of Maccabees (2 MC 6:18-31) about Eleazar, one of the foremost scribes who chose to be tortured to death rather than eat pork, a meat forbidden by religious law. Some people told him to bring to the unlawful ritual “meat of his own providing, such as he could legitimately eat, and to pretend to be eating some of the meat of the sacrifice prescribed by the king” so as to escape the death penalty. Eleazar refused, saying he would remain “loyal to the holy laws given by God.”

Eating meat sacrificed to foreign gods seems in our day, perhaps, to be a ridiculous pretense for the death penalty but we might pause and consider how we might somehow be called to defend our faith with our life and whether we are strong enough to do so. That is not a new idea. Most of us began asking that question of ourselves and/or being asked it by our religion teachers in elementary school. (“If you were asked to reject God or your religion under pain of death, would you be able to remain faithful?”) It was easier to answer “YES!” as a child who was never in danger of death.

I still say an enthusiastic “YES” when I think about the question but am not so sure I am equal to the possibility. Perhaps I need to go joyfully toward all the events of my daily life – the beautiful and the difficult – welcoming everything with equal vigor – just in case there might come a day when something more challenging than I have yet encountered stares me in the face and requires my “Yes” in a way that draws me beyond what I can now imagine. What might that be I cannot say, but I can think about it in more realistic terms and maybe I should start right now…

Les Miserables

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challenges, Jonah, punish, questions, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Over 25 years ago now when I heard that there was a Broadway musical based on Les Miserables, the sweeping historical novel by Victor Hugo, I was nonplussed, to say the least. What happened to all the light and airy musicals of the earlier part of the 20th century? How could the epic novel be portrayed in just a night at the theater when it took forever to read – even in translation? And such a gloomy theme!

I was reminded of that feeling when I read today’s first lectionary reading – still about Jonah who never seemed likely to come to a happy ending. (JON 4: 1-11) After having been shipwrecked and saved from (or by?) the whale, but angry at God for not destroying the wicked folks in Nineveh, he built himself a hut in a shady place where God had even provided a gourd plant for him and sat down to see how God would finally punish the people of Nineveh. The next day, however, it seems that God was still trying to test Jonah’s mettle by sending a scorching wind and a worm to attack the plant. Jonah had had enough of trials and told God he would be better off dead. God keeps trying with Jonah who seems unable to let go of his personal distresses for the greater good so God finally goes direct saying the following.

“You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?”

Unlike the play that comes to a glorious denouement, the book of Jonah ends with God’s question. I think it’s a genius move because it calls us to look at how we would respond to God in the same situation. What would you say? Would God’s challenging question wake you up? How would you feel? Don’t jump to a response; think about it. Even better: read the Book of Jonah. It’s very short and rather entertaining until the last paragraph. See what you learn from asking the deep questions that may arise from your reflections. Blessings on the search!

One Thing at a Time

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challenges, intention, Life Is a Verb, one thing at a time, Patti Digh, practice, slow down, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, to do list

I woke up this morning at around 3:00 and realized about ten minutes later that I was not likely to go back to sleep as my mind had begun ticking off things on an already-made list and things that I needed to add for completion in the next few days. I gave up trying and, in a rare move, got up to read what was left of our “assignment” for the book club meeting tomorrow. I smiled at God’s sense of humor as I read the chapter heading: Intention: Slow Down. Sprinkled throughout the chapters of this book (Life Is A Verb by Patti Digh) there are activities which the author calls challenges. What I read before I was finally able to go back to sleep for two more hours certainly fell under that title. There were two parts to the challenge. I was happy to see the first part because I have recently begun such a practice – at least while I eat – but the second will, I think, be the more difficult process for me. Here is what Patti recommended.

1. Today, for one hour, imagine that you can only do one thing at a time. If you are drinking coffee, you can’t check e-mail. If you are talking to your neighbor, you can’t be folding laundry. If you are walking to get your mail, you can’t be talking on your cell phone. If you are eating, you can’t be reading. One. Thing. At. A. Time. Try it.
2. Write for five minutes without stopping in answer to this question: What is on my to-do list today? List every single thing you need to do today, those things that are past due, and those things that are coming up. Stop. Now write for five minutes on this question: What must I do or I shall die? Using your answer to the question, What must I do or I shall die, practice different ways to say no. For the next 37 days, when you are asked to add something to your to-do list, if it doesn’t match your do-or-die-list, say no.

How outrageous these thoughts are to someone with an overactive sense of responsibility! They did not, however, keep me awake. As a matter of fact, I went back to sleep rather quickly, so perhaps there is something in these “challenges” that I am called to consider. It can’t hurt…and might help considerably! I can only try…

 

 

 

 

 

Not Knowing

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agenda, centering prayer, challenges, John Newton, knowing, knowledge, let go, letting go of thoughts, psalm 139, schedule, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I was listening to a program last night on my computer about “re-writing our own life script.” During the call-in portion the speaker, John Newton, asked the caller how it would feel to live in a place of “not knowing.” What would that feel like? I found the question rather interesting because I didn’t react negatively to it! Usually my first thoughts upon waking in the morning find me running through my schedule for the day (after I am focused enough to even know what day it is!) in order to know how quickly I have to move, whether I have had enough sleep to meet the challenges of the day and how much of my incidental agenda I will be able to fit in between appointments and meetings or whatever has been previously scheduled.

As I listened to John’s question repeated and tried to answer honestly for myself, I realized that I am gradually coming to a place of willingness to let go of my agenda in order to appreciate and respond to the moment I am in rather than what has already happened or has not yet arrived. This made me happy since I have been practicing letting go of thoughts in centering prayer for over ten years!

I still ran my daily schedule tape this morning as I came awake, but I was also glad for the words of the psalmist as I read Psalm 139 which allowed me to give over the day to God. Perhaps you might do the same.

O Lord, you have probed me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My journeys and my rest you scrutinize; with all my ways you are familiar. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know the whole of it. Behind me and before, you hem me in and rest your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; too lofty for me to attain…

…and so I just give over the need of knowing everything and breathe in the conviction that God is God and I am not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Job’s TQ (Trust Quotient)

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Blessed be the name of the Lord, Book of Job, challenges, destruction, distress, give, loss, suffering, take, thank God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust in God, unwavering faith

When I read the text of the first reading from the Book of Job this morning (JB 1:6-22) I thought – as  usual – that it sounds like the synopsis of a bad movie. Satan, vying with God, bets that Job won’t be as faithful as he has been if bad things happen to disturb his idyllic life of favor as God’s friend. God disagrees. After he hears all the terrible destruction that his servants come one after another to tell him about, we hear the familiar line that “I came into the world naked and will leave it naked. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Of course Job doesn’t say these words as declarative, emotionless sentences. He does wail and rend his garments…and this is only the first chapter of his test.

While it is clear to me that God does not bargain with evil, even on a sure bet, the Book of Job does make me think. I am always edified in conversations with people who have lost virtually everything in life or who have had horrendous experiences, when they make similar statements to Job’s, attesting to their ongoing faith in God. I wonder sometimes what I would be able to endure of suffering – I who often profess to have lived “a charmed life.” There have been challenges, to be sure, but my supports have been such that I never have cause to complain.

Today I shall think about Job and about all the people I have known who have met and survived incredible distress in unwavering faith – especially those like our Sisters in Japan who survived the atomic bombs of World War II, the man from Aleppo whose whole world was destroyed in seconds – including the loss of his four children and his wife, or all the people I have spoken of during this year who have been victims of weather events, who say when standing in the rubble of their town, “I thank God to be alive.” I don’t think we ever know the strength of our faith until it is tested, but I am urged by these thoughts to practice, in whatever ways I can, for a time when I might feel severely shaken and need to place my trust totally in the God who loves me more than I can imagine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Balm of Human Kindness

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anointing feet, Bethany, challenges, difficulty, Jesus, John, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, paschal mystery, psalm 27, refuge, strength, The Lord is my light and my salvation, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, walking the path of suffering

After the tumultuous events of what has come to be known to us as Palm Sunday, we learn from the Scriptures that Jesus returned to Bethany to be with his friends, Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. And why not? Here he was surrounded by care and compassion, expressed in today’s gospel (JN 12:1-11) by Mary anointing his feet with costly perfumed oil. If you have ever had a foot massage, you know how calming it can be and for Jesus it must have also felt like a renewal of strength for the path he was destined to walk. Picturing Jesus this way helps to me to remember that he was fully human and to know the importance of seeing him this way throughout this week if I am to fully participate in the Paschal Mystery, walking with him through his suffering and death – and only then into resurrection.

As my thoughts moved in that direction this morning, I was reminded of three people who are facing difficult challenges this week. Although I am confident that they will each proceed into and through the suffering that lies ahead for them, all three will need to surrender and look to God’s grace as well as support from their friends to remain steadfast in their faith. Considering the trials of these people in my own life whose circumstances differ greatly brings the reality of Christ’s suffering even closer to me. It calls me to consider as well that we are all members of Christ’s body, destined to a unity that endures and is strengthened by our consciousness of and prayer for one another. And so this morning I pray in confidence the words of Psalm 27, quoted here in two different translations. I pray these words for my three sisters in Christ and for all those walking the path of suffering today. For whom will you be praying?

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?…I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted and wait for the Lord.

God, you are for me a brilliant light. You are the one restoring me and saving all. You are the strength of life; I rest assured and strong in you. No fears, no shadows near can trouble me.